August 22, 2024 • 54 mins
Three powerful voices: Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Esther Farmer, and Pam Sporn. For decades they fought Israel's Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, defying dismissal and disrespect from the mainstream community. Now these elderwomen are chaining themselves to the White House fence and taking to the streets to protest the genocide. Their insights are poignant, fierce, challenging and often raucously funny! They are modeling grit, intelligence, compassion, and how to mobilize around the "horror and the hope" of this moment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, your host of
Wisdom at Work older women,elder women and grandmothers on
the move, the podcast that kicksold stereotypes to the curb.
Come meet these creative,outrageous, authentic,
adventurous, irreverent andpowerful disruptors and
influencers older women andgrandmothers from the living
(00:20):
room to the courtroom, makingpowerful contributions in every
walk of life.
The living room to thecourtroom, making powerful
contributions in every walk oflife.
Hello, it's Ilana, welcome backto Wisdom at Work.
And today I have a reallyspecial conversation, important
conversation.
I have to admit to you that ittook place a month ago and so it
hasn't been updated with all ofthe recent events in the world
(00:42):
and in the United States, wherethese three remarkable and
inspiring activists are livingin New York.
Esther Farmer, who is thedirector and playwright of
Wrestling with Zionism, inaddition to producing
storytelling workshops aroundthe country.
As a Jewish Voice for Peacenational artist, she has played
leadership roles in the New YorkCity Housing Authority, as a
(01:03):
United Nations representativeand as a founder of Teamsters
for a Democratic Union.
And then there's Dr RosalindPachesky, distinguished
Professor Emerita of PoliticalScience at Hunter College City
University of New York, cuny.
She's a recipient of theMacArthur Genius Fellowship and
the Charles A McCoy CareerAchievement Award.
She's written criticallyimportant books and articles in
(01:25):
the field of reproductive andsexual rights and justice, and
Roz is a Jewish voice for peace,new York City chapter leader, a
classical pianist and akickboxer.
Esther and Roz co-edited,authored with Sarah Sills, a
book called A Land with a People.
Palestinians and Jews ConfrontZionism in 2021.
And joining them is Pam Sporn,a Bronx-based educator and
(01:48):
award-winning filmmaker andactivist.
A pioneer in bringing socialissues documentary making into
New York City high schools.
In the 80s and 90s, pamcontributed to the growth of the
youth media movement sheorganizes with Jewish Voice for
Peace and Bronx Neighbors forPalestine.
And for some context, before webegin, jewish Voice for Peace
(02:12):
describes itself as the largestprogressive Jewish anti-Zionist
organization in the world,organizing a grassroots,
multiracial, cross-class,intergenerational movement of
leftist Jews in the UnitedStates in solidarity with the
Palestinian freedom struggle.
You may have heard of JVP in themedia as the organizer of many
of the protests against theactions of the state of Israel
(02:32):
in Gaza, like the one in GrandCentral Station in New York.
There is, of course, a widerange of worldviews within the
Jewish community.
There always has been and therealways will be, and it is an
indescribably painful moment inour history and this
conversation will not be easyfor everyone.
I want to acknowledge that.
But since its inception, thispodcast has sought to shine a
(02:54):
spotlight on the remarkable andimportant contribution older
women, grandmothers and elderwomen in our communities and
countries are making to thebetterment of the human
condition and to amplify theirvoices and perspectives.
And I was inspired by theprofound commitment to an action
for justice that has informedthe activism of Esther, roz and
(03:15):
Pam and others like them, andthe thoughtful way in which the
JVP has worked to open bravespaces to help us engage in
these critical and challengingconversations.
In that spirit, I want towelcome you, pam, esther and Roz
, to the Wisdom at Work podcast.
Thank you for being here today.
I thought I'd start by askingyou what brought you to this
(03:37):
moment where you decided thatyou must join in the protests
and raise your voice and beheard in the movement of
protests against the genocide inGaza.
Roz, why don't we start withyou?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'll just say that we are involved deeply, all of us,
in Jewish Voice for Peace andJewish Voice for Peace New York
City, in different neighborhoods, but deeply in that
organization.
That's our political home, ourleaders, where we learn our
messaging.
I just tell my story.
I was very involved in JVP for10 years and I was traveling
(04:11):
with a group of old friends thatI grew up with in Oklahoma, old
ladies traveling in Nashville,tennessee, and all of a sudden
the news came it was October 7thof what had happened and then
the Israeli response and I wasso devastated, almost hysterical
, I mean.
I was deeply, deeply franticand worried and felt very like a
(04:36):
fish out of water in this weirdplace of Nashville Tennessee,
with all these friends whoreally didn't share my politics
but were very comforting andvery sympathetic, and all I
wanted was to be home and withmy people.
And from the minute I got on theplane and then I got off the
plane and was on my phonelooking at all the messages and
(04:57):
I saw we're doing ademonstration tonight in front
of Schumer's building I saidthat's it, we're going, I go
home, I get my things.
In case I'm in CD civildisobedience I say I might be in
jail.
Get a toothbrush, have thesanitary things I need, what I
need in case I'm in jailovernight, and go.
Go to Grand Army Plaza.
(05:18):
That was all I could think.
Just act in the moment with mypeople who are Jewish Voice for
Peace.
It wasn't even something I hadto think about because we had
been working for so long and weknew Israel's going in.
We know this is it.
They're going to take themoment, this pretext for utter
devastation.
We didn't call it at thatmoment genocide, but we were
(05:41):
anticipating something of thesort and we were very, very
angry and devastated and worriedcollectively.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
This is Esther speaking.
So I think all three of us havebeen anti-Zionist Jews for many
, many years.
I myself, I'm a Palestinian Jew.
My father was born in Palestine.
Many people think that's veryweird.
It's not weird.
Palestine was a country and itcontained Muslims, jews and
(06:09):
Christians and at the time thatmy family lived there, it was
about 10% Jewish, 10% Christianand 80% Muslim.
And my family who lived inPalestine.
They were very religious, veryreligious Jews and at the same
time, extremely anti-Zionist.
Religious, very religious Jewsand at the same time, extremely
anti-Zionist.
That very existence of myfamily gives the lie to the fact
that anti-Zionism is the sameas anti-Semitism.
(06:31):
It's simply not true and therehave always been anti-Zionist
Jews.
And what was my father's worryabout Zionism?
He said the Palestinians arebeing blamed for the Holocaust
when they had nothing to do withit.
It's going to make the worldcompletely unsafe, both for
Palestinians and Jews.
He used to say why do Jews needa state?
(06:52):
We're nomads.
We take culture everywhere.
So like the whole thing nowabout diasporic Jews is
something that he used to say.
And the other thing that wasvery prophetic which really
affected me deeply was when hesaid that the Zionists love
Israel but they hate Jews, andthat's the name of my story in
the book A Land with a People,and I've seen that over and over
(07:13):
again.
It deeply, deeply hurts me tosee how Jews have moved to the
right based on this.
You know, tribal, small,horrible philosophy that says
Jews have to be supreme, andwhenever you say any people have
to be supreme, you're going tohave resistance.
And so all of this talk aboutHamas, hamas, hamas.
(07:35):
You can talk about the ethicsof that, and of course we do,
but it's going to continue tohappen as long as this
repression of Palestinianshappen.
So when October 7th happened,it was very clear, as Raz said,
what Israel was going to do, andwe were there.
So this is not a moment, insome ways, that are different
(07:57):
for us, because we've beeninvolved in this for many, many
years and we actually knew thatsomething like this was bound to
happen, and that's one of ourdeep messages.
This was bound to happen and itwill continue to happen until
we change the occupation and theapartheid state in Israel.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Right.
This is Pam Sporn speaking, andI've been demonstrating against
the Israeli occupation ofPalestine with Esther and Raz
for over a decade.
I was with my brother, who hadcome into New York City from
Chicago to visit my brand newgrandbaby on October 6th 7th,
(08:37):
and we heard on the news theattack that Hamas did.
We knew right away thatsomething horrific was going to
come in response, and I must saythat one of the things that
keeps me going out there in thestreets is that when I visit
this grandbaby, who is now ninemonths old, or will be nine
(08:57):
months old almost the samelength as this war has been
going on, she's healthy, she'shappy, she's not suffering
trauma, she's well-fed, she's achubby little, wonderful role of
funniness.
And I just think about how theexperience for babies in Gaza
some who were born after October7th and never made it to two
(09:22):
weeks old and it just keeps megoing back into the streets.
I was one of the early people inthe JVP chapter, so we've been
demonstrating against horrificbombings of Gaza, but never in
that time have I seen this kindof destruction and mass death
and it's just unbelievable.
(09:42):
I actually had stepped back abit from being very, very
involved in Jewish Voice forPeace because I was working on a
film and just other things andwhen that demonstration was
called that Roz spoke aboutGrand Army Plaza in front of
Schumer's office, I canceledsomething else and I went there
and I didn't know how manypeople to expect because all of
(10:04):
this had just happened and Ithought maybe there'd be a
hundred people and I justcouldn't believe how this
thousand or more people turnedout and this kind of new crop of
young people stepping forwardand I was just really, really
moved.
And you know, we've been doingit ever since and unfortunately
(10:25):
it looks like we're going to bedoing it for a long time.
Thank you for that, all of you.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
And I have a question .
Esther, you brought somethingto mind.
I wasn't going to ask, but youspoke a little bit about this.
And Pam and Roz, I'd love tohear from you too.
I'm fascinated to know whereyour anti-Zionism came from.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Well, I tell that story.
This is Roz from In a Land withthe People, a book that Esther
and I and Sarah Sills co-editedand wrote big parts of it.
I was 16 years old and I was ina family that was quite Zionist
, but liberal Zionist.
My grandmother, my father verymuch so my mother wasn't
terribly political and we hadlearned about Israel from the
time.
I was very small and we thoughtIsrael was just something
(11:09):
fabulous.
I learned much later when I wasresearching the part of the
book that I wrote.
I did some research in thearchive of the temple that we
went to in Tulsa, oklahoma, andlearned details about how the
messages of Zionism wereimported into communities like
the one I lived in and to therabbis, and it was a big
(11:32):
campaign, you know.
I mean the planting of thetrees and putting your little
tzedakah in the box and all ofthat stuff.
And you probably experiencedthat, ilana I don't think Esther
did.
I don't know about Pam.
By the time I was 16, I said tomy parents I want to go to
Israel because there was anopportunity.
It was a forerunner ofBirthright, it was the B'nai
(11:53):
Abraith youth and my parentswere pretty indulgent with me
and they said OK, and I went onthis trip and I'm all
starry-eyed about Israel, but Iwas also beginning to be
involved in the civil rightsmovement.
It was the early civil rightsmovement, it was actually 1959.
And I was becoming ananti-racist.
And there I was on a kibbutzand I'm talking to this man I
(12:16):
didn't know him but he wasclearly African and we were just
talking and a woman came up tome, a white woman, ashkenazi
white woman with a very strongBrooklyn accent, and said don't
talk to him.
And I said what, why not?
She said he's African.
And that was the beginning ofmy lifelong radicalization,
(12:45):
dismissed by the local rabbisaying that I was just a young
girl and I didn't know what Iwas talking about.
And honestly, that was a favorto me.
It made me strongly, not justanti-Zionist, not just
anti-racist, but feminist.
I said what are you saying thatI'm a girl and I don't know
what I'm talking about?
I mean, I didn't have fuck inmy vocabulary then but I would
have, you know, used it.
(13:07):
So it was from.
From then on, and then I had alot of contact with Palestinians
.
My mentor in college was agreat intellectual, ibrahim
Abulagud.
He's the father of LailaAbulagud, the anthropologist,
and then my students at HunterCollege when I was teaching
there years later, a a lot ofthem were Palestinian, great
Palestinian feminists.
You would know who they are.
And I just was pulled as a Jewto say we didn't say not in my
(13:32):
name then, but that's what wemeant.
We meant no way, we will notsupport this.
And I found solidarity withPalestinian feminists and ever
since.
So anti-Zionist, absolutely.
And I'll just say one morething as a political theorist,
which is my field, I am stronglyand have been forever against
(13:54):
ethno-nationalism.
Any ethno-nationalism is goingto be like Esther's father was
describing it's a setup forconflict and war.
My uncle was a man namedMaurice Friedman.
He was the biographer of MartinBuber.
Buber was one of the 20thcentury Jews who opposed the
idea of a Jewish state.
(14:15):
It was going to cause muchconflict.
It was going to cause war.
He knew that.
Hannah Arendt knew that.
Albert Einstein knew that therewere lots of anti-Zionist
intellectuals, and not justintellectuals but ordinary
people too.
So we feel like we're part of avery proud and noble tradition
that goes way back.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
So this is Esther.
You know we have a program inJVP that we developed called how
to have Hard ConversationsAbout Israel-Palestine, and in
that program I always say that Itake my hat off to people like
Roz and Pam and I have similarbackgrounds.
But you know people like Rozwho have had to turn away from a
(14:57):
lifetime of propaganda and youknow heavy duty, constant
propaganda.
I didn't have to go throughthat.
My father would say Israel,shemizreel, the United States
needs Israel, not Jews, I mean.
So way before October 7th wehad a theater project called
Wrestling with Zionism where wehad people tell their stories of
(15:18):
exactly what you're askingtheir journeys around becoming
an anti-Zionist, and I thinkthat's really important.
This weekend we just came back,roz and I just came back from
lobbying Congress and you knowwe met the most interesting
people and one of the peoplethat I met was a rabbi who was a
kahanist.
She was in the JDL.
(15:40):
Now, when I was at BrooklynCollege people of color we had
pitched battles, physicalbattles with JDL people around
the issue of open admissions andaround the issue of
establishing one of the firstPuerto Rican studies departments
and the first African-Americanstudies department in the
country, which Pam sobeautifully did a film on called
(16:02):
Making the Impossible Possible,beautifully did a film on
called Making the ImpossiblePossible, and we had pitched
battles with the JDL.
And here in front of me was thiswoman who had been in the, you
know, raised as a Kahanist andnow with JVP, and that was such
a thrilling thing that, you know, people can actually move and
(16:23):
people are moving.
So, you know, for 50 years wehave been like, considered this
fringe, crazy, you know, groupof people who were saying this
thing that nobody is saying, andnow all of a sudden this is no
longer fringe.
So one of the things that wenoticed in this lobbying thing,
I mean, you know, some of thesame stupid stuff comes out of
(16:43):
their mouth.
It's embarrassing how stupidsome of these folks are that are
supposed to represent us.
But they have to be respectfulbecause we are now we are an
established force in thiscountry and the tide has turned
and the narrative has changedand we've been working at
changing that narrative for thelast 50 years, but, especially
since JVP has been formed, wehave really been at this
(17:05):
narrative and all of a sudden,the social motion has just you
know, what's happening is thisanti-war, leftist movement
that's concentrated on Palestine.
I never in my life would havethought that was possible, so
it's quite a moment to beinvolved.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
This is Pam.
Again, I echo a lot of whatEsther has expressed.
I also have been tremendouslyimpressed and moved by Roz's
story and also the young peoplewho tell stories of how they've
had to find a new way ofunderstanding the world and
(17:42):
Israel-Palestine.
That's different from theirfamilies.
My immediate family, my parents, were never Zionists.
My father was a communist.
He was part of the communistmovement and I think one of the
reasons that it may seem strangeto some people that there are
anti-Zionist Jews is because thehistory of the communist and
(18:05):
left movement has beensuppressed and a lot of people
don't know about it.
But I grew up in a householdwhere the idea of the unity of
multiracial and multiethnicworking class people was the
goal, that that kind of unity iswhat would make social change
(18:25):
happen and that without thatunity and I remember I grew up
in Detroit I was an activist inanti-war and anti-racist,
anti-police brutality issueswhen I was a teenager and I
remember there was a forum andsomeone came to speak.
It was an Israeli Jew who was acommunist and he was on a
(18:48):
speaking tour.
He was talking about the needfor Israeli, jewish and
Palestinian workers to unite andhe later had to serve, I think,
30 years in prison.
So I have been aware for manyyears that that idea was deeply
problematic for the powers thatbe in Israel and I wish that we
(19:11):
had evidence that many, many,many Israelis were following
that belief now, and I hope thathappens.
So that's the kind ofbackground that I come from,
although different.
There were other family membersthat were Zionists and I knew
that my father and thisparticular uncle.
I grew up they would havepitched a battle across the
(19:34):
dinner table, so I always knewthat there was a contest about
this.
This was not necessarily thebiggest issue for me, because I
grew up in Detroit.
I've lived in New York City forthe most of all of my adult
life.
I've been a teacher inunder-resourced schools in the
Bronx and Harlem.
(19:54):
My students have faced policebrutality.
You know other issues up frontthat I was involved in, but I
say that a Haitian-Americanfriend of mine actually
recruited me to JVP in aroundabout way, and that's that
I was involved in scheduling afilm series that had to do with
(20:16):
Afro Latinos, and one of thefilms was about anti-Blackness
in the Dominican Republic andanti-Haitianism in the Dominican
Republic, and so this HaitianAmerican friend of mine was on a
panel Q&A after we showed thatfilm and she said that only
change will happen whenDominicans who are not of
(20:37):
Haitian descent speak up againstthis racism.
And something just kind ofclicked that I am Jewish and I
need to make this an issue ofmine, where I need to speak out
against the occupation and theracist apartheid in Israel, and
that's when I searched and Ifound Jewish Voice for Peace.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Esther, you wanted to say something, one of the very
interesting things that'shappened, which I never expected
, you know, as Pam was sharing.
You know, most of theanti-Zionist Jews came from the
socialist and communist.
That's what it meant to be aprogressive at a certain point
in our history.
So many Jews were socialistthat's the history we come from
(21:18):
and they were the anti-Zionist.
Now it's completely different.
We are getting so many veryreligiously oriented Jews, young
Jews who grew up with seekingalarm and you know we have to
repair the world and they'rereally putting their money where
their mouth is.
You know, relative to, you know, liberation theology, which is
what it is.
(21:38):
So we have so many rabbis andso many very observant Jews very
odd for some of us thousands ofyoung Jews.
So that's a real interestingphenomenon and a change that we
can't seem to get ourrepresentatives to understand.
That you know, this is verycritical for young Jews who are
(21:59):
observant and believe thatJudaism, this is not their
Judaism, and so you know, basedon that, I mean, we have almost
tripled our membership.
Jvp has over a millionsupporters and followers and
continuing to grow, so it'squite something.
What has happened with thenarrative?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, and I wanted to say that for a lot of us elder
secular leftists, jvp hasbrought us closer to Judaism.
I mean, for me I grew up thatway but then I was severed from
it and I was alienated from it.
Really, meeting and workingwith these young people and also
the rabbis has really broughtus back to something about our
(22:38):
traditions and the notion thatJewishness and you know, judith
Butler has always said thisJewishness is different from
Zionism.
It comes with a whole set ofvalues and ethics that we
cherish and that are close toour socialism, close to our
feminism.
The other thing is meetingthese young people.
I've been struck by theirstruggle, a lot of them.
(22:59):
They have struggles with theirfamilies like some of us have
had.
I met this young man who waspart of the Columbia Barnard
encampment and we were talkingand he said, oh, I wish you
could talk to my mother, I wishyou could talk to my
grandparents.
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I'm so glad you mentioned this story because
it's something I wanted to askyou.
You know there is thisimpression.
I've heard it implicitly.
Certainly it comes through inthe coverage by the media that
you know it's older people whoare Zionists and it's younger
people who are the protesters,partly because of the
encampments, of course.
But I think it speaks also tosomething I wanted to ask you
(23:36):
about which is this terriblefracture, the fractures in our
community and in our families?
And you know what do you do tofind solace, who do you turn to?
And, in fact, one of the thingsthat compelled me to speak to
the three of you is that I think, in times like these, it's
extraordinarily important foryoung people who are protesting
and who feel this terribledislocation to know that there
(23:59):
are elders who have been at thisfor a long time and to whom
they can turn.
Do you say, and what do youthink of this impression of sort
of the elders and young peoplein terms of the protest movement
?
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, I mean we've worked really hard in JVP, you
know.
I mean I have never felt sorespected and loved by so many
of the younger people in JVP.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
It's kind of remarkable, yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
I don't you know I don't have a family issue.
All my parents areunfortunately dead for a long
time now but you know, relativeto my kids or you know it's a
small family, but no, I don'thave that.
And other people are really,really struggling with this and
in the hard conversationsworkshop that we do, we started
off dealing with Misraim,sefardi, andrahim, arab,
(24:47):
so-called Arab Jews, where thereis this you know again this
racist kind of stereotype thatall Arab Jews are the most
Zionist, and so there's a hugenetwork now of Misrahim that
have said no way and they'vebeen building and working and
we've done a lot of workrelative to family relationships
(25:07):
, relationships and some of it'slike therapy because for a lot
of the Arab Jews that are soupset about the ruptures with
their family, it's a particularkind of isolation, because
they're already isolated in theJewish community that they're
not real Jews, or particularlynot.
(25:30):
That it's not meaningful toeverybody, but it has a
particular consonance for a lotof misrahim.
So we've been doing a lot ofwork with these hard
conversations in how to keepyour relationship, maintain your
relationship and try to buildas you organize.
It's an organizing job to talkto people right now and more and
more Jews are coming around.
Recently, somebody said to mewell, you know my father.
He was an ardent Zionist, buthe saw something about what was
(25:50):
happening in Gaza and he saidthis is not my Judaism.
And that is the kind of thingthat we're hearing more and more
, and we are urging and workingtowards teaching people how to
have the kinds of conversationsthat are going to move people on
this journey and in JVP.
Wherever you are on thisjourney, you're welcome and
that's very important, becausewe don't want to be.
(26:11):
You have to be pure and youhave to think exactly the same
way that we do with every singleaspect.
We know that this is a journeyand we want to support people
along that journey.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I love that, esther, thank you, and I wanted to ask
the three of you aboutintersectional identities.
There's the whole issue that'scome up just recently, this
summer, of course, of a parallelmarch to the Pride March.
That is more of a protestbecause of the inclusion of an
Israeli contingent in the PrideMarch in New York City, and
(26:41):
they've also raised sort ofyoung people and elders in the
community and I just wanted tohear more from you about that in
terms of this moment of protestand the coalescing around the
movement.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Well, one of the things that's really wonderful
for me about our JVP culture andthe young people who are really
very much in the leadership isthey are intersectional.
They came into it that way.
They came from labor movements,they came from climate justice
organizations.
I mean it gets to me a littlebit that they take feminism for
(27:13):
granted because they think, oh,we did that, we won that already
.
But you know, as far as prideis concerned, I mean our JVP
chapter in New York City hasbeen involved in pride every
single year.
We're deeply involved withformer ACT UP people.
The queerness of JVP leadershipis amazing and you know there
(27:34):
have been splits in the past.
So separate pride march, that'svery pro-Palestine.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
This is Pam, again coming from a neighborhood that
is not primarily Jewish.
I'm in the North Bronx and alot of the big rallies happen
either in Brooklyn, wherethere's a sizable Jewish
community, or in Manhattan infront of Schumer's office, where
the target is quite clear.
And I felt like I want to bringthis movement more into the
(28:06):
Bronx where there arepro-Palestinian activities.
But it's different than, say,if I were in an area where I
know people do a lot of goodwork and there's a progressive
synagogue in Brooklyn.
That it's kind of like it'smore natural that we should be
talking about this because we'reJews.
But now coming up here in theBronx, like, why would this area
(28:26):
care about this issue?
My neighborhood is a lot ofBengali, dominican,
african-american, white too.
People do care about this.
We've come together and a fewJVP people but other people who
are not Jewish, informed Bronxneighbors for Palestine and it's
intergenerational and it'smulti-ethnic and we're trying to
(28:49):
make the comparisons and theanalysis of all of the money
that's going to support war.
How could that money be used tobuild up the social service
needs that we need here in theBronx?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
It's important to connect these struggles, to
connect these struggles.
I'm really glad you mentionedthis is Esther.
I'm glad you mentioned Alana.
You know this whole issue ofthe queer community.
I mean it amazes me and it's sotouching.
The contribution of the transcommunity, both Jewish and
Palestinian, is incredible andyou know, given the attacks on
(29:25):
the trans community in thiscountry in particular, it's like
the last thing they need isPalestine.
And yet they're here and havebeen unbelievably active and
principled in fighting theestablished what we used to call
gay community.
When they don't say anythingabout this genocide, they're the
(29:46):
ones in front of that struggleand lead the rest of us and it's
been incredibly moving.
So a lot of the discussionsaround strategy and how do you
resolve some of these conflictsthat you're saying.
It's an organizing job andthey're in the forefront of
helping us to figure that out.
So that's been a remarkableprocess and very touching.
(30:07):
And it's part of what we'redoing in JVP, which is not only
about being anti-Zionist butabout creating the culture that
we want to be in, that we wantto live in, because we know that
people will come for thepolitics but they won't stay for
the right political line.
They'll stay for theenvironment and for the culture
that we build and it's reallyimportant that we continue that
(30:29):
kind of culture.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Well, it isn't the most natural segue to go from
the kind of community that wewant to build and the kind of
world that we want to live in tothe next question I have.
But I really want to ask youabout this.
We're living in such achallenging and intractable
moment where any anti-Israelsentiment or objection to the
actions of the State of Israel,or anti-Zionist sentiments,
(30:55):
anti-genocide protest so often,are now conflated with
anti-Semitism, and I don't wantto suggest, by saying this or
voicing an objection to that,that anti-Semitism isn't present
and doesn't exist.
I certainly grew up with it andstill see it very much in
action.
But this moment where any kindof protest against the genocide
or any expression of outrageagainst the actions of the state
(31:20):
of Israel is now often decriedas anti-Semitic, I wonder how do
you think about that?
How do you deal with it?
What do you say?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
The weaponization of anti-Semitism is a terrible,
terrible threat and it has to beaddressed.
But at the same time, sometimesI tell a story and I say, look,
I didn't grow up experiencing alot of anti-Semitism, maybe I
was just protected from it by myfamily, by my household.
It must have been there inTulsa, oklahoma, are you kidding
(31:49):
?
I mean, we had the Klan.
Of course it was there, but Inever experienced, to my memory,
a direct, blatant attack on me,anti-semitic attack on me,
until last year, 80 years old,I'm walking in the street of my
neighborhood where I walk allthe time, walking down Columbus
(32:10):
Avenue, and a guy comes up, ayoungish guy, and he's walking
behind me and then he's next tome and then he says dirty Jew.
I was so taken aback.
I never experienced anythinglike that.
I couldn't say anything andlater I thought why didn't I run
after him and beat him up?
That's my usual belatedresponse.
I mean, I was a kickboxer and Iwanted to punch somebody, but I
(32:33):
never did so.
There's that.
But another thing was that I wasdoxxed at my college, where I
haven't taught for a decade,where I'm retired, and there
were these doxxing trucks andthe truck had my picture just as
it did 25 other people on thetruck with the caption CUNY's
worst anti-Semite.
(32:54):
And then it was paired with a.
This was true of everybody whogot doxxed with a website thing
that said all this nonsenseabout me, that I was an
administrator, I don't know what.
They made this stuff up, butyou know.
Then I thought, wow, what canthey do to me?
They can't fire me I'm alreadyretired but somebody could take
that.
They could find out where Ilive easily or threaten me.
(33:17):
I could be followed, and thatwas much scarier to me than the
guy walking down the street.
Well, I'll never see again.
He called me a dirty Jew, and Itell that story because it's
just to accentuate.
We are in a particular moment.
Anti-semitism is real.
It's not to be dismissed.
We, as JVP and as individuals,we totally oppose it, as we do
(33:42):
all forms of racism, but we haveto understand it as part of a
whole array of racisms thatwhite nationalism and white
supremacy cultivate in thiscountry.
And the real anti-Semites arethere, and they're in the
Republican Party, you know, andthe ones who actually abet it
are the Zionists.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yeah, this is Esther and the Zionists.
Just you know, to build on whatRaza's saying, which is so
important, the Zionists and theMAGA people, the biggest racist,
are now together.
That's what Zionism has wrought.
So for us, zionism isprofoundly anti-Semitic.
It takes the whole history ofJewish support we like to say.
My mother used to say we'reJews for justice, not just us,
(34:30):
we're Jews for justice, not justus.
It takes that whole philosophyand turns it around and makes it
only us.
No more justice for everybody.
It's totally anti-Semitic andanti-historical of who Jews are
supposed to be.
So there's that.
And then you know, thisconfluence of MAGA people, trump
people and Zionists is soshameful.
So to answer your question,which I think is really
important no, I don't think weshould shy away from
(34:51):
antisemitism.
I mean, it's certainly the casethat what Israel is doing is
fueling antisemitism around theworld.
And an interesting story mypartner was on the subway and
these religious Jews got on thetrain and there were two people
talking about it and one said tothe other oh, look at these,
you know awful Jews, look whatthey're doing in Gaza.
And the other person said well,you can't really say it.
(35:13):
Look what they did in GrandCentral Station.
So I mean, in fact, we're theones that are fighting
anti-Semitism.
By what we're doing, we feeltotally unsafe.
I mean, roz is Jewish and she'sbeen doxxed by who.
Who is really attacking Jews?
Speaker 4 (35:32):
To follow up.
I've been thinking about thiswhole, this new McCarthyism, and
how pro-Palestinian oranti-occupation, anti-zionism
has become like what communismthat's now the new target.
And so my father was calledbefore the House Un-American
(35:53):
Activities Committee because hewas a communist and because he
was a Jew in 1964 in Buffalo andone thing that my parents
protected us from.
I was eight years old at thetime, but my parents got a lot
of hate mail and the hate mailand I have it now they've given
it to me, as you know.
I have it because we have ourlegacy.
(36:14):
I have clippings of a newspaperheadline and scrawled on it in
this terrible scrawl and saysyou dirty commie Jew, I'm going
to kill your children.
Signed Adolf Hitler.
And so one of the things thatmy father did in front of HUAC
that was so brave a lot of thosesenator congresspeople who sat
(36:36):
on the HUAC committee were fromsouthern states that didn't
allow Black people to vote in1964.
And he said that to them.
He said this committee isillegitimate because you're
coming from states that don'tallow Black people to vote, so
you're sitting illegally inCongress, so that makes this
committee illegal andillegitimate.
(36:56):
And so I thought about that,comparing these hearings where
they've called these collegepresidents to testify, and who
is the biggest one to attackthem is this woman, elise
Stefanik, here in New York State, carol Maga, republican, and
she's the one who's so worriedabout anti-Semitism on college
campuses.
(37:17):
And so I wish that thosecollege presidents had the
presence of mind and thestrategy and said like, who are
you to be called out?
But they, you know whateverthey crumbled and they didn't
take a forceful stand.
But I think that that's reallyan important point to make.
(37:37):
I think right thatanti-Semitism has been
weaponized, not to say that itdoesn't exist, but where it
exists is among theseright-wingers who would be done
with Rod, esther and me as fastas they would be done with the
migrants that are being now thatBiden is shutting down.
How many people?
can come yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
So I think that that's an important point to be
made, and teaching ofenslavement in schools and
teaching of women's rights andall the things that we've worked
for.
Yeah, they want to abolish.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
You know, when Pam said earlier about the history
of Jewish socialists and Jewishcommunists, my father was also
called before the House ofAmendment Committee.
We have very similar historiesand he told them to go to hell
and they were going to deporthim back to Palestine, but there
was no Palestine Irony ofironies, he literally had to
prove that he was a citizen.
(38:31):
But I mean, you know there wereso many Jews that went through
that and one of the statusthings was the influence of
Zionism even on them.
That you know, we used to sayprogressive, except for
Palestine HEPS.
And as you, that you know weused to say progressive, except
for Palestine heps.
And, as you said, in Canadathere were many socialist Jews.
It wasn't ordained that theynecessarily were anti-Zionist.
And you know there ishistorical context here.
(38:53):
There's no, there's no doubtabout that.
You know, people, after theHolocaust, jews were damaged
people.
They thought that the onlything that would keep them safe
was to have their own state anddidn't keep them safe.
How about that?
So some of the earlyanti-Zionist in our community
that we need to look at againhave always said that.
(39:15):
And history is a funny thing,you know.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Well, I'm glad I asked you this and this is why I
wanted to talk to the three ofyou, because I feel like there's
so much, there's a lot ofuntold, unwritten history here.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
I agree.
I agree with you about thathistory and I think one of the
things that is also veryimportant and is not understood
that much is the question of howclass and race has been the
complexities around that in ourUS history.
So when Esther and my familybackgrounds, coming out of a
very working class Jewishimmigrant community that was
(39:50):
faced with discrimination, wereworkers in factories, is a
different experience from maybesome of these young people,
people who grew up in suburbanupper middle class Jewish
communities, you know,reconnecting them to this
history of working class Jewsand the idea that because in
(40:13):
this country Jews were thenaccepted as white and were able
to move into other areas, thathistory gets lost.
So it's a question ofunderstanding our class
backgrounds and how do differentpolitics flow out of that.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
I think it's really important because I don't think
it was lost.
I think it was deliberatelysuppressed.
It is not to Zionist advantageto talk about that history of
Jewish activism.
I think it's even moreimportant that you know this
history gets raised, that peopleknow about it.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
For people like me it's interesting the class
differences between us and ourfamilies, because I grew up more
like the young people you'retalking about.
We have a lot in common.
It wasn't suburban, but Tulsa,Oklahoma, wasn't, you know,
heavily urban and a lot of theJews there were professional or
they were in business.
I didn't know until I came,moved to New York as a young
(41:05):
person, that there was any suchthing as poor Jews.
I had no idea.
It was so shocking to me.
I worked in housing and I said,oh my God, these people are
Jewish and they're poor.
It was really incredible.
I mean, my family, of course,the generation before, were poor
, but I didn't know about them,and so it was suppressed from us
too, as was the history ofracism.
So there's a lot of suppressionof history that has to be
(41:27):
recovered for all of us, notjust for young people.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Agreed, and not just for young people and not just
for the Jewish community.
And to speak about livinghistory, roz, I read something
recently that talked about thefact that you were the oldest
person who was arrested at thedemonstration at Grand Central
Station, and I know that youwere also involved in the
organizing of the elders whochained themselves to the fence
(41:54):
of the White House, and I wantedto ask you about that, about
that experience and about youknow, what is it like as an
older woman activist?
Is it different?
Is it different being arrested?
Is it different going out onthe front lines in this way?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I mean, I was arrested three times since
October 7th and tried for afourth time.
It didn't quite work out.
I got conned by a cop intogoing home, but anyway, I was so
angry and everybody was, but Ithought wait a second, I'm in a
position of power.
I am old, I am retired, I donot have children at home, I do
(42:31):
not have people I'm caring for,I can get arrested.
It's not a big deal.
I had to work to get arrested.
I had to beg almost to getarrested, because they did not
have any interest in arresting alittle old white Jewish lady
with a cane.
No way they didn't want to.
In one case, the first one, Ihad to pretend I was cuffed and
(42:54):
walk onto the police van to bearrested and then get taken down
to one police closet.
It was an amazing thing.
And the second time, these guys, the police, were holding each
of my arms and there's a pictureof me being accompanied by the
police and laughing.
I'm laughing because it washilarious.
They treated me like I wastheir grandmother and I was so
(43:15):
conscious of how much race andclass had to do with that.
If I had been black, if I hadbeen Palestinian, forget it.
If I had been an elderly PuertoRican woman, no, it wouldn't
have happened like that.
So I was treated with suchdeference, such dignity.
Here we're going to take you,you're going to get in the first
seat.
(43:35):
So I learned something from thatI certainly was less afraid.
I wasn't afraid anyway.
I mean, I wasn't afraid.
What were they going to do tome?
And so that was just anattitude that came out of my
experience of privilege.
I mean, as older women, we'vebeen very present and
interviewed and vocal, and so itchanged our lives in a way.
(43:59):
The White House fence wassomething we did collectively, a
strategy that was developed bysome of our younger members.
They thought this would begreat and we were all willing to
do it.
It was freezing cold, it washard, but the repercussions were
not terrible.
What lasted was the image.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Just to add to what Roz is saying.
You know, we know in JVP theprivilege that we have as Jews
and as older Jews, and I thinkit's brilliant that you know
we're using that to advancethings and we're using that in
conjunction with our Palestinianpartners, who also know what
that privilege can do, andthat's a very effective thing.
People make decisions aboutthat, what they're willing to do
(44:39):
.
We don't have this thing.
Oh, you're not good if youdecide you don't want to be
arrested.
You've had enough of that.
You know, you did that when youwere younger.
I did that when I was younger.
I don't particularly want to dothat now.
Well, I'm just somebody who'sgoing to do it every single time
and I love her dearly for that.
And people make decisions aboutwhat they can do and what they
can't do.
You know that's decidedbeforehand.
I will say that the chaining ofthe you know, the elders to the
(45:05):
fence was very symbolic in manyways.
That was done by thesuffragette movement and we
people, we had done the researchto make sure that this is
historically accurate and thatit's going to have an impact on
the world, which it has.
And so these decisions are madein conjunction with you know
people who have someconsciousness about what symbols
mean.
It was 18,.
(45:25):
You know woman, 18 means high.
You know all of these things.
You know we talked about aspart of the Jewish tradition.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Thanks, esther.
It's tremendous to hear aboutthe strategic thinking that's
gone into all of these differentforms of protest, and I wanted
to ask you, before I let thethree of you go, when I was
speaking to people aboutinterviewing you today, I asked
each of them if you had thechance to speak to these three
tremendous and inspiring elderwomen in Jewish Voices for Peace
, what would be a question thatyou'd want to ask them?
(45:54):
And everyone had the samequestion on their minds, which
was what do you think thesolution is now?
And I know you've been askedthis, that I know everyone wants
to know this, so I'm compelledto ask you.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
This always comes up like what's the solution?
And you know, we in JVP, and Imyself, feel that we don't have
anything to say about solutions.
We live in this country, wedon't live there.
It's up to people there.
But I will say this thatwhatever solution and our
Palestinian partners and ourfriends tell us this the same
thing one state, two states.
That's not so concerning tothem.
(46:27):
What's concerning to them isthat they treat it like human
beings, that they don't have togo through checkpoints, that
they don't have to ride onseparate roads, that they have
access to care and can go towork and can live.
So equal rights would be nice,you know.
Equal rights would be reallyhelpful.
Whatever decision is made aboutone state, two states.
And of course, we're very awarethat the reason that there
(46:48):
hasn't been a state already hasbeen because Israel didn't want
it.
That's very important for us tosay, because almost every
politician that we saw yesterdaywas like well, hamas has to be
convinced to take the ceasefiredeal.
Hamas doesn't have to beconvinced about anything.
They were the ones that putthis deal out.
It's Israel that said theywould refuse to deal with the
ceasefire.
So it's a constant battlearound this narrative, which is
(47:11):
a lot.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
But it's also very, very difficult because right now
is the crisis.
Lives have to be saved and theproblem I totally agree with
Esther, and most Palestiniansand most people I know think one
state, two state, that's a redherring.
That's not the issue.
Except what's different?
(47:32):
Now, in the wake of thegenocide, there are not many
Palestinians who would feel wecan live with these people.
So what's the answer?
I don't know, but, as Esthersaid, it's not up to us to
decide that.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Fair enough, that's a fair enough answer, and I hear
you, roz, and so I have to askyou, as we come to a close, with
your government continuing tosend money to the state of
Israel, and with the academicyear coming to a close and the
encampments no longer in theprotests, no longer in the news
cycle, how do you keep going?
(48:09):
What's keeping you going?
How do you keep the pressure on?
Speaker 4 (48:13):
This is Pam.
One thing that keeps me goingis seeing the response of people
and knowing even a small effort, a small action was important.
And we were leafleting here inan area of the Bronx and we were
out there it was, I think, fourof us.
It's not an area heavilypopulated by, like necessarily,
(48:36):
activists, it's not by a college, but just regular people
walking down the street andalmost everybody walking by
agreed and we're happy to seewhat we were doing.
And a guy walked by and he hada t-shirt on that said the best
falafel, something like that,and he kind of looked and then
he gave the thumbs up and then acouple minutes later he came
(48:58):
back and he said do you likefalafel?
He said I make the best falafelin this truck.
He was Palestinian and he wasso moved to see us there, kind
of like out of the blue, andthen he came back and he brought
us these huge falafelsandwiches that were absolutely
delicious and actually a hookahbar.
(49:24):
We decided to do something alittle bit different.
We had our activist people whocame, and then there were people
there who just young people whogo there to do hookah, and we
had them.
We showed a film called SpeedSisters and we had this
remarkable discussion afterwardswhere a young guy who was Iraqi
grew up after 9-11, and as alittle child and kind of faces
Islamophobia and it was just.
(49:44):
You know, you might walk by andthink, oh, you know, these
people don't care about what'sgoing on, but you realize that
people out there care about thisthing and that makes me want to
keep going.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, I mean, I just have to add to that I like to
characterize this moment as thehorror and the hope, because
it's both at the same time,which is pretty exhausting.
But you know, we have thisBronx Brooklyn kind of
competitive thing going on.
But you know, I mean you knowthe work that they're doing
uptown for Palestine is fabulousand stories are so indicative
(50:17):
of you know what's happening.
We had a Palestinian restaurantthat opened up in my
neighborhood and when they firstopened, you know there was a
lot of hate mail and they had intheir menu on the seafood thing
.
It said from the river to thesea, and so the Zionists went
crazy from the river to supportthe restaurant.
They were so moved by thesupport that they got that they
(50:45):
decided to sponsor a Shabbatdinner for the community, which
they did.
A thousand people showed up andthey spent $40,000 feeding the
entire community with Shabbatservices that went on for about
two and a half hours.
So this is an example of stuffthat's happening in New York and
around the country that youknow gives us the hope to
(51:07):
realize.
I mean, even when Roz and Iyesterday were you know we're
lobbying in Washington and therewere these other groups that
were lobbying and as we pass by,in our shirts it said ceasefire
now, not in our name.
People are going like this andyou know so you know.
We've had demonstrations wherepeople are like thank you so
much, thank you so much.
It's really like a verydifferent moment relative to
(51:29):
ordinary people on the streetand what they're seeing.
Very dear Puerto Rican friendof mine who's been involved in
Puerto Rican activism for manyyears, said JVP is giving us
hope.
It means a great deal.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
And many Palestinians say that.
I mean, I've been told byPalestinian friends and partners
.
We saw you on Instagram.
That was the first moment wehad of hope the Grand Central
Station or something else.
So it's very clear that ourpresence means something and
gives encouragement.
Personally, I'm going to just behonest.
(52:01):
Esther and I came back.
We were wrecked.
It was hard to go all throughthose buildings for miles and
miles, and miles.
I use a cane.
My body thought, if I don't getin bed right now, I'm going to
pass out.
I mean, it was difficult andthat's a real thing.
I'm 81.
I have to cope with the realitythat my body isn't going to be
(52:23):
able to do this indefinitely.
I do many things.
I'm a writer, I'm a speaker.
I can continue doing thosethings and still, hopefully,
have some kind of impact.
I can't be out in the streetsas much as I want to be, even
though when I am there's so manypeople.
And that's the thing about hopetoo.
I mean the culture that we'vecreated.
(52:45):
When I say we, I don't meanjust JVP.
I'm talking about theencampments, I'm talking about
the young people.
It's one of care and love, aswell as justice and struggle.
I've been in every kind ofmovement, many organizations.
Over my whole life, I havenever experienced the feeling
I'm well cared for here.
(53:06):
Not only do they love me, theycare of me, they make sure I'm
okay, that I have what I need.
It's unbelievable, and it's notjust because I'm old.
They do the same thing for eachother.
They're there for each otherwhen they're suffering.
They put resources online aboutmassages, about needle what do
(53:26):
you call it?
Acupuncture, acupuncture,acupuncture I started saying
needlepoint.
They're amazing.
That is my hope.
The hope of people with thatkind of politics is the hope for
the future of the world, Ithink.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
What a perfect note to end on, and thank you so much
.
The three of you Thank you witha full heart for this and for
all that you do and all that Iknow you will continue to do.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
Lovely.
Thank you very much Love youguys.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Thanks for listening.
I'm Ilana Lansford-Lewis, yourhost of Wisdom at Work older
women, elder women andgrandmothers on the move.
To find out more about me orthe podcast, you can go to
wisdomatworkpodcastcom, formerlygrandmothers on the move, and
you can find the podcast at allyour favorite places to listen
to them.
Tune in next week.
Thanks and bye-bye for now.
I'm Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, your host of
Wisdom at Work older women,elder women and grandmothers on
the move, the podcast that kicksold stereotypes to the curb.
Come meet these creative,outrageous, authentic,
adventurous, irreverent andpowerful disruptors and
influencers older women andgrandmothers from the living
(00:20):
room to the courtroom, makingpowerful contributions in every
walk of life.
The living room to thecourtroom, making powerful
contributions in every walk oflife.
Hello, it's Ilana, welcome backto Wisdom at Work.
And today I have a reallyspecial conversation, important
conversation.
I have to admit to you that ittook place a month ago and so it
hasn't been updated with all ofthe recent events in the world
(00:42):
and in the United States, wherethese three remarkable and
inspiring activists are livingin New York.
Esther Farmer, who is thedirector and playwright of
Wrestling with Zionism, inaddition to producing
storytelling workshops aroundthe country.
As a Jewish Voice for Peacenational artist, she has played
leadership roles in the New YorkCity Housing Authority, as a
(01:03):
United Nations representativeand as a founder of Teamsters
for a Democratic Union.
And then there's Dr RosalindPachesky, distinguished
Professor Emerita of PoliticalScience at Hunter College City
University of New York, cuny.
She's a recipient of theMacArthur Genius Fellowship and
the Charles A McCoy CareerAchievement Award.
She's written criticallyimportant books and articles in
(01:25):
the field of reproductive andsexual rights and justice, and
Roz is a Jewish voice for peace,new York City chapter leader, a
classical pianist and akickboxer.
Esther and Roz co-edited,authored with Sarah Sills, a
book called A Land with a People.
Palestinians and Jews ConfrontZionism in 2021.
And joining them is Pam Sporn,a Bronx-based educator and
(01:48):
award-winning filmmaker andactivist.
A pioneer in bringing socialissues documentary making into
New York City high schools.
In the 80s and 90s, pamcontributed to the growth of the
youth media movement sheorganizes with Jewish Voice for
Peace and Bronx Neighbors forPalestine.
And for some context, before webegin, jewish Voice for Peace
(02:12):
describes itself as the largestprogressive Jewish anti-Zionist
organization in the world,organizing a grassroots,
multiracial, cross-class,intergenerational movement of
leftist Jews in the UnitedStates in solidarity with the
Palestinian freedom struggle.
You may have heard of JVP in themedia as the organizer of many
of the protests against theactions of the state of Israel
(02:32):
in Gaza, like the one in GrandCentral Station in New York.
There is, of course, a widerange of worldviews within the
Jewish community.
There always has been and therealways will be, and it is an
indescribably painful moment inour history and this
conversation will not be easyfor everyone.
I want to acknowledge that.
But since its inception, thispodcast has sought to shine a
(02:54):
spotlight on the remarkable andimportant contribution older
women, grandmothers and elderwomen in our communities and
countries are making to thebetterment of the human
condition and to amplify theirvoices and perspectives.
And I was inspired by theprofound commitment to an action
for justice that has informedthe activism of Esther, roz and
(03:15):
Pam and others like them, andthe thoughtful way in which the
JVP has worked to open bravespaces to help us engage in
these critical and challengingconversations.
In that spirit, I want towelcome you, pam, esther and Roz
, to the Wisdom at Work podcast.
Thank you for being here today.
I thought I'd start by askingyou what brought you to this
(03:37):
moment where you decided thatyou must join in the protests
and raise your voice and beheard in the movement of
protests against the genocide inGaza.
Roz, why don't we start withyou?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
I'll just say that we are involved deeply, all of us,
in Jewish Voice for Peace andJewish Voice for Peace New York
City, in different neighborhoods, but deeply in that
organization.
That's our political home, ourleaders, where we learn our
messaging.
I just tell my story.
I was very involved in JVP for10 years and I was traveling
(04:11):
with a group of old friends thatI grew up with in Oklahoma, old
ladies traveling in Nashville,tennessee, and all of a sudden
the news came it was October 7thof what had happened and then
the Israeli response and I wasso devastated, almost hysterical
, I mean.
I was deeply, deeply franticand worried and felt very like a
(04:36):
fish out of water in this weirdplace of Nashville Tennessee,
with all these friends whoreally didn't share my politics
but were very comforting andvery sympathetic, and all I
wanted was to be home and withmy people.
And from the minute I got on theplane and then I got off the
plane and was on my phonelooking at all the messages and
(04:57):
I saw we're doing ademonstration tonight in front
of Schumer's building I saidthat's it, we're going, I go
home, I get my things.
In case I'm in CD civildisobedience I say I might be in
jail.
Get a toothbrush, have thesanitary things I need, what I
need in case I'm in jailovernight, and go.
Go to Grand Army Plaza.
(05:18):
That was all I could think.
Just act in the moment with mypeople who are Jewish Voice for
Peace.
It wasn't even something I hadto think about because we had
been working for so long and weknew Israel's going in.
We know this is it.
They're going to take themoment, this pretext for utter
devastation.
We didn't call it at thatmoment genocide, but we were
(05:41):
anticipating something of thesort and we were very, very
angry and devastated and worriedcollectively.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
This is Esther speaking.
So I think all three of us havebeen anti-Zionist Jews for many
, many years.
I myself, I'm a Palestinian Jew.
My father was born in Palestine.
Many people think that's veryweird.
It's not weird.
Palestine was a country and itcontained Muslims, jews and
(06:09):
Christians and at the time thatmy family lived there, it was
about 10% Jewish, 10% Christianand 80% Muslim.
And my family who lived inPalestine.
They were very religious, veryreligious Jews and at the same
time, extremely anti-Zionist.
Religious, very religious Jewsand at the same time, extremely
anti-Zionist.
That very existence of myfamily gives the lie to the fact
that anti-Zionism is the sameas anti-Semitism.
(06:31):
It's simply not true and therehave always been anti-Zionist
Jews.
And what was my father's worryabout Zionism?
He said the Palestinians arebeing blamed for the Holocaust
when they had nothing to do withit.
It's going to make the worldcompletely unsafe, both for
Palestinians and Jews.
He used to say why do Jews needa state?
(06:52):
We're nomads.
We take culture everywhere.
So like the whole thing nowabout diasporic Jews is
something that he used to say.
And the other thing that wasvery prophetic which really
affected me deeply was when hesaid that the Zionists love
Israel but they hate Jews, andthat's the name of my story in
the book A Land with a People,and I've seen that over and over
(07:13):
again.
It deeply, deeply hurts me tosee how Jews have moved to the
right based on this.
You know, tribal, small,horrible philosophy that says
Jews have to be supreme, andwhenever you say any people have
to be supreme, you're going tohave resistance.
And so all of this talk aboutHamas, hamas, hamas.
(07:35):
You can talk about the ethicsof that, and of course we do,
but it's going to continue tohappen as long as this
repression of Palestinianshappen.
So when October 7th happened,it was very clear, as Raz said,
what Israel was going to do, andwe were there.
So this is not a moment, insome ways, that are different
(07:57):
for us, because we've beeninvolved in this for many, many
years and we actually knew thatsomething like this was bound to
happen, and that's one of ourdeep messages.
This was bound to happen and itwill continue to happen until
we change the occupation and theapartheid state in Israel.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Right.
This is Pam Sporn speaking, andI've been demonstrating against
the Israeli occupation ofPalestine with Esther and Raz
for over a decade.
I was with my brother, who hadcome into New York City from
Chicago to visit my brand newgrandbaby on October 6th 7th,
(08:37):
and we heard on the news theattack that Hamas did.
We knew right away thatsomething horrific was going to
come in response, and I must saythat one of the things that
keeps me going out there in thestreets is that when I visit
this grandbaby, who is now ninemonths old, or will be nine
(08:57):
months old almost the samelength as this war has been
going on, she's healthy, she'shappy, she's not suffering
trauma, she's well-fed, she's achubby little, wonderful role of
funniness.
And I just think about how theexperience for babies in Gaza
some who were born after October7th and never made it to two
(09:22):
weeks old and it just keeps megoing back into the streets.
I was one of the early people inthe JVP chapter, so we've been
demonstrating against horrificbombings of Gaza, but never in
that time have I seen this kindof destruction and mass death
and it's just unbelievable.
(09:42):
I actually had stepped back abit from being very, very
involved in Jewish Voice forPeace because I was working on a
film and just other things andwhen that demonstration was
called that Roz spoke aboutGrand Army Plaza in front of
Schumer's office, I canceledsomething else and I went there
and I didn't know how manypeople to expect because all of
(10:04):
this had just happened and Ithought maybe there'd be a
hundred people and I justcouldn't believe how this
thousand or more people turnedout and this kind of new crop of
young people stepping forwardand I was just really, really
moved.
And you know, we've been doingit ever since and unfortunately
(10:25):
it looks like we're going to bedoing it for a long time.
Thank you for that, all of you.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
And I have a question .
Esther, you brought somethingto mind.
I wasn't going to ask, but youspoke a little bit about this.
And Pam and Roz, I'd love tohear from you too.
I'm fascinated to know whereyour anti-Zionism came from.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Well, I tell that story.
This is Roz from In a Land withthe People, a book that Esther
and I and Sarah Sills co-editedand wrote big parts of it.
I was 16 years old and I was ina family that was quite Zionist
, but liberal Zionist.
My grandmother, my father verymuch so my mother wasn't
terribly political and we hadlearned about Israel from the
time.
I was very small and we thoughtIsrael was just something
(11:09):
fabulous.
I learned much later when I wasresearching the part of the
book that I wrote.
I did some research in thearchive of the temple that we
went to in Tulsa, oklahoma, andlearned details about how the
messages of Zionism wereimported into communities like
the one I lived in and to therabbis, and it was a big
(11:32):
campaign, you know.
I mean the planting of thetrees and putting your little
tzedakah in the box and all ofthat stuff.
And you probably experiencedthat, ilana I don't think Esther
did.
I don't know about Pam.
By the time I was 16, I said tomy parents I want to go to
Israel because there was anopportunity.
It was a forerunner ofBirthright, it was the B'nai
(11:53):
Abraith youth and my parentswere pretty indulgent with me
and they said OK, and I went onthis trip and I'm all
starry-eyed about Israel, but Iwas also beginning to be
involved in the civil rightsmovement.
It was the early civil rightsmovement, it was actually 1959.
And I was becoming ananti-racist.
And there I was on a kibbutzand I'm talking to this man I
(12:16):
didn't know him but he wasclearly African and we were just
talking and a woman came up tome, a white woman, ashkenazi
white woman with a very strongBrooklyn accent, and said don't
talk to him.
And I said what, why not?
She said he's African.
And that was the beginning ofmy lifelong radicalization,
(12:45):
dismissed by the local rabbisaying that I was just a young
girl and I didn't know what Iwas talking about.
And honestly, that was a favorto me.
It made me strongly, not justanti-Zionist, not just
anti-racist, but feminist.
I said what are you saying thatI'm a girl and I don't know
what I'm talking about?
I mean, I didn't have fuck inmy vocabulary then but I would
have, you know, used it.
(13:07):
So it was from.
From then on, and then I had alot of contact with Palestinians
.
My mentor in college was agreat intellectual, ibrahim
Abulagud.
He's the father of LailaAbulagud, the anthropologist,
and then my students at HunterCollege when I was teaching
there years later, a a lot ofthem were Palestinian, great
Palestinian feminists.
You would know who they are.
And I just was pulled as a Jewto say we didn't say not in my
(13:32):
name then, but that's what wemeant.
We meant no way, we will notsupport this.
And I found solidarity withPalestinian feminists and ever
since.
So anti-Zionist, absolutely.
And I'll just say one morething as a political theorist,
which is my field, I am stronglyand have been forever against
(13:54):
ethno-nationalism.
Any ethno-nationalism is goingto be like Esther's father was
describing it's a setup forconflict and war.
My uncle was a man namedMaurice Friedman.
He was the biographer of MartinBuber.
Buber was one of the 20thcentury Jews who opposed the
idea of a Jewish state.
(14:15):
It was going to cause muchconflict.
It was going to cause war.
He knew that.
Hannah Arendt knew that.
Albert Einstein knew that therewere lots of anti-Zionist
intellectuals, and not justintellectuals but ordinary
people too.
So we feel like we're part of avery proud and noble tradition
that goes way back.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
So this is Esther.
You know we have a program inJVP that we developed called how
to have Hard ConversationsAbout Israel-Palestine, and in
that program I always say that Itake my hat off to people like
Roz and Pam and I have similarbackgrounds.
But you know people like Rozwho have had to turn away from a
(14:57):
lifetime of propaganda and youknow heavy duty, constant
propaganda.
I didn't have to go throughthat.
My father would say Israel,shemizreel, the United States
needs Israel, not Jews, I mean.
So way before October 7th wehad a theater project called
Wrestling with Zionism where wehad people tell their stories of
(15:18):
exactly what you're askingtheir journeys around becoming
an anti-Zionist, and I thinkthat's really important.
This weekend we just came back,roz and I just came back from
lobbying Congress and you knowwe met the most interesting
people and one of the peoplethat I met was a rabbi who was a
kahanist.
She was in the JDL.
(15:40):
Now, when I was at BrooklynCollege people of color we had
pitched battles, physicalbattles with JDL people around
the issue of open admissions andaround the issue of
establishing one of the firstPuerto Rican studies departments
and the first African-Americanstudies department in the
country, which Pam sobeautifully did a film on called
(16:02):
Making the Impossible Possible,beautifully did a film on
called Making the ImpossiblePossible, and we had pitched
battles with the JDL.
And here in front of me was thiswoman who had been in the, you
know, raised as a Kahanist andnow with JVP, and that was such
a thrilling thing that, you know, people can actually move and
(16:23):
people are moving.
So, you know, for 50 years wehave been like, considered this
fringe, crazy, you know, groupof people who were saying this
thing that nobody is saying, andnow all of a sudden this is no
longer fringe.
So one of the things that wenoticed in this lobbying thing,
I mean, you know, some of thesame stupid stuff comes out of
(16:43):
their mouth.
It's embarrassing how stupidsome of these folks are that are
supposed to represent us.
But they have to be respectfulbecause we are now we are an
established force in thiscountry and the tide has turned
and the narrative has changedand we've been working at
changing that narrative for thelast 50 years, but, especially
since JVP has been formed, wehave really been at this
(17:05):
narrative and all of a sudden,the social motion has just you
know, what's happening is thisanti-war, leftist movement
that's concentrated on Palestine.
I never in my life would havethought that was possible, so
it's quite a moment to beinvolved.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
This is Pam.
Again, I echo a lot of whatEsther has expressed.
I also have been tremendouslyimpressed and moved by Roz's
story and also the young peoplewho tell stories of how they've
had to find a new way ofunderstanding the world and
(17:42):
Israel-Palestine.
That's different from theirfamilies.
My immediate family, my parents, were never Zionists.
My father was a communist.
He was part of the communistmovement and I think one of the
reasons that it may seem strangeto some people that there are
anti-Zionist Jews is because thehistory of the communist and
(18:05):
left movement has beensuppressed and a lot of people
don't know about it.
But I grew up in a householdwhere the idea of the unity of
multiracial and multiethnicworking class people was the
goal, that that kind of unity iswhat would make social change
(18:25):
happen and that without thatunity and I remember I grew up
in Detroit I was an activist inanti-war and anti-racist,
anti-police brutality issueswhen I was a teenager and I
remember there was a forum andsomeone came to speak.
It was an Israeli Jew who was acommunist and he was on a
(18:48):
speaking tour.
He was talking about the needfor Israeli, jewish and
Palestinian workers to unite andhe later had to serve, I think,
30 years in prison.
So I have been aware for manyyears that that idea was deeply
problematic for the powers thatbe in Israel and I wish that we
(19:11):
had evidence that many, many,many Israelis were following
that belief now, and I hope thathappens.
So that's the kind ofbackground that I come from,
although different.
There were other family membersthat were Zionists and I knew
that my father and thisparticular uncle.
I grew up they would havepitched a battle across the
(19:34):
dinner table, so I always knewthat there was a contest about
this.
This was not necessarily thebiggest issue for me, because I
grew up in Detroit.
I've lived in New York City forthe most of all of my adult
life.
I've been a teacher inunder-resourced schools in the
Bronx and Harlem.
(19:54):
My students have faced policebrutality.
You know other issues up frontthat I was involved in, but I
say that a Haitian-Americanfriend of mine actually
recruited me to JVP in aroundabout way, and that's that
I was involved in scheduling afilm series that had to do with
(20:16):
Afro Latinos, and one of thefilms was about anti-Blackness
in the Dominican Republic andanti-Haitianism in the Dominican
Republic, and so this HaitianAmerican friend of mine was on a
panel Q&A after we showed thatfilm and she said that only
change will happen whenDominicans who are not of
(20:37):
Haitian descent speak up againstthis racism.
And something just kind ofclicked that I am Jewish and I
need to make this an issue ofmine, where I need to speak out
against the occupation and theracist apartheid in Israel, and
that's when I searched and Ifound Jewish Voice for Peace.
Speaker 3 (20:58):
Esther, you wanted to say something, one of the very
interesting things that'shappened, which I never expected
, you know, as Pam was sharing.
You know, most of theanti-Zionist Jews came from the
socialist and communist.
That's what it meant to be aprogressive at a certain point
in our history.
So many Jews were socialistthat's the history we come from
(21:18):
and they were the anti-Zionist.
Now it's completely different.
We are getting so many veryreligiously oriented Jews, young
Jews who grew up with seekingalarm and you know we have to
repair the world and they'rereally putting their money where
their mouth is.
You know, relative to, you know, liberation theology, which is
what it is.
(21:38):
So we have so many rabbis andso many very observant Jews very
odd for some of us thousands ofyoung Jews.
So that's a real interestingphenomenon and a change that we
can't seem to get ourrepresentatives to understand.
That you know, this is verycritical for young Jews who are
(21:59):
observant and believe thatJudaism, this is not their
Judaism, and so you know, basedon that, I mean, we have almost
tripled our membership.
Jvp has over a millionsupporters and followers and
continuing to grow, so it'squite something.
What has happened with thenarrative?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, and I wanted to say that for a lot of us elder
secular leftists, jvp hasbrought us closer to Judaism.
I mean, for me I grew up thatway but then I was severed from
it and I was alienated from it.
Really, meeting and workingwith these young people and also
the rabbis has really broughtus back to something about our
(22:38):
traditions and the notion thatJewishness and you know, judith
Butler has always said thisJewishness is different from
Zionism.
It comes with a whole set ofvalues and ethics that we
cherish and that are close toour socialism, close to our
feminism.
The other thing is meetingthese young people.
I've been struck by theirstruggle, a lot of them.
(22:59):
They have struggles with theirfamilies like some of us have
had.
I met this young man who waspart of the Columbia Barnard
encampment and we were talkingand he said, oh, I wish you
could talk to my mother, I wishyou could talk to my
grandparents.
It's so hard.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
I'm so glad you mentioned this story because
it's something I wanted to askyou.
You know there is thisimpression.
I've heard it implicitly.
Certainly it comes through inthe coverage by the media that
you know it's older people whoare Zionists and it's younger
people who are the protesters,partly because of the
encampments, of course.
But I think it speaks also tosomething I wanted to ask you
(23:36):
about which is this terriblefracture, the fractures in our
community and in our families?
And you know what do you do tofind solace, who do you turn to?
And, in fact, one of the thingsthat compelled me to speak to
the three of you is that I think, in times like these, it's
extraordinarily important foryoung people who are protesting
and who feel this terribledislocation to know that there
(23:59):
are elders who have been at thisfor a long time and to whom
they can turn.
Do you say, and what do youthink of this impression of sort
of the elders and young peoplein terms of the protest movement
?
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, I mean we've worked really hard in JVP, you
know.
I mean I have never felt sorespected and loved by so many
of the younger people in JVP.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
It's kind of remarkable, yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
I don't you know I don't have a family issue.
All my parents areunfortunately dead for a long
time now but you know, relativeto my kids or you know it's a
small family, but no, I don'thave that.
And other people are really,really struggling with this and
in the hard conversationsworkshop that we do, we started
off dealing with Misraim,sefardi, andrahim, arab,
(24:47):
so-called Arab Jews, where thereis this you know again this
racist kind of stereotype thatall Arab Jews are the most
Zionist, and so there's a hugenetwork now of Misrahim that
have said no way and they'vebeen building and working and
we've done a lot of workrelative to family relationships
(25:07):
, relationships and some of it'slike therapy because for a lot
of the Arab Jews that are soupset about the ruptures with
their family, it's a particularkind of isolation, because
they're already isolated in theJewish community that they're
not real Jews, or particularlynot.
(25:30):
That it's not meaningful toeverybody, but it has a
particular consonance for a lotof misrahim.
So we've been doing a lot ofwork with these hard
conversations in how to keepyour relationship, maintain your
relationship and try to buildas you organize.
It's an organizing job to talkto people right now and more and
more Jews are coming around.
Recently, somebody said to mewell, you know my father.
He was an ardent Zionist, buthe saw something about what was
(25:50):
happening in Gaza and he saidthis is not my Judaism.
And that is the kind of thingthat we're hearing more and more
, and we are urging and workingtowards teaching people how to
have the kinds of conversationsthat are going to move people on
this journey and in JVP.
Wherever you are on thisjourney, you're welcome and
that's very important, becausewe don't want to be.
(26:11):
You have to be pure and youhave to think exactly the same
way that we do with every singleaspect.
We know that this is a journeyand we want to support people
along that journey.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I love that, esther, thank you, and I wanted to ask
the three of you aboutintersectional identities.
There's the whole issue that'scome up just recently, this
summer, of course, of a parallelmarch to the Pride March.
That is more of a protestbecause of the inclusion of an
Israeli contingent in the PrideMarch in New York City, and
(26:41):
they've also raised sort ofyoung people and elders in the
community and I just wanted tohear more from you about that in
terms of this moment of protestand the coalescing around the
movement.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Well, one of the things that's really wonderful
for me about our JVP culture andthe young people who are really
very much in the leadership isthey are intersectional.
They came into it that way.
They came from labor movements,they came from climate justice
organizations.
I mean it gets to me a littlebit that they take feminism for
(27:13):
granted because they think, oh,we did that, we won that already
.
But you know, as far as prideis concerned, I mean our JVP
chapter in New York City hasbeen involved in pride every
single year.
We're deeply involved withformer ACT UP people.
The queerness of JVP leadershipis amazing and you know there
(27:34):
have been splits in the past.
So separate pride march, that'svery pro-Palestine.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
This is Pam, again coming from a neighborhood that
is not primarily Jewish.
I'm in the North Bronx and alot of the big rallies happen
either in Brooklyn, wherethere's a sizable Jewish
community, or in Manhattan infront of Schumer's office, where
the target is quite clear.
And I felt like I want to bringthis movement more into the
(28:06):
Bronx where there arepro-Palestinian activities.
But it's different than, say,if I were in an area where I
know people do a lot of goodwork and there's a progressive
synagogue in Brooklyn.
That it's kind of like it'smore natural that we should be
talking about this because we'reJews.
But now coming up here in theBronx, like, why would this area
(28:26):
care about this issue?
My neighborhood is a lot ofBengali, dominican,
african-american, white too.
People do care about this.
We've come together and a fewJVP people but other people who
are not Jewish, informed Bronxneighbors for Palestine and it's
intergenerational and it'smulti-ethnic and we're trying to
(28:49):
make the comparisons and theanalysis of all of the money
that's going to support war.
How could that money be used tobuild up the social service
needs that we need here in theBronx?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
It's important to connect these struggles, to
connect these struggles.
I'm really glad you mentionedthis is Esther.
I'm glad you mentioned Alana.
You know this whole issue ofthe queer community.
I mean it amazes me and it's sotouching.
The contribution of the transcommunity, both Jewish and
Palestinian, is incredible andyou know, given the attacks on
(29:25):
the trans community in thiscountry in particular, it's like
the last thing they need isPalestine.
And yet they're here and havebeen unbelievably active and
principled in fighting theestablished what we used to call
gay community.
When they don't say anythingabout this genocide, they're the
(29:46):
ones in front of that struggleand lead the rest of us and it's
been incredibly moving.
So a lot of the discussionsaround strategy and how do you
resolve some of these conflictsthat you're saying.
It's an organizing job andthey're in the forefront of
helping us to figure that out.
So that's been a remarkableprocess and very touching.
(30:07):
And it's part of what we'redoing in JVP, which is not only
about being anti-Zionist butabout creating the culture that
we want to be in, that we wantto live in, because we know that
people will come for thepolitics but they won't stay for
the right political line.
They'll stay for theenvironment and for the culture
that we build and it's reallyimportant that we continue that
(30:29):
kind of culture.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Well, it isn't the most natural segue to go from
the kind of community that wewant to build and the kind of
world that we want to live in tothe next question I have.
But I really want to ask youabout this.
We're living in such achallenging and intractable
moment where any anti-Israelsentiment or objection to the
actions of the State of Israel,or anti-Zionist sentiments,
(30:55):
anti-genocide protest so often,are now conflated with
anti-Semitism, and I don't wantto suggest, by saying this or
voicing an objection to that,that anti-Semitism isn't present
and doesn't exist.
I certainly grew up with it andstill see it very much in
action.
But this moment where any kindof protest against the genocide
or any expression of outrageagainst the actions of the state
(31:20):
of Israel is now often decriedas anti-Semitic, I wonder how do
you think about that?
How do you deal with it?
What do you say?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
The weaponization of anti-Semitism is a terrible,
terrible threat and it has to beaddressed.
But at the same time, sometimesI tell a story and I say, look,
I didn't grow up experiencing alot of anti-Semitism, maybe I
was just protected from it by myfamily, by my household.
It must have been there inTulsa, oklahoma, are you kidding
(31:49):
?
I mean, we had the Klan.
Of course it was there, but Inever experienced, to my memory,
a direct, blatant attack on me,anti-semitic attack on me,
until last year, 80 years old,I'm walking in the street of my
neighborhood where I walk allthe time, walking down Columbus
(32:10):
Avenue, and a guy comes up, ayoungish guy, and he's walking
behind me and then he's next tome and then he says dirty Jew.
I was so taken aback.
I never experienced anythinglike that.
I couldn't say anything andlater I thought why didn't I run
after him and beat him up?
That's my usual belatedresponse.
I mean, I was a kickboxer and Iwanted to punch somebody, but I
(32:33):
never did so.
There's that.
But another thing was that I wasdoxxed at my college, where I
haven't taught for a decade,where I'm retired, and there
were these doxxing trucks andthe truck had my picture just as
it did 25 other people on thetruck with the caption CUNY's
worst anti-Semite.
(32:54):
And then it was paired with a.
This was true of everybody whogot doxxed with a website thing
that said all this nonsenseabout me, that I was an
administrator, I don't know what.
They made this stuff up, butyou know.
Then I thought, wow, what canthey do to me?
They can't fire me I'm alreadyretired but somebody could take
that.
They could find out where Ilive easily or threaten me.
(33:17):
I could be followed, and thatwas much scarier to me than the
guy walking down the street.
Well, I'll never see again.
He called me a dirty Jew, and Itell that story because it's
just to accentuate.
We are in a particular moment.
Anti-semitism is real.
It's not to be dismissed.
We, as JVP and as individuals,we totally oppose it, as we do
(33:42):
all forms of racism, but we haveto understand it as part of a
whole array of racisms thatwhite nationalism and white
supremacy cultivate in thiscountry.
And the real anti-Semites arethere, and they're in the
Republican Party, you know, andthe ones who actually abet it
are the Zionists.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Yeah, this is Esther and the Zionists.
Just you know, to build on whatRaza's saying, which is so
important, the Zionists and theMAGA people, the biggest racist,
are now together.
That's what Zionism has wrought.
So for us, zionism isprofoundly anti-Semitic.
It takes the whole history ofJewish support we like to say.
My mother used to say we'reJews for justice, not just us,
(34:30):
we're Jews for justice, not justus.
It takes that whole philosophyand turns it around and makes it
only us.
No more justice for everybody.
It's totally anti-Semitic andanti-historical of who Jews are
supposed to be.
So there's that.
And then you know, thisconfluence of MAGA people, trump
people and Zionists is soshameful.
So to answer your question,which I think is really
important no, I don't think weshould shy away from
(34:51):
antisemitism.
I mean, it's certainly the casethat what Israel is doing is
fueling antisemitism around theworld.
And an interesting story mypartner was on the subway and
these religious Jews got on thetrain and there were two people
talking about it and one said tothe other oh, look at these,
you know awful Jews, look whatthey're doing in Gaza.
And the other person said well,you can't really say it.
(35:13):
Look what they did in GrandCentral Station.
So I mean, in fact, we're theones that are fighting
anti-Semitism.
By what we're doing, we feeltotally unsafe.
I mean, roz is Jewish and she'sbeen doxxed by who.
Who is really attacking Jews?
Speaker 4 (35:32):
To follow up.
I've been thinking about thiswhole, this new McCarthyism, and
how pro-Palestinian oranti-occupation, anti-zionism
has become like what communismthat's now the new target.
And so my father was calledbefore the House Un-American
(35:53):
Activities Committee because hewas a communist and because he
was a Jew in 1964 in Buffalo andone thing that my parents
protected us from.
I was eight years old at thetime, but my parents got a lot
of hate mail and the hate mailand I have it now they've given
it to me, as you know.
I have it because we have ourlegacy.
(36:14):
I have clippings of a newspaperheadline and scrawled on it in
this terrible scrawl and saysyou dirty commie Jew, I'm going
to kill your children.
Signed Adolf Hitler.
And so one of the things thatmy father did in front of HUAC
that was so brave a lot of thosesenator congresspeople who sat
(36:36):
on the HUAC committee were fromsouthern states that didn't
allow Black people to vote in1964.
And he said that to them.
He said this committee isillegitimate because you're
coming from states that don'tallow Black people to vote, so
you're sitting illegally inCongress, so that makes this
committee illegal andillegitimate.
(36:56):
And so I thought about that,comparing these hearings where
they've called these collegepresidents to testify, and who
is the biggest one to attackthem is this woman, elise
Stefanik, here in New York State, carol Maga, republican, and
she's the one who's so worriedabout anti-Semitism on college
campuses.
(37:17):
And so I wish that thosecollege presidents had the
presence of mind and thestrategy and said like, who are
you to be called out?
But they, you know whateverthey crumbled and they didn't
take a forceful stand.
But I think that that's reallyan important point to make.
(37:37):
I think right thatanti-Semitism has been
weaponized, not to say that itdoesn't exist, but where it
exists is among theseright-wingers who would be done
with Rod, esther and me as fastas they would be done with the
migrants that are being now thatBiden is shutting down.
How many people?
can come yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
So I think that that's an important point to be
made, and teaching ofenslavement in schools and
teaching of women's rights andall the things that we've worked
for.
Yeah, they want to abolish.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
You know, when Pam said earlier about the history
of Jewish socialists and Jewishcommunists, my father was also
called before the House ofAmendment Committee.
We have very similar historiesand he told them to go to hell
and they were going to deporthim back to Palestine, but there
was no Palestine Irony ofironies, he literally had to
prove that he was a citizen.
(38:31):
But I mean, you know there wereso many Jews that went through
that and one of the statusthings was the influence of
Zionism even on them.
That you know, we used to sayprogressive, except for
Palestine HEPS.
And as you, that you know weused to say progressive, except
for Palestine heps.
And, as you said, in Canadathere were many socialist Jews.
It wasn't ordained that theynecessarily were anti-Zionist.
And you know there ishistorical context here.
(38:53):
There's no, there's no doubtabout that.
You know, people, after theHolocaust, jews were damaged
people.
They thought that the onlything that would keep them safe
was to have their own state anddidn't keep them safe.
How about that?
So some of the earlyanti-Zionist in our community
that we need to look at againhave always said that.
(39:15):
And history is a funny thing,you know.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Well, I'm glad I asked you this and this is why I
wanted to talk to the three ofyou, because I feel like there's
so much, there's a lot ofuntold, unwritten history here.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
I agree.
I agree with you about thathistory and I think one of the
things that is also veryimportant and is not understood
that much is the question of howclass and race has been the
complexities around that in ourUS history.
So when Esther and my familybackgrounds, coming out of a
very working class Jewishimmigrant community that was
(39:50):
faced with discrimination, wereworkers in factories, is a
different experience from maybesome of these young people,
people who grew up in suburbanupper middle class Jewish
communities, you know,reconnecting them to this
history of working class Jewsand the idea that because in
(40:13):
this country Jews were thenaccepted as white and were able
to move into other areas, thathistory gets lost.
So it's a question ofunderstanding our class
backgrounds and how do differentpolitics flow out of that.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
I think it's really important because I don't think
it was lost.
I think it was deliberatelysuppressed.
It is not to Zionist advantageto talk about that history of
Jewish activism.
I think it's even moreimportant that you know this
history gets raised, that peopleknow about it.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
For people like me it's interesting the class
differences between us and ourfamilies, because I grew up more
like the young people you'retalking about.
We have a lot in common.
It wasn't suburban, but Tulsa,Oklahoma, wasn't, you know,
heavily urban and a lot of theJews there were professional or
they were in business.
I didn't know until I came,moved to New York as a young
(41:05):
person, that there was any suchthing as poor Jews.
I had no idea.
It was so shocking to me.
I worked in housing and I said,oh my God, these people are
Jewish and they're poor.
It was really incredible.
I mean, my family, of course,the generation before, were poor
, but I didn't know about them,and so it was suppressed from us
too, as was the history ofracism.
So there's a lot of suppressionof history that has to be
(41:27):
recovered for all of us, notjust for young people.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Agreed, and not just for young people and not just
for the Jewish community.
And to speak about livinghistory, roz, I read something
recently that talked about thefact that you were the oldest
person who was arrested at thedemonstration at Grand Central
Station, and I know that youwere also involved in the
organizing of the elders whochained themselves to the fence
(41:54):
of the White House, and I wantedto ask you about that, about
that experience and about youknow, what is it like as an
older woman activist?
Is it different?
Is it different being arrested?
Is it different going out onthe front lines in this way?
Speaker 2 (42:09):
I mean, I was arrested three times since
October 7th and tried for afourth time.
It didn't quite work out.
I got conned by a cop intogoing home, but anyway, I was so
angry and everybody was, but Ithought wait a second, I'm in a
position of power.
I am old, I am retired, I donot have children at home, I do
(42:31):
not have people I'm caring for,I can get arrested.
It's not a big deal.
I had to work to get arrested.
I had to beg almost to getarrested, because they did not
have any interest in arresting alittle old white Jewish lady
with a cane.
No way they didn't want to.
In one case, the first one, Ihad to pretend I was cuffed and
(42:54):
walk onto the police van to bearrested and then get taken down
to one police closet.
It was an amazing thing.
And the second time, these guys, the police, were holding each
of my arms and there's a pictureof me being accompanied by the
police and laughing.
I'm laughing because it washilarious.
They treated me like I wastheir grandmother and I was so
(43:15):
conscious of how much race andclass had to do with that.
If I had been black, if I hadbeen Palestinian, forget it.
If I had been an elderly PuertoRican woman, no, it wouldn't
have happened like that.
So I was treated with suchdeference, such dignity.
Here we're going to take you,you're going to get in the first
seat.
(43:35):
So I learned something from thatI certainly was less afraid.
I wasn't afraid anyway.
I mean, I wasn't afraid.
What were they going to do tome?
And so that was just anattitude that came out of my
experience of privilege.
I mean, as older women, we'vebeen very present and
interviewed and vocal, and so itchanged our lives in a way.
(43:59):
The White House fence wassomething we did collectively, a
strategy that was developed bysome of our younger members.
They thought this would begreat and we were all willing to
do it.
It was freezing cold, it washard, but the repercussions were
not terrible.
What lasted was the image.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
Just to add to what Roz is saying.
You know, we know in JVP theprivilege that we have as Jews
and as older Jews, and I thinkit's brilliant that you know
we're using that to advancethings and we're using that in
conjunction with our Palestinianpartners, who also know what
that privilege can do, andthat's a very effective thing.
People make decisions aboutthat, what they're willing to do
(44:39):
.
We don't have this thing.
Oh, you're not good if youdecide you don't want to be
arrested.
You've had enough of that.
You know, you did that when youwere younger.
I did that when I was younger.
I don't particularly want to dothat now.
Well, I'm just somebody who'sgoing to do it every single time
and I love her dearly for that.
And people make decisions aboutwhat they can do and what they
can't do.
You know that's decidedbeforehand.
I will say that the chaining ofthe you know, the elders to the
(45:05):
fence was very symbolic in manyways.
That was done by thesuffragette movement and we
people, we had done the researchto make sure that this is
historically accurate and thatit's going to have an impact on
the world, which it has.
And so these decisions are madein conjunction with you know
people who have someconsciousness about what symbols
mean.
It was 18,.
(45:25):
You know woman, 18 means high.
You know all of these things.
You know we talked about aspart of the Jewish tradition.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
Thanks, esther.
It's tremendous to hear aboutthe strategic thinking that's
gone into all of these differentforms of protest, and I wanted
to ask you, before I let thethree of you go, when I was
speaking to people aboutinterviewing you today, I asked
each of them if you had thechance to speak to these three
tremendous and inspiring elderwomen in Jewish Voices for Peace
, what would be a question thatyou'd want to ask them?
(45:54):
And everyone had the samequestion on their minds, which
was what do you think thesolution is now?
And I know you've been askedthis, that I know everyone wants
to know this, so I'm compelledto ask you.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
This always comes up like what's the solution?
And you know, we in JVP, and Imyself, feel that we don't have
anything to say about solutions.
We live in this country, wedon't live there.
It's up to people there.
But I will say this thatwhatever solution and our
Palestinian partners and ourfriends tell us this the same
thing one state, two states.
That's not so concerning tothem.
(46:27):
What's concerning to them isthat they treat it like human
beings, that they don't have togo through checkpoints, that
they don't have to ride onseparate roads, that they have
access to care and can go towork and can live.
So equal rights would be nice,you know.
Equal rights would be reallyhelpful.
Whatever decision is made aboutone state, two states.
And of course, we're very awarethat the reason that there
(46:48):
hasn't been a state already hasbeen because Israel didn't want
it.
That's very important for us tosay, because almost every
politician that we saw yesterdaywas like well, hamas has to be
convinced to take the ceasefiredeal.
Hamas doesn't have to beconvinced about anything.
They were the ones that putthis deal out.
It's Israel that said theywould refuse to deal with the
ceasefire.
So it's a constant battlearound this narrative, which is
(47:11):
a lot.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
But it's also very, very difficult because right now
is the crisis.
Lives have to be saved and theproblem I totally agree with
Esther, and most Palestiniansand most people I know think one
state, two state, that's a redherring.
That's not the issue.
Except what's different?
(47:32):
Now, in the wake of thegenocide, there are not many
Palestinians who would feel wecan live with these people.
So what's the answer?
I don't know, but, as Esthersaid, it's not up to us to
decide that.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Fair enough, that's a fair enough answer, and I hear
you, roz, and so I have to askyou, as we come to a close, with
your government continuing tosend money to the state of
Israel, and with the academicyear coming to a close and the
encampments no longer in theprotests, no longer in the news
cycle, how do you keep going?
(48:09):
What's keeping you going?
How do you keep the pressure on?
Speaker 4 (48:13):
This is Pam.
One thing that keeps me goingis seeing the response of people
and knowing even a small effort, a small action was important.
And we were leafleting here inan area of the Bronx and we were
out there it was, I think, fourof us.
It's not an area heavilypopulated by, like necessarily,
(48:36):
activists, it's not by a college, but just regular people
walking down the street andalmost everybody walking by
agreed and we're happy to seewhat we were doing.
And a guy walked by and he hada t-shirt on that said the best
falafel, something like that,and he kind of looked and then
he gave the thumbs up and then acouple minutes later he came
(48:58):
back and he said do you likefalafel?
He said I make the best falafelin this truck.
He was Palestinian and he wasso moved to see us there, kind
of like out of the blue, andthen he came back and he brought
us these huge falafelsandwiches that were absolutely
delicious and actually a hookahbar.
(49:24):
We decided to do something alittle bit different.
We had our activist people whocame, and then there were people
there who just young people whogo there to do hookah, and we
had them.
We showed a film called SpeedSisters and we had this
remarkable discussion afterwardswhere a young guy who was Iraqi
grew up after 9-11, and as alittle child and kind of faces
Islamophobia and it was just.
(49:44):
You know, you might walk by andthink, oh, you know, these
people don't care about what'sgoing on, but you realize that
people out there care about thisthing and that makes me want to
keep going.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
Yeah, I mean, I just have to add to that I like to
characterize this moment as thehorror and the hope, because
it's both at the same time,which is pretty exhausting.
But you know, we have thisBronx Brooklyn kind of
competitive thing going on.
But you know, I mean you knowthe work that they're doing
uptown for Palestine is fabulousand stories are so indicative
(50:17):
of you know what's happening.
We had a Palestinian restaurantthat opened up in my
neighborhood and when they firstopened, you know there was a
lot of hate mail and they had intheir menu on the seafood thing
.
It said from the river to thesea, and so the Zionists went
crazy from the river to supportthe restaurant.
They were so moved by thesupport that they got that they
(50:45):
decided to sponsor a Shabbatdinner for the community, which
they did.
A thousand people showed up andthey spent $40,000 feeding the
entire community with Shabbatservices that went on for about
two and a half hours.
So this is an example of stuffthat's happening in New York and
around the country that youknow gives us the hope to
(51:07):
realize.
I mean, even when Roz and Iyesterday were you know we're
lobbying in Washington and therewere these other groups that
were lobbying and as we pass by,in our shirts it said ceasefire
now, not in our name.
People are going like this andyou know so you know.
We've had demonstrations wherepeople are like thank you so
much, thank you so much.
It's really like a verydifferent moment relative to
(51:29):
ordinary people on the streetand what they're seeing.
Very dear Puerto Rican friendof mine who's been involved in
Puerto Rican activism for manyyears, said JVP is giving us
hope.
It means a great deal.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
And many Palestinians say that.
I mean, I've been told byPalestinian friends and partners
.
We saw you on Instagram.
That was the first moment wehad of hope the Grand Central
Station or something else.
So it's very clear that ourpresence means something and
gives encouragement.
Personally, I'm going to just behonest.
(52:01):
Esther and I came back.
We were wrecked.
It was hard to go all throughthose buildings for miles and
miles, and miles.
I use a cane.
My body thought, if I don't getin bed right now, I'm going to
pass out.
I mean, it was difficult andthat's a real thing.
I'm 81.
I have to cope with the realitythat my body isn't going to be
(52:23):
able to do this indefinitely.
I do many things.
I'm a writer, I'm a speaker.
I can continue doing thosethings and still, hopefully,
have some kind of impact.
I can't be out in the streetsas much as I want to be, even
though when I am there's so manypeople.
And that's the thing about hopetoo.
I mean the culture that we'vecreated.
(52:45):
When I say we, I don't meanjust JVP.
I'm talking about theencampments, I'm talking about
the young people.
It's one of care and love, aswell as justice and struggle.
I've been in every kind ofmovement, many organizations.
Over my whole life, I havenever experienced the feeling
I'm well cared for here.
(53:06):
Not only do they love me, theycare of me, they make sure I'm
okay, that I have what I need.
It's unbelievable, and it's notjust because I'm old.
They do the same thing for eachother.
They're there for each otherwhen they're suffering.
They put resources online aboutmassages, about needle what do
(53:26):
you call it?
Acupuncture, acupuncture,acupuncture I started saying
needlepoint.
They're amazing.
That is my hope.
The hope of people with thatkind of politics is the hope for
the future of the world, Ithink.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
What a perfect note to end on, and thank you so much
.
The three of you Thank you witha full heart for this and for
all that you do and all that Iknow you will continue to do.
Speaker 3 (53:54):
Lovely.
Thank you very much Love youguys.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Thanks for listening.
I'm Ilana Lansford-Lewis, yourhost of Wisdom at Work older
women, elder women andgrandmothers on the move.
To find out more about me orthe podcast, you can go to
wisdomatworkpodcastcom, formerlygrandmothers on the move, and
you can find the podcast at allyour favorite places to listen
to them.
Tune in next week.
Thanks and bye-bye for now.
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