Jesse Bacon's blog

This past week, rabbis across the country received a request from the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism to sign a public rabbinic letter to Congress that urged our Representatives and Senators not to cut any foreign aid to Israel as part of the FY2012 budget. The request was co-signed by the rabbinical leaders of four major American Jewish denominations.

As rabbis who received these appeals for our endorsement, we would like to voice our respectful but strong disagreement to the letter. We take particular issue with the statement:

“This same type of protest has been conducted in other parts of the
country by Jewish and Israeli students, without any severe consequences
for the protestors,” explained  Estee Chandler, “It is clear that the Irvine 11
are being targeted because of their cultural and religious background.”

JVP says honest talk about 1-state/2-state is good for Jews
by Cecilie Surasky, Mondoweiss,  April 14, 2011

The Forward has a profile today of Jewish Voice for Peace, "JVP, Harsh Critic Of Israel, Seeks a Seat at the Communal Table," in which they get a lot right. But the subheader, "But Its Refusal To Support ‘Two States’ Prevents Acceptance" is wrong.

The SJP divestment campaign has received an overwhelmingly positive
response. In last week’s two afternoons of tabling, SJP collected over
two hundred signatures for a general public petition. Before the
campaign even went public over seventy faculty members had signed an
open letter to TIAA-CREF CEO and President Roger W. Ferguson, arguably
among the most political acts by NYU faculty in recent years.

For some younger Jews coming of age with an Israel whose image and actions provoke concerns their parents never had, this environment, where fundamental questions previously considered beyond the pale are raised, offers a crucial space found nowhere else in the community.

Mira Dabit and Hanna Qassis, spoke to SPU students about their
experiences as college students in Palestine. As alumni of Palestinian
universities, Dabit and Qassis said they have made it their goal to
spread awareness about the experience of being a student in a
Palestinian university.

People do not seem to understand that there is no part of our lives that is not affected by the occupation. The majority of Palestinians do not know what it means to be free. There are restrictions on our movement, our education, our speech, and our even our access to food, water, and shelter. As a way to counter all this repression, we turn to education as a tool to express ourselves.

In 2008, Jewish Voice for Peace promoted putting an olive on the seder
plate as part of its Trees of Reconciliation project, which sought to
donate 3,000 olive saplings to Palestinian farmers to replant trees torn
down to make room for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The event comes on the heels of the Knesset's adoption of two new
laws concerning Palestinians in Israel. According to a March 24 Los
Angeles Times article, the first law legalizes "admissions committees" in small Israeli towns to determine who may receive citizenship.

According to the same article, the second law imposes fines on Arab
towns, local authorities and state-funded organizations that commemorate
Nakba Day, which falls close to Israel Independence Day.

At the University of Arizona, where I spoke as part of their “Who Draws

the Line” series, students have put up a border fence designed to

provide daily teaching opportunities about what is so wrong with our

narrow and race-baiting immigration debate. The project is a

collaboration between No Mas Muertes/No More Deaths, which works to

prevent people dying as they cross the U.S.-Mexico border, and the

Jewish Voice for Peace, which works to end Israeli occupation of the

West Bank and the Gaza Strip.