February 4, 2008, JVP E-Newsletter

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• With multiple Tu B'shvat Seders, JVP starts its Trees of Reconciliation Campaign
• JVP says NO to the Gaza siege
• Goodbye to Mitchell Plitnick
• Sarah Anne Minkin joins JVP
• A new News Roundup

With multiple Tu B'shvat Seders, JVP starts its Trees of Reconciliation Campaign In over 10 cities across the US, Europe, and Israel, JVP activists and friends, inspired by Jewish tradition, held Tu B'shvat Seders and started a yearlong Trees of Reconciliation campaign. In order to to support peace by creating greater economic justice, Jewish Voice for Peace has committed to planting 3,000 olive trees in Palestine in 2008. Thanks to your generosity, have already met 20% of our annual goal, but we still have more to do. Please join our Trees of Reconciliation campaign today! In Philadelphia, the birthplace of this campaign, over 50 people met with Hannah Schwarzschild and Elliott batTzedek—authors of the the Haggadah—engaged in vital conversations about what the Occupation has meant for Palestinians and for a land that is called Holy. In the process, they collected money for 90 trees. Some 45-50 JVPers and friends braved the chilly Chicago temperatures to participate in the Seder, co-sponsored by JVP and Makom Shalom, a Jewish Renewal congregation. The group collected enough money to get almost 100 olive trees. In Detroit, 29 people from that city and Ann Arbor--ranging from 6 months to over 80 years old, and representing many different religious and ethnic backgrounds-- braved a forecast of one to four inches of snow to attend a Seder. They collected money for 66 trees.

In Seattle, about 60 people joined the Seder, which started with the acknowledgment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and with recognition of the slavery this country was built upon. The Seder continued with collective readings of the Haggadah, and small table discussions where relationships were sowed and harvested. The group collected money for 151 trees. In Ottawa, a small number of Jews and Muslims engaged in their first-ever Tu B'shvat Seder. They used the opportunity to learn, dialogue, and collect money for 12 trees. In Amherst, MA, a small Seder—half of the participants were children—collected money for 30 trees. In Berkeley, 27 people crowded into a house to read the Haggadah. People were very moved by the readings and were open in discussing their own experiences. Money was collected for 90 trees. In Ukiah, three queer Jews conducted their own Seder, and collected money for 9 trees. Here is their testimony:

"Though we are all radical and Queer identified, we have learned about Judaism, Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Israel and Palestine from different perspectives in different ways and times. Though we are friends, we came to the table with a lot of assumptions, fears, and judgments about each other's views and actions around Palestine solidarity work. The JVP Haggadah provided stories that held the complication and nuance needed to make all of us feel seen and the context for us all to share ritual, celebration, and outrage together, and move us towards collective action."

Additional Seders took place in other US cities as well as in Beersheva (Israel) and Norwich (UK). Click here for a slideshow of pictures from some of the Seders mentioned above.

JVP says NO to the Gaza siege JVP activists and coalition partners took the streets to protest the inhumane siege of Gaza and to express solidarity with Palestinian civil society and with a convoy of Israeli peace activists that has tried to deliver water filters, medicines, and other essential goods to the people in Gaza. Rebecca Vilkomerson, a JVP member currently living in Israel, participated in the January 26 convoy and sent a firsthand account of the days' events. On January 24, a spirited crowd of about a hundred Boston-area activists marched in protest in front of the Israeli Consulate as well. Their aim was to bring cartons of medical and food aid and ask that the Consul deliver these to the people in Gaza and relays to the Israeli government their demand that the Gaza Relief Convoy be allowed to pass the Erez checkpoint. Similar actions were held in the following days in other cities as well. In Philadelphia, about 30 people participated in a protest in front of the Israeli Consulate. In Chicago, some 60 people came to a JVP demo and distributed over 1,000 flyers decrying the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In San Francisco, between 30 and 40 people demonstrated in front of the Israeli Consulate under a pouring rain. Click here to see a slideshow of these and other protests across the country!

Goodbye to Mitchell Plitnick We bid goodbye to Mitchell Plitnick, who has been JVP's Director of Education and Policy for the last five years. Mitchell brought his passion for peace and justice to the organization, sharing his deep knowledge of Middle East history and politics with intelligence, compassion and eloquence. Mitchell not only provided expert knowledge, policy analysis and direction for JVP politically, but he was also responsible for all the administration for the JVP office. Mitchell was also instrumental in creating the vision that allowed JVP to grow from one local group to a national organization. We are grateful for his many contributions to JVP and wish him well in his future endeavors. We will miss you!

If you want to follow Mitchell's current writing, please go to http://mitchellplitnick.com.

Sarah Anne Minkin joins JVP Starting in April, Sarah Anne Minkin will join JVP as the new Director of Education and Outreach.

Sarah Anne comes to JVP as an activist, educator and researcher. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Sarah Anne lived in Haifa, Israel and Washington DC before coming to the Bay Area to start a doctorate in Sociology at University of the California-Berkeley. After writing her masters thesis at UC-Berkeley on the Israeli military refusal movement with a special focus on the relationship between militarism and gender roles in Israeli society, Sarah Anne will focus her dissertation on questions of fear and political identity. Sarah Anne was awarded a National Science Foundation Research Fellowship in 2004 and won the UC-Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award in 2006-7. She's also fluent in Hebrew. As an activist, Sarah Anne has focused on feminist and anti-war issues for a decade, concentrating primarily on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American Jewry's response and responsibility for what happens in the Middle East and the U.S. An editor of Jewish Peace News since 2002 and an active member of JVP since coming to the Bay Area in 2003, Sarah Anne co-led an Interfaith Peace-Builders Delegation to Israel-Palestine in 2004 and spent last summer as an educator on a program that brought Palestinian and Jewish college students to the Balkans to study the 1990s breakup of Yugoslavia and its accompanying wars. Sarah Anne is also a part of the Institute for Comparative Conflict Studies, a new endeavor by scholars and activists to engage in transformative education around dynamics of national and ethnic conflict. Sarah Anne is very excited to step into this new role at JVP where she hopes to "build on and strengthen members' confidence and competence in ourselves as activists and educators." She says, "as a national organization, we are rich in knowledge, ability, energy, and heart. I hope to work together with our members and staff to amplify our voices in every arena where our vision and passion can have meaningful impact."

If you want to read some of Sarah Anne's past writings, click on these two Jewish Peace News samples: JPN Jan 27, 2008 and JPN Aug 10, 2006.

A new News Roundup Prof. Joel Beinin is starting a monthly news round up at JVP. From 1983 to 2006 he taught Middle East history at Stanford University. He is on leave from Stanford from 2006 to 2008 and currently serving as Director of Middle East Studies and Professor of History at the American University in Cairo. His research and writing focuses on workers, peasants, and minorities in the modern Middle East and on Israel, Palestine, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. His articles have been published in leading scholarly journals as well as The Nation, Middle East Report, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Jose Mercury News, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Jordan Times, Asia Times, and Le Monde Diplomatique. He has appeared on Al-Jazeera TV, BBC radio, National Public Radio, and many other TV and radio programs. In 2002 he served as President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. Joel has been a long-standing JVP member. His outstanding commitment to peace and justice has earned him a number of mentions in Muzzlewatch when some of his talks were cancelled due to pressure from Israel-right-or-wrong advocates. Joel also figures prominently in David Horowitz's McCarthy-like blacklist diatribe, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.

If you want to read Joel's recent analysis of the crisis in Gaza, go to: From Cairo: The people in Gaza challenge sham peace process.