Media Roundup: The movement for a free Palestine won’t stop growing.

As student encampments in solidarity with Gaza have sprung up across the country and the world over the past month, our movement for ceasefire and Palestinian liberation has been gaining ground. Anti-Zionist Jewish protestors are articulating their opposition to Israeli genocide and apartheid clearly: Never Again means never again for anyone.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government has ramped up its genocidal war even further, beginning a ground invasion of Rafah, and the situation on the ground in Gaza is dire beyond words. We won’t stop fighting to end this genocide — and to end the logic of Zionism that tells us that the lives of some are an acceptable price to pay for the lives of others.

12 days in the Auraria Campus Gaza solidarity encampment, Rocky Mountain PBS, May 9, 2024.

“The most pro-Jewish thing you can do is be anti-genocide, no matter who that genocide is being done against. When I learned about the Holocaust and I said never again, I meant never again for anyone and I will stand by that.”

Robin Buchanan, JVP-University of Denver

The Student Encampments Aren’t a Danger to Jews. But the Crackdown Is., the Nation, May 3, 2024.

[Cops] “removed our peaceful encampment on the lawn, destroying our belongings, tents, artwork, and the community where we spent the last 13 days sharing meals, praying, and protesting for liberation.”

Cameron Jones, JVP-Columbia University

Organizing a Jewish Call for Ceasefire: A Conversation with Jewish Voice for Peace, Nonprofit Quarterly, November 21, 2023.

“To be anti-Zionist as Jew is to say that our Judaism predates Zionism by thousands of years. Our Judaism is not tied up with the interests of the Israeli government. Our Judaism is all about tikkun olam, [the Jewish concept of] repairing the world, building a space of justice, equality, safety, and freedom for all.”

Sonya Meyerson-Knox, JVP Communications Director

Jewish Group Applauds Pro-Palestinian Campus Protesters, Newsweek, April 29, 2024.

“We applaud the courage and determination of students all over the country who are peacefully protesting for an end to U.S. support to the Israeli military and calling on their own universities to divest from the Israeli military.”

Stefanie Fox, JVP Executive Director

We Tried to Bring Food Into Gaza—but Israel Blocked and Arrested Us, the Nation, May 6, 2024.

“​​Motivated by Passover’s central imperative—“All who are hungry come and eat!”—our mission was to bring food supplies to the Erez Crossing and demand that Israel allow us to pass through.”

Rabbi Brant Rosen, JVP Rabbinical Council

‘Like family’: three women – two Palestinian, one Jewish – find peace amid campus chaos, the Guardian, May 5, 2024.

“When you think about Judaism, and the idea that we continued to survive even after different genocides … why are we committing a genocide to other people who are still trying to thrive just like us, and who are still trying to be resilient just like us?”

Eleanora Ginsborg, JVP-UCSD

Jewish group holds anti-war Passover Seder, New Orleans Public Radio, April 29, 2024.

“Passover is a holiday to resist against the status quo of oppression.”

Miriam Eisenstat, JVP-New Orleans

New Haven Passover Seder demonstration calls for peace for all in Gaza conflict, New Haven Register, April 29, 2024.

“We want peace which means a stop to all fighting and the return of hostages on both sides. We care about everybody.”

Zachary Herring, JVP-New Haven

Rabbi Alissa Wise & Israeli-Born Novelist Ayelet Waldman Arrested Trying to Bring Food to Gaza, Democracy Now, April 29, 2024.

“Passover is known as Z’man Cheiruteinu, the season of our freedom. And if that is going to be anything, it must mean that we work for the freedom of all people.”

Rabbi Alissa Wise, co-founder of JVP Rabbinical Council

For Jewish students, protests stir fear, anger, hope and questions, the Washington Post, April 28, 2024.

“What’s critical right now is to take necessary steps to stop the loss of life and to address the fact that Palestinians are being killed and forced out of homes on a mass scale by Israel. And it’s being perpetrated in our name as Jews.”

Ezra Levinson, JVP-Claremont Colleges

Jewish Anti-Zionists Fight Slander Against Their Pro-Palestinian Advocacy, the Maple, April 30, 2024.

“We were pushing Congress and the U.S. to call for a ceasefire and to stop Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians.”

Rabbi Mivasair

Jewish Voice for Peace holds Passover Seder in downtown Detroit during NFL Draft, demanding action toward ceasefire in Gaza, Audacy, April 26, 2024.

“In grief and rage, members of Jewish Voice for Peace Detroit called for the United States to stop sending weapons and funding to the Israeli military after six months of the Israeli military’s bombardment of Gaza.”

JVP-Detroit

Jewish Voice for Peace activist speaks about his December arrest, KGNU, April 30, 2024.

Pro-Palestinian protesters hold Passover seders at University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, ABC 6, April 28, 2024.

Jewish groups decry House passage of bill defining criticism of Israel as “antisemitism”, Salon,May 2, 2024.

“The Israeli government’s bombardment and siege of Gaza has killed over 34,000 people in six months. Congress must stop attacking the students and faculty members who are trying to stop this genocide, and instead focus on ending U.S. complicity in Israel’s attacks.”

JVP Action

Scenes From the Gaza Solidarity Encampments, the Nation, May 3, 2024.

I wanted to be a Jewish voice saying that you can’t just invoke anti-Semitism in order to justify the suppression of pro-Palestinian speech.”

Violet Barron

What is Zionism? The movement college protesters oppose, explained., the Washington Post, May 3, 2024.

“For us, we want to be clear: the form of Zionism that has survived and has power now is an expansionist, right-wing, genocidal form. The people in power in Israel right now … want to annihilate the Palestinians and get all the land for Jews, and there is no thought there could be coexistence.”

Tallie Ben-Daniel, JVP Managing Director

Washington, DC, police raid on GWU’s pro-Palestinian tent camp ends in arrests, pepper spray, USA Today, May 8, 2024.

“We’re here to demand that the university protect pro-Palestinian speech on campus, that they drop all charges against pro-Palestinian student organizers and organizations, that they immediately disclose all investments and endowments, they divest from all funds related to Israel, and that they end all academic partnerships for Israel.”

Miriam Siegel, JVP-GWU

At The New School, an anti-Zionist campus rabbi is ‘not so radical,’ students say, JTA, May 9, 2024.

“I’ve had so many people come to me being, like, ‘I haven’t gone to a seder, I didn’t come to a Shabbat dinner for years, because I haven’t felt welcome in Jewish spaces.’ And then they come to JVP services, and they pray for the first time in years.”

Shay Lev, JVP-Columbia University

A New Jewishness Is Being Born Before Our Eyes, the Nation, May 10, 2024.