“We are here, together, to stand in solidarity with Palestinians in Palestine and across the diaspora. It was enough at the first utterance of establishing the settler colonial nation-state of israel in Palestine. It was enough the first hour of the Nakba in 1948 when thousands of Palestinians were forcefully and violently displaced from their indigenous lands by zionist militia. For over 75 years, Palestinians have endured abhorrent atrocity under occupation. Resources from Gaza to the West Bank to Hebron have been systematically stripped to inhumane levels of access. Water, electricity, movement, food, and housing for Palestinian people have been constricted by the israeli occupying forces for decades. What we are seeing in our time, what the people of Palestine are living through at this very moment, is genocide.
“We as Jews KNOW the horror of genocide, we have succumbed and suffered throughout the long arc of time, and so we say to the israeli state: Not. In. Our. Names.
“We will not stand by and be witness as the United States wholly backs the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), sending bombs with the intention of extinction into Palestine. In the past week alone, we have seen entire lineages of Palestinian families wiped off the registry; this is genocide. We have seen whole neighborhoods in Gaza where people lived full, wondrous, and loving lives, leveled to the ground; this is genocide. We have seen the sickening horror of israel bombing a hospital—killing hundreds of children, families, and doctors, and destroying crucial aid on the ground. Cumulatively, by definition, THIS is genocide.
“We are calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“We are calling for all military aid to israel provided by the United States and the West to end.
“We are calling for the total and complete end to the occupation.
“We are calling for the beauty of Judaism to rid itself of zionism.
“We are calling for collective liberation for all.
“The people of the world are our responsibility. We must love and protect one another—against colonialism, against statehood, against war, against occupation, against violence. We are each others flesh and bone, and each of us holds the miracle of existing, the right to flourish—to feel the full beauty of our being, our potential, and our love.
“Thank you for being here today and holding space as we mourn all the deaths, as we rage, as we see a different world cresting on the horizon.”
🖤❤️🪬🔥
(Banner with the words “Never again means never again for any people,” with intricate, luscious painted images of a pomegranate and olives with leaves, and glimpse of altar on the ground in front.)
