BrownTown invites Rabbi Brant Rosen and Lesley Williams of Tzedek Chicago, a proudly anti-Zionist intentional Jewish congregation based on core values of justice, equity, and solidarity. In this installment, they discuss this current moment in the struggle to Free Palestine with special regards to Brant and Lesley's positionality as Jewish faith leaders and scholars. The gang distinguishes "anti-Zionism" from "anti-Semitism", discusses AIPAC's consistent meddling in US elections, the strategy behind ceasefire resolutions, the work of Palestinian and other scholars writing in solidarity, and more! Ultimately, BrownTown and guests uplift the work in the past 11 months (and beyond) while trying to answer what real solidarity looks like and how to reclaim Judaism from Zionism. #FreePalestine. Originally recorded August 12, 2024 (a week before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago).
BrownTown invites Rabbi Brant Rosen and Lesley Williams of Tzedek Chicago, a proudly anti-Zionist intentional Jewish congregation based on core values of justice, equity, and solidarity. In this installment, they discuss this current moment in the struggle to Free Palestine with special regards to Brant and Lesley's positionality as Jewish faith leaders and scholars. The gang distinguishes "anti-Zionism" from "anti-Semitism", discusses AIPAC's consistent meddling in US elections, the strategy behind ceasefire resolutions, the work of Palestinian and other scholars writing in solidarity, and more! Ultimately, BrownTown and guests uplift the work in the past 11 months (and beyond) while trying to answer what real solidarity looks like and how to reclaim Judaism from Zionism. #FreePalestine. Originally recorded August 12, 2024, a week before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
GUESTS
Brant Rosen is the founding rabbi of the congregation Tzedek Chicago and the co-founder of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council. His writings have appeared in many journals and publications, including Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Truthout. He is also the author of the popular Jewish social justice blog, Shalom Rav; his curated collection of blog posts and reader comments, Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity was published by Just World Books in 2012 (updated in 2017). In 2020, he was named as a Topol Fellow in Conflict and Peace in the Religion, Conflict and Public Life Institute at Harvard Divinity School. Follow Brant on his blog, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Lesley Williams has organized around anti-racism, Islamophobia and Palestinian rights for Jewish Voice for Peace in Chicago and served on the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace Action. As part of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, Lesley participated in two solidarity and resistance West Bank delegations with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists and is on the CJNV strategies and values team. She has spoken on Islamophobia and antisemitism at the American Studies Association conference, Democratic Socialists of America, the MAS-ICNA conference the American Muslims for Palestine conference, and at several universities and church groups, and recently appeared on the Friends of Sabeel program: Countering Christian Zionism. She is a consultant and speaker for the PARCEO "Antisemitism From a Framework of Collective Liberation" curriculum. She reviews books on race, Islamophobia and Palestine for Booklist magazine, and her writing has appeared in Truthout, Mondoweiss and AWBC Magazine. Follow Lesley on her blog, Facebook, and Instagram.
Follow Jewish Voice for Peace on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; Jewish Voice for Peace Action on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Follow Tzedek Chicago on Facebook and Instagram.
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Writings by Lesley:
Writings by Brant:
Mentioned Topics & More Info:
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CREDITS: Intro soundbite from Brant Rosen at a Jewish Voice for Peace rally during the Democratic National Convention week. Outro song from Rap Street Palestine (Ard Kan3an & ana Palestine) cypher. Audio engineered by Kiera Battles.
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BrownTown invites Rabbi Brant Rosen and Lesley Williams of Tzedek Chicago, a proudly anti-Zionist intentional Jewish congregation based on core values of justice, equity, and solidarity. In this installment, they discuss this current moment in the struggle to Free Palestine with special regards to Brant and Lesley's positionality as Jewish faith leaders and scholars. The gang distinguishes "anti-Zionism" from "anti-Semitism", discusses AIPAC's consistent meddling in US elections, the strategy behind ceasefire resolutions, the work of Palestinian and other scholars writing in solidarity, and more! Ultimately, BrownTown and guests uplift the work in the past 11 months (and beyond) while trying to answer what real solidarity looks like and how to reclaim Judaism from Zionism. #FreePalestine. Originally recorded August 12, 2024 (a week before the Democratic National Convention in Chicago).
INTRO
[00:00:50.720]
[Audio clip of Brant Rosen] Please welcome Rabbi Brant Rosen. Let's try to get louder than that helicopter. Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! Free, free Palestine! I am so proud to be with you today. I am so proud to be an ally to this amazing coalition, the Chicago Coalition for Justice in Palestine. You should know, if you are not from Chicago, that this amazing community has been in the street every single week for not only the last 10 months, but for years. It has been such an honor to march alongside them.
BODY OF EPISODE
[00:01:44.090] - David
I'd like to welcome everyone to another installment of Bourbon 'n BrownTown. It's your boy David coming to you from Harambe Studios in Chicago, Illinois. Hanging out with my boy, Caullen. Caullen, man, how are we doing today?
[00:01:56.180] - Caullen
I'm doing okay. Whenever you introduce us, I think we need either the Chicago tag or a Harambe that's.... Like a beating the chest. We need some kinda tag for Harambe. No, it's not your fault. I think of different things every time.
[00:02:10.320] - David
I've asked for buttons, y'all. I've asked for buttons to push and things *air horn sound*.
[00:02:13.340] - Caullen
You don't need that. That would be awful. To answer your question, I'm doing good. This is our first... I'm pulling the curtain back for the listeners, but our first two recordings in one day in a long time. And so my energy's up, and I feel good. I think I'm always in my head about preparing for episodes. The last one felt really good, so now I feel more level, set. It's like the second... You were in theater in high school.
[00:02:40.620] - David
Of course.
[00:02:40.620] - Caullen
You do the play, the premiere, you're nervous, but that energy makes it good, you channel it well. In the second performance, it's always the worst one because you're relaxed. So maybe there'll be less of me in this episode because Kiera is going to edit me out cause I'm going to mess up. No, I feel good. I feel decent. Interesting moment, end of summer, right now, for me personally, for Soapbox, for the world. I'm just dealing with the nuance of love and joy as well as being terrified by the atrocity of the world at the same time. I think there's a lot of that going around.
[00:03:14.600] - Caullen
So that's where I am, but I'm with the homies. Got a lil' whiskey with me. I'm getting paid this week from a thing I did in June. So it's like, money. I didn't forget about it because I budgeted on point, but I'm like, It's coming through. I'm getting that money!
[00:03:27.370] - David
Shout out, surviving capitalism.
[00:03:28.060] - Caullen
Pay day is always fun. Yeah, shout out to... I don't wanna shout out to capitalism..
[00:03:31.110] - David
No, surviving capitalism.
[00:03:32.940] - Caullen
Oh, surviving. There you go. I'm like, We need it. I need it to pay rent, but also, it's not real, and it's a whole thing. But with all that being said, how are you?
[00:03:42.650] - David
Yo man, we're doing good. We're doing good. I appreciate you peeling back the curtains. Sometimes we haven't always told people we're doing back-to-back, or doing three in one day type shit. We never tell people that. Actually, I feel we did, that's why I didn't go out. Regardless, feeling really excited. I think to me, just looking at and centering the conversation of today, I think it goes back to a previous episode with Muhammad, who we had on talking about the same conversation. To me, I'm very excited, very honored by the guests we have here today to help bring in a perspective that maybe a lot of folks haven't necessarily heard because maybe they're not of the faith or maybe because they're not in their circles, but it's still happening. So I'm excited to dive into that as a layperson of all the things here.
[00:04:30.910] - Caullen
Yeah, I think you mentioned Muhammad Sankari of USPCN.
[00:04:33.790] - David
Thank you.
[00:04:34.470] - Caullen
I was talking to him in December. This was two months into the genocide.
[00:04:39.470] - David
Of last year. Yep.
[00:04:40.470] - Caullen
75 years since the Nakba and the ongoing apartheid in Palestine. There are certain news stories, certain narrative things out in the ether then that we touched on very specifically, as well as on a macro level of what liberation looks like and how everyone can tap in. I really appreciated that conversation. It feels like it was- not table-setting in a reductive manner, but if you're new to this or been in the shits, it was beneficial. But it was December. And now we're looking at 10 months since October 7th. It's a week out from the DNC, and the pressure has amounted from the grassroots in front of everyday people, to the DNC, and really US Empire in general. Three months until the US general election was a change since then. So it's like, not only is this fight the same, but things have changed even in a matter of months in this conversation. And our guests are different, so our positionality and perspectives and experience matters, too. I just wanted to name all of that.
[00:05:34.780] - Caullen
But we are lucky enough to have two guests with us. First one is Rabbi Brant Rosen. If y'all don't know, Brant is the founding rabbi of the congregation of Tzedek Chicago, and the co-founder of the Jewish Voice for Peace, the Rabbinical Council. His writings have appeared in many journals and publications, including Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Truthout.
[00:05:57.250] - David
Shout out.
[00:05:58.080] - Caullen
The homies. Oh, The Nation, Tribune, oh, and Truthout. He's also the author of the popular Jewish social justice blog "Shalom Rav". His curated collection of blog posts and reader comments, "Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity", was published by Just World Books in 2012, updated in 2017. Brant has also contributed essays to a number of anthologies, including Zionism and the Quest for Peace in the Holy Land; On Antisemitism: Solidarity, and the Struggle for Justice; and Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism: Stories of Personal Transformation. In 2020, he was named as the Topol Fellow in Conflict and Peace in the Religion, Conflict and Public Life Institute at Harvard Divinity School. All that being said, Brant, what's going on? How are you doing?
[00:06:43.180] - Rabbi Brant
I'm doing alright. Thanks so much for having us. Really happy to be here.
[00:06:47.620] - David
For sure. And on that note, our second guest, Lesley Williams. Lesley has organized around anti-racism, Islamophobia, and Palestinian rights for Jewish Voice for Peace in Chicago, and served on the National Board of Jewish Voice for Peace Action. As part of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, Lesley participated in two solidarity and resistance West Bank delegations with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists, and is on the CJNV strategies and values team. She has spoken on Islamophobia and antisemitism at the American Studies Association conference, Democratic Socialists of America, and the MAS-ICNA conference, the American Muslim for Palestinian Conference, and several universities and church groups, and recently appeared in the Friends of Sabeel program: "Countering Christian Zionism". She's the author of "The Anti-Defamation League Kills the Black/Jewish Alliance"; and the article, "We Cannot Fight antisemitism and Anti-Black Racism in Isolation". Again, all of these things are going to be available on the episode notes, so definitely check all this out. Lesley, how are you doing?
[00:07:59.180] - Lesley
I am doing great. Really happy to be here.
[00:08:02.300] - David
Cool cool cool. Have you ever been on a podcast before? I know Brant has, but have you ever been on a podcast?
[00:08:05.900] - Lesley
Yes, with the podcast called Treyf, and I don't know if you know that. It's also a Jewish progressive... I don't know, would you say- I don't know if you'd say anti-Zionist, but definitely Jewish, progressive, queer podcast.
[00:08:20.480] - David
Bet! I think to get the ball rolling, I'd love to give each of you an opportunity to give some of our listeners- there was a lot of acronyms or a lot of words said in those bios which were heavy. By the way, shout out to y'all. But maybe giving a little more context to how that funnels into what Caullen was giving in terms of context for what we're talking about in terms of Palestinian liberation. Brant, can we start with you?
[00:08:39.960] - Rabbi Brant
Sure. So I'm, first and foremost, I work as a congregational rabbi, and that's been my gig for a very long time.
[00:08:49.310] - Lesley
He did my daughter's bat mitzvah.
[00:08:51.800] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. Lesley was a member of my former congregation in Evanston, as well as my current congregation, Tzedek Chicago. So yeah, I've been doing that a long time, and I've gone on a trajectory during that time. I'll give you the short version of it, but we can go into details if it's interesting. I grew up in Los Angeles in a pretty average liberal Jewish household, and Israel and Zionism was always part of the mix, as it often is in the Jewish community. I grew up being taught Israel is an essential part of being Jewish. I have family there. I spent time there. When I became a rabbi, I would have defined myself, and this was back when I became a rabbi in 1992, I would have defined myself using a term that I find a bit of an oxymoron today, which is a liberal Zionist.
[00:09:54.870] - Rabbi Brant
Which- that's a thing. But at the time I would have said, from a positionality point of view, I'm on the left edge of the spectrum. I'm advocating for a two-state solution. If pushed, I would say that, yes, there were human rights abuses being committed against Palestinians, but we needed a negotiated settlement, two states for two peoples, because the demographic issue is going to force the issue, the birth rate of Palestinians. I mean, it was as much living in peace as it was this ethno-national project is being endangered by the Palestinian birth rate.
[00:10:35.120] - Lesley
The "demographic threat".
[00:10:36.840] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. I'm not happy to report that I may have used that term in an argument, trying to advocate for the two-state solution. But-
[00:10:46.850] - David
Yo, shout out to you changing, bro.
[00:10:47.900] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. Well, I would always... There would be these little moments of self-interrogation, which is like, "demographic threat"? If I use that term for any other group people in this country, that would be Nazi talk.
[00:11:04.460] - Lesley
But it is, sadly, a term you hear very commonly in Zionist communities, both here and in Israel.
[00:11:12.830] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. So I did question all of this along the way. But as I worked as a congregational rabbi, the stakes for being public about my misgivings were serious. But eventually, I really- to make a long story short, in 2008, that was a few Gaza assaults ago now. It was called Operation Cast Lead, end of 2008, early 2009. I had been writing a blog for a while, the one that you mentioned. And I just... That was the straw that broke. I just said, I can't do this anymore. These are war crimes. I'm not going to apologize for this anymore. I became pretty actively involved in Palestine solidarity work. Jewish Voice for Peace being the primary address for that work as a Jew.
[00:12:13.000] - Rabbi Brant
And Lesley remembers this, she was part of my congregation at the time. It raised a lot of dust, but to their credit, my congregation, which was Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston. I had been there for over 10 years. We worked hard to make it work, even with leaders in the congregation who didn't agree with what I was saying or doing. My involvement in this movement and my visibility in this movement only grew in my writing about it. And In 2014 I left the congregation, and it was not coincidentally when there was another Gaza assault. Exactly, actually, 10 years ago today was when it was starting to wind down. At the time, over 2,000 people were killed and 10,000 injured. I remember thinking at the time, That's just incomprehensible.
[00:13:03.910] - Lesley
Yes. How could we possibly imagine more people than that being killed with no one doing anything about it?
[00:13:08.130] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. I mean, the nightmare of our moment now, I don't think was even possible to even imagine. But anyways, left the congregation, didn't know if- I was pretty sure I wasn't going to work as a congregational rabbi anymore, and got a job for the American Friends Service Committee, actually. The Quaker Peace and Justice Organization, where there was a very robust Israel-Palestine program, and it was a really good fit for me in many ways. I also started a new congregation that was just a modest little effort on the side. My side gig.
[00:13:48.270] - Lesley
You had a little help.
[00:13:49.000] - Rabbi Brant
Yes. I couldn't have done it by myself. There were many kindred spirits who helped to found it, including Lesley Williams. It grew to the point that I left AFSC in 2019 to do it full-time. When we started the congregation, we were an avowedly non-Zionist congregation. We were built on very clear core values of anti-racism and justice.
[00:14:16.390] - David
I love that.
[00:14:17.220] - Rabbi Brant
We're very, very clear that- at the time, we called ourselves "non-Zionist", a few years ago, we changed that to "anti-Zionist". Finally, to flash forward to the current moment- I mean, I think being an avowedly anti-Zionist Jewish community gives us the ability to respond to this just horrible genocidal moment. Just unabashedly saying, This is the end game of Zionism. This is what Zionism has wrought. Building a nation that is predicated on the identity of one particular group of people will automatically mean the other group is a problem. I think being able to respond to this moment with that level of unabashedness has been liberating and a blessing.
[00:15:01.500] - Lesley
Yeah. We actually held a funeral for liberal Zionism.
[00:15:04.180] - Caullen
What? That's amazing.
[00:15:05.510] - Rabbi Brant
That was on Purim, which is a-
[00:15:07.300] - Lesley
The carnival, the Lord of Misrule holiday.
[00:15:11.030] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. Lesley gave a pretty kick-ass eulogy for liberal Zionism.
[00:15:16.110] - Lesley
But I think one other thing that I think is crucial to understand about our congregation, you hear a lot of Jewish communities talk about being inclusive or being open tent congregations. We don't reject people who are anti-Zionists, we welcome everyone. And we don't want to be inclusive about genocide. We don't want to be inclusive about ethnic cleansing. And so we're pretty open about saying, No, we're not really an open tent or inclusive in that way, we really are focused on sticking with our core values, which include not bombing innocent children. That's a core value with us.
[00:15:54.990] - Lesley
And I have also found, and unfortunately, I think this was true at our previous synagogue, that these open tents, particularly since October 7th, these open tents have gotten much, much narrower. We have many friends and family members who either are working in the organized Jewish community, or had co-memberships with Tzedek, but then with other congregations who were feeling squeezed out. In fact, a couple of employees of our Tzedek Chicago community who were working in other Jewish communities have lost their jobs since October 7th because they belong to Tzedek and because they're very active in the Palestinian movement.
[00:16:35.740] - David
That's wild. I would like to, for listeners, Lesley, what was- much like Brent, I'd love to hear a little bit of background on your coming to this moment, that you named so strongly?
[00:16:46.840] - Lesley
Yeah, sure. So you can't see, but I'm African-American. I converted to Judaism, I guess about 30 years ago. My story, I had, I think, a very typical African-American upbringing. My dad grew up in the Jim Crow South in the 1930s. My mother grew up in Chicago and was very involved in a lot of the global anti-colonial movements in the '40s and the '50s. And I think what had really appealed to me about Judaism was that there's a very strong focus on ethics and ethical behavior. There's not as much of a focus on the afterlife and earning your way into the pearly gates by whatever you do. It's really focused on ethical behavior in the here and now. And so that was extremely appealing to me.
[00:17:39.320] - Lesley
People have often asked, Were your parents really upset when you decided to convert? Did they feel that your soul was going to be lost? They really weren't. But the only thing that my mom was really worried about, and I don't know if I've ever told you this, like I said, she was very involved with- she had a lot of friends who were from Nigeria and Botswana and South Africa, and she was a very ardent supporter of the global liberation of Black and Brown people. And she was afraid I would become a Zionist if I converted to Judaism. So that was really... It wasn't my soul being in danger. It was really the fear.
[00:18:18.620] - Rabbi Brant
In a way, it sort of was.
[00:18:19.280] - Lesley
In a way, yes. I suppose you could say it was. I did assure her that that was not going to happen. I think when I first converted, the only really disturbing experiences I had during the conversion process... And converting to Judaism is intentionally a very long process, so you're supposed to study for at least a year. I went to these introduction to Judaism classes, which are taught by two rabbis, a conservative rabbi and a reform rabbi.
[00:18:47.180] - Lesley
But kind of like when Brant was talking about his upbringing, Zionism is never questioned, it's just assumed that that is part of the deal. And I could have these conversations with my conversionary rabbi where he encouraged, Oh, Judaism, it's all about asking questions and on and on. And so I could question about anything else. I could ask questions about LGBTQ rights or about circumcision or about keeping kosher, and that was always fine. But the second I mentioned that maybe there was something not too cool about this, taking a country away from people and making thousands and thousands of refugees, that was just not open for question. And there was an immediate hostility and wall that came up the second I mentioned that I had any qualms about Zionism and about Israel.
[00:19:35.360] - Lesley
I went ahead with the conversion, but I was always looking for a space where there would be some opportunity to at least explore those issues. And at JRC, one of the ironies is, I think shortly before Brant had his conversion, Chicago Jewish News ran an article about us saying that we were the one congregation in all of Chicago that was openly discussing Israel. It was true that we had this series of discussion groups about Israel, but it was interesting how often someone would do the more traditional Zionist point of view. It was interesting how often somebody presenting the Palestinian view, something would happen, the room wasn't available, things would get canceled or something like that. It just seemed like, how honestly were we really pursuing- talking about both narratives on the issue.
[00:20:31.090] - Lesley
And one of our friends who's also a longtime member of JVP, told us around the time that all of us left JRC that she had been planning to bring in a Palestinian speaker. Not as a synagogue program, but just as a synagogue member booking a room to do her program. And there was a lot of pressure about, Well, we're not sure if people would like this. We're not sure if some of the major donors would like this. And eventually, she had to cancel program because a major donor said that he was not going to make his major donation that year if we allowed that person to speak.
[00:21:07.430] - David
This is like, for time? Timeline, year?
[00:21:11.270] - Lesley
Oh, this is the '90s, maybe?
[00:21:13.490] - Rabbi Brant
No, no, no. This is-
[00:21:15.210] - Lesley
With the Vinta Nova site. Because we were both still... We were still at JRC then.
[00:21:21.740] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah, no, no. It was later than that.
[00:21:22.940] - Lesley
It was early 2000s maybe?
[00:21:24.010] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah, it was probably like 2000 or 2009.
[00:21:26.370] - Lesley
The other thing that I didn't... I realized, I think I forgot to mention in my biography: by profession, I've been a librarian for about 35 years.
[00:21:36.690] - Caullen
Tell them your email.
[00:21:37.430] - Lesley
Oh, yes. My email is thecrankylibrarian@gmail.com.
[00:21:41.160] - David
Dope. I love it.
[00:21:43.740] - Lesley
So I'm about to tell you one of the reasons I got really cranky. Kinda like becoming Jewish, there were these values of librarianship that I truly valued. I saw converting to Judaism and becoming a librarian as really going together. That both of them, it was open inquiry, the Jews are known as the people of the book; and with librarianship, the idea of being absolutely opposed to censorship, holding free inquiry and freedom to read as core values. Big parts of the American Library Association are centered around the Office of Intellectual Freedom and the Freedom to Read Foundation.
[00:22:26.160] - Rabbi Brant
Librarians do rock.
[00:22:27.360] - Lesley
Yes, librarians do rock. Librarians do rock. Kinda similar to Jewish institutional structures, individual people rock, but institutions can be rocks. And sometimes those rocks fall on us.
[00:22:43.460] - Rabbi Brant
Nice.
[00:22:44.740] - Lesley
Yeah, just thought of that.
[00:22:46.060] - Rabbi Brant
Very elegant.
[00:22:47.940] - Lesley
Yeah, if Plymouth Rock fell on us. As I truly believe that Judaism was making more ethical people and that the appeal of Judaism was ethics, I truly believe, and I still mostly believe, but truly believe that librarianship would always respect these values of open inquiry and censorship. And sadly, that has not proved to be the case. And at pretty much exactly the same time that Brant was going through this trauma at our synagogue, I was having a similar experience at the Evanston Public Library. So I had a series of community issue programs. And so different community members could come up and say, Hey, our group wants to do- we want to show that documentary about teaching in unions. Or, we want to have a conversation about the American- Affordable Health Care Act. Or whatever issue they wanted to talk about.
[00:23:41.430] - Lesley
So there was a local group that wanted to bring in Ali Abunimah, who is a very well-known Palestinian writer, he's based in the Chicago area. He had a book- he's the editor of something called the "Electronic Intifada", which is a really great website I would recommend people take a look at. But he's also written a couple of really great books about Zionism, the two-state solution, different ways to resolve the "conflict". And one of them is called The Battle for Justice in Palestine, which is really wonderful. But he has another one called One Country.
[00:24:16.960] - Lesley
In One Country, he spends a lot of time talking with the former white South African leadership about why they eventually decided to end apartheid and how they realized that their country had no future trying to continue in this way. That they were becoming a world pariah and that young people were leaving, young people were ashamed to be associated with South Africa.
[00:24:36.790] - Rabbi Brant
Sounds familiar.
[00:24:38.310] - Lesley
Yeah, it sounds very familiar. So I thought, Oh, this is going to be a really fantastic discussion. I know that my library that's so dedicated to anti-censorship and freedom inquiries, they're gonna love this program. And this was around the time of yet another Gaza war, the 2014 Gaza War. So I thought, I wonder if people are going to get concerned about this program. So I mentioned it to my director. She said, Oh, I'm sure that's going to be fine. And then about a week before the program, she contacted me and told me that I needed to tell Abunimah that we had to "reschedule" his program because it wasn't truly a balanced program.
[00:25:20.020] - Lesley
Now, I had done programs about the Affordable Care Act, and nobody said it had to be balanced. I had done all these other programs on political issues where someone would come in and read from their book, and there was never this requirement that there be someone else on the opposite side. And I have since learned that this is a very common tactic and technique used to suppress Palestinian speech. To tell Palestinians or people speaking on behalf of Palestinians that their programming is not balanced. And so... Called Mr. Abunimah, told him, he said, I will consider this an egregious act of censorship by the Evanston Public Library if you do it. And I said, Well, I know, but that's what my director said. She said you have to have a program. He tweeted this to 50,000 people.
[00:26:03.270] - Caullen
I'm like, let's go!
[00:26:04.190] - Lesley
The program was huge. I mean, of course, the publicity was fantastic and far more people came to it than would have otherwise. And then the library began a three year campaign to get me fired.
[00:26:16.790] - Caullen
Took them three years? That's...
[00:26:17.970] - Lesley
Well, yeah.
[00:26:18.610] - Rabbi Brant
Three miserable years.
[00:26:19.560] - Lesley
It was three very stressful years.
[00:26:21.830] - Caullen
I retract my comment. I was like, you made pressure for them for three years, yeah!
[00:26:25.230] - Rabbi Brant
We organized.
[00:26:27.580] - Lesley
Yeah, we did. We went through a lot together. And I think this is something that I hope we'll come back to later, but there was a lot of overlap between the forces of suppressing talk of Palestinians and suppressing of talking about other issues. So the same director, not that long after this incident, I had a group of students from Northwestern, African-American students, who were taking up Paul Robeson's call, "We Charge Genocide".
[00:26:56.400] - Lesley
In the 1950s, Paul Robeson, fantastic communist, African-American activist, human rights activist, went to the United Nations and essentially said the United Nations is guilty of genocide against Black men. And so this group of students were- I think it was a major anniversary of that- and they had done the same thing. And I did not know that my director was planning to do a children's program with the Evanston Police Department, where essentially they had written a couple of cute little children's books about how police officers are your friends. And the police department was not happy about it. And so that program- she was smart enough not to try and cancel that one, but she said, this cannot be a library-sponsored program. The library cannot advertise it or publicize it, and nobody from the library can appear at this program.
[00:27:43.760] - Lesley
So, began to see that there's a lot of commonality in these issues and in these struggles. And so I think a lot of the pressure to get rid of me had as much to do for my saying, Why do you have so few African-American books on the shelves? Why do so many families tell me that their African-American children are treated badly when they come to the library? Why do you make a big deal of doing February African-American history programs, but then when I did an 11 months of African-American history program where we did something about Black history every month except February, why did you not publicize that program at all or give me a hard time because I wasn't putting something in the newsletter about February? So I began to really understand, I think, more the connection between these two struggles and these two types of oppression and just suppression of thought. And suppression of getting the narratives out.
[00:28:43.240] - David
Yeah. Appreciate you sharing all that. See, we're going to miss all that. Go ahead, Caul.
[00:28:45.930] - Caullen
I wanna uplift "We Charge Genocide" because I think for David and I being in movement the past several years at this point, but me being a transplant to Chicago and stuff. And knowing some of the folks who went to that contention to the United Nations and stuff and just part of the broader movement in Chicago for Black liberation, particularly around ending carceral violence and prison and police abolition, that movement, that campaign- that happening means a lot to me. So it's interesting hearing that being part of your framework as far as connecting fights and struggles of oppressed peoples globally.
[00:29:21.810] - Caullen
A lot there. Thank you both for sharing that, too. I'm just thinking about a couple of different buckets, and David feel free to chime in. But one thing I've seen as a thread, on a macro level, too, is the pushback you've gotten is around the subtle pushback.... I don't know if you can call it subtle, but pushback as far as like, Oh, it needs to be balanced. We need to have both sides, this narrative.
[00:29:39.640] - David
Bipartisan.
[00:29:39.770] - Caullen
That thinking and that framing alone is violent and untrue because it positions it as this, Oh, this is our opinions and our experiences out in the world. It's not facts of what has happened in the world. Versus how we feel about them. And so I just think about that, especially over the past several months. For me, being outside both communities, not being Palestinian, not being Jewish, not being or whatever, but knowing folks in movement and the first folks who really put me on to Palestine liberation was an Israeli Jewish dude. A white Israeli Jewish dude.
[00:30:11.700] - Caullen
And so when I would talk to folks who I knew, I thought who were generally progressive, or maybe not leftists, but liberal, whatever, who were really triggered by me being like, Oh, Palestinians should be free. I was like, This is so odd. I was like, Oh, wait... I didn't understand how insidious Zionism was in Jewish life in America. Then how just to move in any way, you have to interact with it in some cAIPACity. It's nice hearing your stories and thinking about my own development as far as understanding liberation globally, especially in Palestine, and how it's connected to Black liberation things that got me into thinking that way politically and in movement and things. But I wanted to name that framing moment as far as "both sides" and everything like that.
[00:30:48.740] - Lesley
Yeah. Well, and what we have both said in many different circumstances, if you were back in the Jim Crow South in the 1930s or 1940s, and you said, We should really have a dialog about this. We should really- we want to hear both sides. There are many fine people on both sides. We really want the KKK and the segregationists to sit down with the Black sharecroppers and try to come to some understanding. That's completely misrepresenting the power differential. There are some things that you can't dialog away, and racism and racist oppression is not something you can dialog away. And yet these very same people will set up- there are dozens of these Muslim-Jewish dialog groups, and we-just-need-to-understand-each-other-better, etc etc. It's not that there's necessarily anything wrong with dialog, but you're talking about it being a kind of violence. Well, okay, yeah.
[00:31:46.000] - Rabbi Brant
I'm here to say there is something wrong with dialog.
[00:31:48.860] - Lesley
With some types of dialog, I think there's not necessarily anything wrong with it. But talking about it being violent, it's almost as though the people in power get off on this torture porn of listening to Palestinians or Black people: tell your story, tell your really sad story. But they're not willing to take responsibility for their complicity in it. They're not necessarily willing to take any meaningful action on it. And so all you're doing is making Black people, making Palestinians, have to go through all of this, educating people, telling their stories.
[00:32:24.260] - Lesley
And recently, there was a really great video from American Muslims in Palestine, and they talking about their experiences with the Minnesota governor- and this was the Minnesota chapter of American Muslims for Palestine. And they said that they had been trying very hard to get a meeting with him since October 7th. They really wanted to hear him call for ceasefire and really speak out about the tragedy of all these thousands of Palestinians who have been killed. And his aides- they said they got a meeting with his aides. And the aides said, Well, he'd really be interested in hearing your stories. And they said, We don't want to just do this torture porn story performance thing for you, we want you to call for a ceasefire and for an arms embargo. We want to hear what you have to say about that. And the aides said, Well, no, he just really wanted to hear your stories, he's not ready to talk about any such action.
[00:33:14.290] - Rabbi Brant
Read the fucking New York Times if you want to hear the stories. I mean, they're out there. And putting them in the position of having to supplicate before these powerful figures to lay their emotions bare, knowing full well that they're really not there to listen.
[00:33:31.650] - Lesley
And so I wouldn't say that dialog itself is bad, but dialog is not the same as action or advocacy.
[00:33:37.500] - Rabbi Brant
I also think dialog within the overall context of a power imbalance is, I think, insidious. Because it creates the illusion of progress. It creates the illusion of, Well, we're actually making things better. When it's really just reinforcing the status quo. And that's, I think, the danger of dialog. The way it's... Unless it is about recognizing structural imbalance and committing to dismantling it and transforming it, then it's just reinforcing in a really problematic way the violence that will continue on. I quote, probably as much as the Torah, I quote from-
[00:34:22.940] - Caullen
Shout out, Torah.
[00:34:23.680] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah, shout out to the Torah. "Letter From a Birmingham Jail". Because white folks love to invoke MLK. And if you read this, this is exactly what Lesley was talking about. This was liberal white clergy who were saying, Don't come to Birmingham. Don't be an outside agitator. Don't make trouble. We are dialoguing with them, we are talking with them. We're engaging with them. And please, we've got this. And he was basically saying, No. Tension is necessary. It's a necessary thing. And all of the folks who love to lift up King in this watered-down, iconic way and don't really engage with what he was actually saying, which is-
[00:35:12.040] - Lesley
The radical King.
[00:35:13.220] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. And he was basically saying what we're saying, which is, dialog in a context of oppression is just reinforcing oppression.
[00:35:21.560] - David
But dialog when you're educating motherfuckers, that's pretty useful. I think one thing I did just want to ask for myself, but also potentially for some listeners. I think, the way in which... If all you digest, let's say you're one of my tias, so you're probably watching Telemundo. And Telemundo probably doesn't cover the Palestinian genocide in the way in which it would. So I'd be curious, how does one define Zionism? Or how were y'all taught Zionism as a term, but also as an ideology? Because whispers and murmurs, but like, the fuck, if we don't know, we don't know. So I'd be curious how y'all break it down.
[00:35:58.460] - Lesley
Okay, let's start with the rabbi there.
[00:36:00.570] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you never had to unlearn it. No, I would-
[00:36:05.690] - Lesley
Actually, that's not true. But go on. Yeah.
[00:36:07.720] - Rabbi Brant
Okay. Good, I look forward to hearing. No, the narrative around Zionism is incredibly powerful, and it's almost intoxicating. It's this redemptive narrative of, out of the ashes of the Holocaust, this redemptive rebirth of the Jewish people in their "ancient homeland". And it was often referred to me as the liberation movement of the Jewish people, that we've lived for decades of oppression and antisemitism throughout the world, and Zionism was about Jewish empowerment. The National Anthem of Israel, "Hatikvah", says, "Lihyot am chofshi be-artzeinu": "to be a free people in our own land". That is the language of liberative struggle. But this is a settler colonial movement that's in many ways co-opted that language. Although it took me a long time to disentangle that because the Holocaust was a trauma, a deep, deep trauma, and generationally it reverberates. There's no question. I have family who died in the Holocaust. The generations of Jews were raised with these stories. So Israel represents this rebirth. And the fact that it was a rebirth on the backs of another people was never really faced.
[00:37:37.750] - David
To Lesley's point, it's just under the rug.
[00:37:41.500] - Rabbi Brant
It was that. Really, it was that these were... In many ways Palestinians and Arabs in general took on the role of the Nazis. They were the-
[00:37:52.150] - Lesley
I think you may want to rephrase that.
[00:37:54.890] - Rabbi Brant
Well, no. Within this narrative. They were the enemies of the Jewish people. They were the new enemies of the Jewish people. They were not- right. I need to be very clear. They were the ones standing in the way of this rebirth.
[00:38:07.820] - David
Of this land.
[00:38:09.520] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. When in reality, they were being dispossessed from this land to make way for this Jewish state. That's the Zionism that I was raised with. I first visited when I was very young and went back many times over the years. And I can attest to how powerful that is. It was a national rebirth, it was also a cultural rebirth. Hebrew was this Jewish language, where Jewish life was "normalized". We're no longer minorities in other countries in danger of being oppressed, but now we were the guardians of our own future.
[00:38:56.380] - Rabbi Brant
As I said, during the course of my adult life I entertained questions, deep questions, the things that just did not fit. It took a long time. I think the younger generation today who were not necessarily raised with it, or maybe they were raised with it, but the Israel they see is just so different than the thing that is being presented to them. That it's just- they're not buying it. And every Jewish community survey bears this out, that younger generations of Jews are just not drinking the Zionist Kool-Aid anymore.
[00:39:34.180] - Lesley
Or at least even the ones that haven't completely rejected Zionism, they don't completely see their Jewish identity as being integral to Zionism the way previous generations did.
[00:39:47.780] - David
Wow. I appreciate that background, that breakdown.
[00:39:51.090] - Rabbi Brant
Lesley, you said you-
[00:39:52.350] - Lesley
Well, yeah. For me, I think there's growing up Christian, and there's also growing up African-American Christian.
[00:39:58.150] - David
I was going to ask about that.
[00:40:00.100] - Lesley
And growing up African-American Christian, the whole iconography of Moses and the Promised Land and the Hebrew slaves escaping, that is so much a part of our liturgy. "Go Down Moses". And we've got a lot of African-American spirituals and hymns that talk about Zion and building up Zion's walls and so on. So that was the version of Zionism that I really grew up with. And there's this very strong identification of the children of Israel with African-Americans. And of course, Martin Luther King preached on that theme numerous times. I mean, his last sermon the night before he died was about going up to the mountaintop and looking over into the Promised Land, and "I'm not going to make it, but you're going to make it with us". So that, too, is a very powerful narrative.
[00:40:47.050] - Lesley
But I think it's not a coincidence that in the '60s, as the civil rights movement was becoming more radical, becoming more militant, there was a definite divide between, say, the Southern Christian Leadership and SNCC and these other groups that were not religiously based. Because there was this growing sense, and again, there was a generational divide there, too, that the people who did not necessarily hold to the Christian idea of what liberation meant, that were more globalists and were more identifying themselves with African countries that were getting liberation. For them, it was the Palestinians that they identified with and not the Jews and the Israelis. But for me, it was really difficult to give up that iconography.
[00:41:41.590] - Lesley
And another thing, we were talking about the Palestinians and where the Palestinians fall in this- there is, I think, a very strong attempt to really erase Palestinians as a people. Not just physically as a people, but as an idea. There was the famous dictum that Israel was a land without a people for a people without a land. Well, I mean, of course there was a people there. I mean, who have you been fighting for 76 years if there wasn't a people there?
[00:42:07.128] - David
Damn
[00:42:07.650] - Lesley
But I remember as a child, I mean, I grew up in the '60s and '70s, so I remember when Robert F. Kennedy was shot by a Palestinian. I remember the Munich Olympics. And it was always that there were these vaguely, scary people over there, but we didn't actually even say who they were, really.
[00:42:26.010] - Caullen
You know who they are.
[00:42:27.450] - Lesley
You know who they are. And it's also, I mean, you also hear now when people talk about the Middle East, that there's this conflation of all these different countries and cultures into just the Middle East and the dangers of the Middle East. And so you don't even really have a sense of who Palestinians are. I don't think I ever actually met a Palestinian, probably til I was in my late 20s or early 30s. And that was actually in France, not here, which there's a very very different... At least at the time, there was a big Muslim population from many different countries that were very ardently fighting colonialism there.
[00:43:07.550] - Lesley
But I think that a lot of the time when I speak to Christian groups, particularly African-American Christian groups, there is this real hesitation to be- you're attacking the children of Israel. You're attacking... God said that these beloved people have the right to be here and that they're coming back to their homeland. And there are African-American Zionist activists who are not Jewish, but who say in the same way that "we want to go back to our homeland" and "we have that connection to our homeland". And, "Don't you think the Jews have the right to go back to their homeland?" And I always point out, yes, but we're not going in and killing and throwing out a whole bunch of other people in order to do that, so it's kinda a different situation.
[00:43:48.750] - Lesley
But there's this mythology of Zionism that I think many of us absorb, even who are not Jewish. In fact, at the synagogue I lead an anti-Zionist book discussion every month. And we're discussing a book Wednesday called The No State Solution by a very well-known Jewish writer. But we were looking at some of the work of Ghassan Kanafani, who was a fabulous, fabulous Palestinian journalist and activist and very involved in the Palestinian liberation movement who was assassinated by Israel. He had written a book on Zionist literature where he looks at how the mythology of Zionism is in a lot of European literature, even things like books by George Eliot. I had no idea that George Eliot wrote about Zionism. But one of her novels, Daniel Deronda, talks about a young man who's going to go back to Israel and go back to the Holy Land. And there is actually a street named after George Eliot in Israel because of this… She laid, certainly, the groundwork in a way.
[00:44:52.540] - Lesley
And the book Exodus, which is essentially a huge propaganda piece about the noble Israelis, that describes the Israelis as being these godlike angels. It's almost as though they're these Vikings. They're heroic and strong, and their children are so strong and healthy, as opposed to the bandy-legged and dirty and lascivious Arab children of the village. The Arabs are dirty. The Arabs just want to rape Jewish women. The Arabs are just trying to kill us.
[00:45:26.610] - Lesley
And there's a new book that's coming out by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and he talks about hearing that message and says, "This image of the Arab as being dirty and illiterate and sexually lascivious will be very familiar to anybody who's seen 'Birth of a Nation'."
[00:45:42.480] - Caullen
Right. We've said this a couple of times on this program, but even in last episode, as far as the-.... Whether it's Zionism or white supremacy and the compilation of those things, or other schisms of violence, the playbook is kinda lazy. It's always the same, you know? And the way we get free, both envisioning it as a future then build towards it practically, is being creative and using art and just thinking about different pathways to use what we have in a really transformative, imaginative ways. Which is why I, and we, really situate storytelling, having these kind of conversations, but connecting them to action and practicum is really really important.
[00:46:30.690] - David
I just appreciated y'all helping digest that term from literally a dictionary type of response to here's some of the upbringings. Because I was also raised very Christian, one would say even cult-like Christian. And the idea of, that's actually God's people. And the idea of like, God condemned them, that's why we're Christians. So that kind of mythology that you grow up with as a child, and then you start looking at some of these propaganda pieces, what the media tells us. You're kinda like, Oh, that makes sense. You know what I'm saying? So, I definitely hear you. And Brant, just appreciate you talking and speaking to your learning, unlearning, and relearning. Because that's heavy as well.
[00:47:14.640] - Caullen
And that... The weight of demonizing and othering the Middle East is very much an America thing, too. For the decades, centuries of decivilization and wars, bombing and genocide that America has been in that region for very intentional reasons. I think that helps the Zionist project. If you've ever heard of "Israel Palestine conflict", anything like that, you're like, Oh, Arabs are… You have this idea, right?
[00:47:40.580] - David
You don't know about Gaddafi, bro?
[00:47:41.740] - Caullen
Yeah, I know. Exactly. And of course after 9/11, that is…
[00:47:44.170] - Lesley
The Ayatollah.
[00:47:45.040] - Rabbi Brant
It also is expressed in a very benign way. It's like, Well, it's a really rough neighborhood. You hear that rhetoric a lot.
[00:47:53.070] - David
For who?
[00:47:54.150] - Lesley
Where do we hear people talking about, Oh, you live in a rough neighborhood? We know what they mean when they say that.
[00:47:58.440] - Rabbi Brant
Definitely coded language.
[00:48:00.200] - Caullen
Yeah. So I think about that and all this as well. I think when I... I haven't had too many conversations lately, which I think is a sign of the times, but 2022, when there was an assault on Sheikh Jarrah, I believe, the neighborhood. That's something in my most recent adult age, I remember that and talking to folks about that. Knowing stuff, not knowing as much as I would like to, and folks putting me on to more, especially in the past 10 months. But I'm thinking about these conversations now, especially with folks who- and I really want to get into the liberal Zionism conversations like that. But I try to honor and respect folks who maybe were raised like y'all, or had to unlearn so much intentionally. I try to just lean into that. Like, alright, if I didn't know any better, it would take me a journey, whatever. But also I'm like, This is about imperialism and empire. Zionism, of course, predates Israel, but it's like, they were auditioning places to put y'all. "They" being the West.
[00:49:04.400] - Lesley
Uganda, Argentina.
[00:49:05.430] - Caullen
Yeah, Sudan, Argentina. And then they picked this for the good narrative and PR, part of it, which is effective.
[00:49:13.750] - Lesley
Yeah. I mean, Brant could probably speak to this more than I could. But I think there have always been Jews in Palestine. There have been Jewish communities there. And I think that there were definitely people who really did sincerely value the idea of returning to the homeland. But there are different types of Zionism. There are people that thought of it as a cultural Zionism that Israel, or what is now Israel, would be in a way, a cultural homeland, not necessarily a state. But Herzl was really concerned about finding a place for Jews to have a nation. It was a period where all these different groups, after World War I, all these different groups were getting nations. Well, we should get a nation. Our ethnic group should have a nation. And we were just talking in the car on the way over here how the irony is that by the time Israel was founded, there was being this pushback against this colonialism and against this sense of every group having to have a nation. So it's kinda funny that that ended up being the time when Israel did actually become a state.
[00:50:24.850] - Lesley
But I think the point I'm trying to make is that people's conception of what Zionism is for, there's a conception that it's to save Jewish people, that it's to protect Jewish people. And I think now when people talk about why we need to have Israel, it's like, Well, it's the only way to save the Jewish people from another Holocaust is to have Israel. But there's also an idea that Israel is to protect Jewishness, to protect Jewish culture, that like Brant was saying, you can live in a place where being Jewish is normalized, where everybody takes off for Shabbat. Where Friday night, everybody is getting ready for Shabbat. Where everybody is celebrating the High Holidays or Passover at the same time. There's definitely a great appeal and comfort to that.
[00:51:11.540] - Lesley
Then, as he was saying, the whole idea of rejuvenating Hebrew and recreating that language and that culture. So there have been different approaches to Zionism that emphasize one or the other. But after the Holocaust, what everyone really focused on was saving Jewish lives. The only way to protect Jewish lives is to have our own country.
[00:51:31.350] - Caullen
Yeah. I think that builds into... Thank you for that context, too, and adding that in there because it's super important. And the idea of a nation state, and from an anarchist perspective, the state existing and legitimizing itself is through violence and colonial power and some of that. And that's a central part of what I know the most about it, so I kinda lean into that and also honor. I mean, if I'm being honest, and honor the experiences you've had that you talked about as well- the cultural things that are really real. Everyone wants to have a home, people like them, and have people to be able to commune in that way. But when that's tied to empire and liberal imperialism and genocide it's like, this is different than that. And the common- I mean, I say common, I've heard it a million times- Israel shouldn't exist like, marriage shouldn't exist. It's like, well... So we agree? It's just like, let's talk about it.
[00:52:16.230] - Rabbi Brant
Let's pull on that thread a little bit.
[00:52:18.200] - Caullen
Exactly. But no one wants to hear that.
[00:52:19.130] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. And you also hear the trope of Israel's right to exist, and they don't recognize the right to exist. And this notion of, well, where do nation states get their right- to your point, nations- might makes right when it comes to nations. They conquer territory. They set up borders and defend those borders. And that's the "rights". There's no inherent right for a political nation state other than just sheer power of being able to establish one. I think it's really worth interrogating what you were talking about, about what is home? And how do we create homes, and homes where we feel a sense of security. Where does security come from? Does it come from armies and borders and militarization and empire? Or does it come from solidarity and empathy with those around you? That's another narrative that I think we're trying... That I think has to be at least as compelling. You know?
[00:53:30.440] - Lesley
Well, and I think that's part of the ideology behind the Parceo curriculum, the antisemitism from a framework of collective liberation. So when we say, "The only way for Jews to be safe is to have our own nation state." Well, first of all, I think you could argue, and many people have, that the least safe place to be Jewish right now is in Israel, as opposed to here in Chicago or London or many other places. But even if we did think that that was true, aren't there ways that we could work to make sure that all communities are safe? That instead of saying our safety is dependent on making these other people refugees, is that really the only way that we can make Jews safe? And is that continent with Jewish values? There's a lot of talk about Jewish values, Jewish ethical values, which is a big part of the reason that I converted. Does that really fit Jewish ethical values to say that we're going to prioritize our safety, even if it means ruining the lives and literally ending the lives of millions and millions of people?
[00:54:37.100] - Rabbi Brant
One of the poignant things about, I think, the establishment of the state of Israel is that- and we were also talking about this in the car on the way here- Lesley mentioned how after the Holocaust, the safety and security of Jews became paramount. It's true that the world should bear very deep shame, the international community, over their abandonment of the Jewish people during the war. Both during and after. There were refugees who were not able to return to their homes. They couldn't, there were countries that wouldn't let them in. And that-
[00:55:11.090] - Lesley
Including ours.
[00:55:11.960] - Caullen
Yeah. Including us, especially.
[00:55:13.090] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. Including the great United States. And the world should bear that shame, absolutely. And it has never really, I think, been held accountable for it, other than to rally around the creation of this state. Whatever the answer was, it was not creating the state on the backs of another people, dispossessing them from their homes and creating what is now the largest refugee population in the world. Whatever the answer was, that was not it.
[00:55:42.440] - Lesley
Yeah, or should not have been it. And I think it's also important to remember that a lot of the push for what we now see as political Zionism, colonizing Palestine, a lot of that push came from Christian Europe. The Balfour Declaration, which in 1917, said there should be a homeland for the Jews. Arthur Balfour was a raging antisemite, British antisemite. And many-
[00:56:10.870] - Rabbi Brant
Christian Zionist.
[00:56:12.220] - Lesley
And Christian Zionist, and millenarian.
[00:56:15.680] - David
Just for con- what's the difference, I guess?
[00:56:18.700] - Rabbi Brant
The difference between Jewish and Christian Zionists?
[00:56:20.740] - David
Yes.
[00:56:21.280] - Rabbi Brant
Yes. No, that's important. Christian Zionism actually predated Jewish Zionism. It's a Christian, Protestant, apocalyptic worldview that was predicated on this notion that the Jews need to return to the land to precipitate the second coming, after which the world would- that they would all convert and accept or else burn.
[00:56:48.050] - Lesley
So it's not exactly a great philosophy for Jews.
[00:56:51.110] - Rabbi Brant
It's an antisemitic ideology.
[00:56:53.490] - David
But that's Christian Zionism.
[00:56:54.540] - Rabbi Brant
It is rooted in this notion of Jews "returning". Balfour was also the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain and was very well known for not being a real friend to the Jewish people. And actually, in a time in which there were pogroms in Eastern Europe, was passing laws to keep them from entering the country. So Zionism was this great opportunity to create this state where they could all be sent to.
[00:57:20.870] - Caullen
"I don't want y'all here, y'all go over there."
[00:57:21.900] - Lesley
Yes, exactly. And this millenarian apocalyptic view, it is not rare. AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, people assume that it's largely funded and supported by Jews, and it is supported by a lot of Jews, but it's also supported by a lot of evangelical Christians. I think actually at this point, there may be more financial support coming from evangelical Christians for AIPAC than there is from the Jewish community.
[00:57:52.080] - David
That's so wild.
[00:57:53.120] - Rabbi Brant
The main Christian Zionist organization, CUFI, Christians United for Israel, they state they have 10 million members. Just to put that in perspective, there's only 6 million plus Jews in the United States.
[00:58:07.868] - David
And they claim 10.
[00:58:09.110] - Rabbi Brant
It's a very powerful movement. Which is important to keep in mind when we think about the Israel lobby.
[00:58:19.340] - Lesley
Many, many Israel supporters, both in Europe and the United States, are part of evangelical or millenarian movements.
[00:58:27.180] - Caullen
I'm just thinking about this conversation, I feel like I do keep naming- I wanna go back to the liberal Zionism stuff. But I think there are some more ideological things, which I think you two are great folks to talk about the nuance and the facts around these things. But I was going to leave the moment we're in, and the election stuff for later. But I think you mentioned AIPAC, and literally today, Ilhan Omar is being primaried by someone who's being flooded with AIPAC money. Cori Bush lost, Jamaal Bowman lost.
[00:58:54.140] - David
That's what I wanted to name. After $6 million. $6 million, people.
[00:58:59.550] - Caullen
Progressive Black and Brown senators of Congress people-
[00:59:03.930] - David
For running, $6 million!
[00:59:04.630] - Caullen
Who are being primaried by AIPAC. For saying-
[00:59:08.100] - David
The right things.
[00:59:10.150] - Caullen
The right things, but not even throwing down Palestinian liberation, but just being like, Genocide is not cool.
[00:59:15.060] - David
"I'm tired of seeing these videos on my Instagram."
[00:59:17.070] - Caullen
Yeah. So I think when we talk about foreign meddling in American affairs, if it's a problem, let's talk about it. I want to bring that into the space as far as the political ramifications of large organizations that are funded from folks you just named, against American politicians that are saying, in my view, a bare minimum against Israel.
[00:59:42.460] - Rabbi Brant
We should also mention that Democratic Majority for Israel, so-called, it is one of the front organizations that raised a lot of that money to primary these folks.
[00:59:53.710] - Lesley
And United Democracy Project which is... I think United Democracy Project is the AIPAC group that that does the fundraising for them.
[01:00:01.490] - Rabbi Brant
I recently read a great article by Yousef Munayyer, a Palestinian academic and activist who wrote in The Guardian, I think it was, that he was writing about Cori Bush's defeat and how heartbreaking it was in many ways, which it was. But his take on it was really interesting. He sees this as a sign that democratic support for Israel is going down. It's going down.
[01:00:29.930] - Caullen
I can see that eventually.
[01:00:31.180] - Rabbi Brant
And the desperation that they have to throw so much- unprecedented amounts of money into these primaries.
[01:00:36.050] - Lesley
So $25 million combined for Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman from AIPAC and from Democratic Majority for Israel. Whereas a few years ago, not that many years ago, Nina Turner, and I always forget which state she was from.... Nina Turner, progressive African-American woman running for a seat, was not- and again, was not, like you said, was just basically saying, It might be cool to think of Palestinians as human beings. And AIPAC went after her, and they did manage to supplant her with another Black woman who was simply more on their side or at least willing to play ball with them. They only spent $300,000 to go to Nina Turner. But now, a few years later, you're talking $9 million, $10 million per race. And AIPAC had basically announced that they were going spend up to $100 million to replace progressives.
[01:01:33.430] - Lesley
And the thing is, many of these progressives that they're replacing, yes, they're talking about Israel. Cori Bush was the first person to call for a ceasefire in Congress- the Ceasefire Resolution was something that she initiated. But these are also people who are progressive on a lot of other issues, on labor issues, and education, and health care. And that are very progressive on a lot of issues of interest to African-Americans, to Latinos, to immigrants, and who is AIPAC supporting? AIPAC funded many, many people who were involved in the January 6th uprising. They're also funding people who work with the fossil fuel industry.
[01:02:12.190] - Lesley
So also, it's very interesting that in their attack ads against Jamaal and against Cori, they don't actually really emphasize Israel. Because I think they know that that's not actually going to be a winning issue for the people that they're trying to turn. But they'll mention defunding the police, or they have smear campaigns about how this person has really scary politics on various issues.
[01:02:39.330] - Lesley
But here in Chicago, too, Kina Collins was recently defeated by Danny Davis, and she, too, was subjected to AIPAC attack ads. Which, once again, did not mention Israel. And Danny Davis actually had been kinda okay on Palestine, but he wasn't quite as much out there as Kina Collins was.
[01:02:57.750] - Caullen
He wasn't wearing a keffiyeh in Congress.
[01:02:59.240] - Lesley
Yeah.
[01:02:59.940] - Caullen
Shout out Kina, she would have been my rep.
[01:03:02.210] - Lesley
Kina wanted to be part of The Squad. She talked about looking forward to joining The Squad, and they're like, Oh no, we cannot let that happen. So it's not that surprising. Jamaal Bowman, one of Jamaal Bowman's legislative priorities was something called the "Equity or Else" program. He had a resolution, I think he had 12 co-sponsors on the Equity or Else resolution. There's a whole Equity or Else movement. In fact, they're having a meeting on August 18th, this coming weekend. I mean, there's a lot going on this next week.
[01:03:34.340] - Lesley
But his 12 co-sponsors, almost all of them were people that JVP Action had endorsed. It's people like Ilhan and Rashida and AOC and Chuy Garcia and Delia Ramirez. So there's clearly a big overlap between AIPAC wanting to attack people that are pro-Palestinian, but also people who are just plain progressive about racial equity and racial justice and poverty issues. So I think that's something that people need to realize with AIPAC.
[01:04:09.170] - Lesley
JVP and several other organizations, including Working Families Party, had a movement to- a pledge to get Congress people to pledge not to take AIPAC money. Do you really want to be associated with January 6th? Do you really want to be associated with this organization that is funding people who are involved in the January 6th insurrection? Do you really want to be part of this stealthily replacing Black progressives, either with non-African Americans or with Black people who are somewhat less progressive?
[01:04:42.750] - Lesley
So Harper Hill was on Charlemagne's show a couple of weeks ago, and he said that he was offered $20 million to run against Cori Bush. And he said, no. And he said, "well, I guess somebody else took that same deal that I didn't take." And Wesley Bennett [Bell], I think his name is? Who ended up beating Cori Bush, they had been colleagues. And there was a recorded phone conversation where he promised he was not going to run against her. He was going to take on Josh Hawley, and he was not going to run against Cori Bush.
[01:05:15.590] - Caullen
Much better person to take on.
[01:05:17.440] - Lesley
Yes. And then shortly after that, apparently he had a conversation- it seems, we don't know for sure, but it seems that he was persuaded that maybe it would be in his best interest to run against Cori instead.
[01:05:31.960] - Caullen
That's both wild and also par for the course. I do appreciate you naming the amount of money now versus then. It is substantially different.
[01:05:44.810] - David
And then now I would agree with you, like, okay, I can hear. Like, this is the desperation, this empire's last turn and result of what it has to do. Because they're probably not happy that they spent 25 million.
[01:05:56.450] - Rabbi Brant
No, and they know that's what they have to do. I'm old enough to remember- I was an undergraduate during South Africa apartheid falling, and I remember the student struggle there. I remember well, how was this ever going to... How is apartheid ever going to fall? It's ironclad. I remember the anti-apartheid bill and Reagan vetoing it, and the Black Congressional Caucus overriding the veto. And the dominoes just fell. Because there are these moments where the desperation becomes so palpable. And so that's the one piece of hope to hold on to, is that, while all of this is horrid and heartbreaking in many ways, it is a sign that they're running scared and they see the writing on the wall.
[01:06:43.140] - Caullen
I think about that when I talk to folks about abolition, and there's plenty of stuff that you can talk about as far as military and police budgets and some of those more tangible things depending on who I'm talking to and how we're talking about it, whatever. It's nice to go macro and talk about that in ways as far as, you know, there was a time before policing, and there will be a time after. And with Israel, like Zionism, there was a time before, there will be a time after. And I say that and I believe that, but I've only known the carceral state; from Bush Sr. to now. And so it's like, I haven't experienced otherwise.
[01:07:20.290] - Caullen
But I was actually asked the other day, by someone in good faith, they were like, I haven't seen... They were asking, Is there a place in the world, or an example where abolition has worked? I'm all about the data, I'm just curious and this. And I was like, There's so many buckets I can respond to this. But I was like, Is there a place where policing has worked? And let's define what "worked" actually means. But it was like, If it's working as far as- to your example, as far as keeping people safe and reducing crime, whatever, these talk points, then it doesn't work. Policing is inherently violent, ineffective.
[01:07:53.780] - Lesley
Well, and the question is, who is it keeping safe?
[01:07:54.780] - Caullen
No, exactly right. But we were on the same page as far as, this is your goal and it's not doing that. I would argue it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do- but that's a different conversation. But it's like, even with what they claim they want to do, they're not good at it. And so we had this bigger conversation about that. But I remember I positioned it with this idea of, Oh, where does abolition work? I was like, Well where has the current state worked? So let's think about it that way.
[01:08:15.440] - Caullen
And so I think in this conversation too, there's always going to be so much, but there's the- the ideas we're propagated with and how we live through them and see them and analyze them in real-time. Personally and on a macro level, but also there's the specific policies and people and things. Like, there's a history, we can name this. This person did the thing and this happened, and it's happening now. And I think knowing that trajectory helps us align that this is terrifying, but also I think they're doing this because they're scared. And that means we have a role to play and then that got bigger than it was in the yesteryear.
[01:08:52.740] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. With the DNC coming to town this weekend, it can feel like I can't imagine a world where the Democratic Party will not support Israel unconditionally. And yet, to the example of apartheid, there was a time where they probably said that about South Africa, too. And the fissures are clear. I mean, it's already begun. I'm not... I don't have a pass to get into the DNC, I'm going to be outside. I'm going to be playing the outside game. But I think there is a role to play both inside and outside. I don't begrudge my friends who are involved in electoral politics, who are working really really hard to change things from within in terms of party platforms. We need it all. I think, personally, we need all hands on deck because we know that things do change. We should know that.
[01:09:58.300] - Caullen
Do you all mind speaking on either your involvement or your thoughts on, what you named in the different podcast, of the Ceasefire Movement. Or for municipalities, or for other bodies of government to call for a ceasefire?
[01:10:12.010] - Lesley
Oh, Lord, yes.
[01:10:13.030] - Rabbi Brant
Lesley has been leading the charge in Evanston.
[01:10:16.010] - Caullen
I'm thinking of what that means, but also symbolic actions versus what that can do.
[01:10:22.460] - David
Actually do.
[01:10:22.460] - Caullen
Yeah. I think there's a conversation there, too, as far as, this is symbolism; but also it matters and why that is.
[01:10:27.970] - Lesley
Yeah. So talking to Palestinian friends- there are Palestinians in Evanston. It's not a huge visible community, but there are... And there's a lot of Palestinian students because we have Northwestern there. Obviously, the main reason they want a ceasefire is to stop people from getting killed. But when we talk about, are these resolutions merely symbolic? There's the long political game of building up to a national ceasefire or, ideally, national cessation of giving a blank check to Israel for bombs. I think that would be the ultimate goal. But part of the narrative is that we can't move our legislators. As Brant said, there's no way the Democratic Party, in the immediate future, is going to stop supporting Israel. Is going to stop saying, Well, they need all this money for self-defense, etc etc. So the only way to really show that there is a people's movement against this is if you get lots lots of municipal ceasefire resolutions. And there were a lot. I don't remember at this point how many there were, but there were well over 100 municipalities that passed ceasefire resolutions, and some of them in pretty big cities, not just small ones.
[01:11:45.750] - Rabbi Brant
Like Chicago.
[01:11:45.860] - Lesley
Like Chicago, for example. So just for Palestinians to see people there, to see... I mean, a lot of people told me that one of the most inspiring moments of their life was seeing all these young people in keffiyehs at City Hall, cheering and hugging when the ceasefire resolution passed. Just the sense of being seen because for so long, they were the invisible man. They're not being seen. But also to say, this is a way to put pressure on the national government to show that there are all these different municipal and, of course, then campus, ceasefire movements.
[01:12:23.250] - Rabbi Brant
I also think it has real value in movement building, both in Chicago, which was, as Lesley said, was really powerful. Up into the moment where Mayor Brandon Johnson had to break a tie and was forced to really vote on conscience, which was an incredibly important moment. But also, even in Evanston, where Lesley was at the forefront of organizing. Which, Evanston City Council, shamefully, did not pass a resolution. However, even where they don't work, they create relationships, they bring people into the movement. There are so many young people. And this was- I think it peaked before the campus encampment movement. But I think there were many, many young people that got involved in the movement and in the struggle as a result of the ceasefire resolutions. And then, I think, were primed to take leadership roles in the encampments on their campuses. I don't discount the power and importance of these. I completely reject this notion of what good does it do. I think it builds the movement, it creates relationships, it brings people in. And to Lesley's point about morale, I know- I saw pictures of people in Gaza saying, Thank you.
[01:13:43.180] - Caullen
Oh my god. I cry. I literally cry when I see something like that.
[01:13:45.050] - Rabbi Brant
So that makes a huge difference. On so many levels, it makes a difference.
[01:13:49.240] - Lesley
But just to talk about... I think people listening probably know the Chicago ceasefire story a little bit better. But in Evanston, I think Evanston is a very illustrative example of how these forces of power and powerlessness connect, and of the myths that we're told and how powerful some of the myths are.
[01:14:11.000] - Lesley
So Evanston has an Equity and Empowerment Commission, and as you might guess, they work on racial justice, equity issues in terms of city government and city services. And the two heads of the commission were two African-American women. So they proposed a ceasefire resolution. And honestly, I think their ceasefire resolution was too informative because it listed many many examples of inhumane acts that had been done to Palestinians over the last 50 years. So I think that was actually part of the reason that sunk it. So we go to the Equity and Empowerment Commission meeting, and one of the local rabbis, I'm not going to mention her name, but who was formerly a friend of both of ours.
[01:15:01.170] - David
So now we know where they are, we just gotta do a little Google search. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead.
[01:15:05.000] - Lesley
It's not going to be that hard to find.
[01:15:06.010] - David
I'm just stressing.
[01:15:06.900] - Rabbi Brant
It's a big synagogue in Evanston. That's all I'll say.
[01:15:08.110] - Lesley
It's the major synagogue in Evanston. She circulated a petition to pretty much everybody Jewish that she knew. There was no actual verification that these people lived in Evanston, and I know for a fact that a lot of them didn't.
[01:15:23.820] - Caullen
Outside agitators?
[01:15:24.270] - Lesley
Yeah, outside agitators, exactly.
[01:15:26.490] - David
Caullen!
[01:15:27.080] - Lesley
She got like a thousand signatures saying that this resolution was, wait for it, antisemitic. And that-
[01:15:35.190] - Rabbi Brant
Not balanced.
[01:15:35.660] - Lesley
Not balanced. Yes, it was unbalanced because it was talking all about the bad things that have been done to Palestinians, and it wasn't talking about any of the many terrorist attacks against Israelis.
[01:15:45.300] - Rabbi Brant
It's not going to do any good.
[01:15:46.590] - Lesley
And that Jews no longer felt safe living in Evanston because of this resolution. And the Jewish children were not going to feel safe living in Evanston because we were-
[01:15:55.650] - Caullen
Homeland in Englewood Chicago.
[01:15:57.320] - Rabbi Brant
Those were the same words that Debra Silverstein said in Chicago when it was passed. She said, "There's not a Jew in Chicago that's going to feel safe."
[01:16:04.980] - Lesley
Who's now feeling safe once we've passed this resolution.
[01:16:07.380] - David
Shame my alderwoman. Shame! Shame, Debra.
[01:16:10.090] - Rabbi Brant
Don't fucking speak for me, Debra Silverstein.
[01:16:11.940] - David
They're lucky that I had lived there yet when they started doing that shit.
[01:16:15.410] - Lesley
But it played into-
[01:16:16.690] - David
Debra, we see you next election, bro. No, I'm sorry.
[01:16:18.100] - Lesley
But it plays into so many myths. I mean, another thing with Debra Silverstein, I remember there was an editorial-
[01:16:23.430] - David
Give me the tea. I just moved to West Ridge, so talk to me. She's my alderfolk, so talk to me.
[01:16:27.570] - Lesley
Well, yeah, I'm sorry.
[01:16:28.890] - David
No, please. No, we got-
[01:16:30.030] - Lesley
But there was an editorial in the Chicago Tribune that was talking about, "Debra Silverstein: the lone Jewish member of the City Council, standing there alone, isolated, unprotected."
[01:16:40.460] - David
Oh, she's with her candle that stays lit for days without oil.
[01:16:43.980] - Caullen
Poor white woman!
[01:16:43.980] - Rabbi Brant
And there were so many of us Jews in the gallery speaking on behalf of the resolution, they didn't bother to mention that.
[01:16:51.630] - Lesley
This goes back to the whole myth about Israel. I mean, how often do we hear "Israel, this one tiny little country and all these big, mean Arabs all around it." And, "Israel is just this tiny, isolated country" with an enormous military budget! They're a net exporter of weapons.
[01:17:11.870] - David
Number three, right?
[01:17:11.870] - Lesley
Everyone talks about, they need self-defense. They sell weapons to people, they have so many weapons. But again, poor Debra Silverstein! And in Evanston it was like, this poor, Jewish, threatened population, and they were all going to feel that they were so threatened, that they were so endangered. And the same threatened, poor, frightened, vulnerable group of people was literally walking up to these two Black women and yelling in their face that they were stupid and antisemitic, and they didn't know what they were doing. And that the Equity Commission should be abolished because these two Black women had dared to bring a ceasefire resolution that called for an end to the genocide.
[01:17:54.750] - Lesley
There were also a couple of Palestinians who spoke. There's a really wonderful Palestinian teacher in our school system who came in wearing a keffiyeh. The hooting that began when this woman got up and walked to the front wearing a keffiyeh. And these many, very wealthy, very influential people who have a lot of pull in the community, who are threatening lawsuits and threatening to fire people. This teacher has had her job threatened numerous times, as have other Palestinian teachers and teachers supporting Palestine in Oak Park and in Chicago and many places around the country. And yet they're the ones who are the eternal victim. They're the ones that are vulnerable. And they are using all their white power, and all their white privilege, and all their money to silence and demonize two Black women and a Palestinian teacher. And that's what the ceasefire movement looked like in Evanston.
[01:18:48.830] - Caullen
White supremacy is a hell of a drug.
[01:18:50.840] - Lesley
Indeed.
[01:18:52.620] - David
I don't know it, but you know.
[01:18:55.790] - Caullen
Oh, you do. It's insidious. You do. You know it. It knows you. You might not know it, it knows you.
[01:19:01.350] - David
I don't even want to get to what we need to get to.
[01:19:03.460] - Caullen
Yeah. No, I mean, there's so many tabs open. But I feel like I appreciate everyone in this room just bringing it- streamlining all these conversations as far as what happened in Evanston, or ceasefire resolutions. And the symbolism question of the ceasefire, I was curious- cause I agree with you guys-
[01:19:19.780] - David
That was awesome. No, no, yeah, for real.
[01:19:20.960] - Caullen
No, about things that symbolize matters, that's why we fight wars over them. But it's like, what is the conversation as far as fighting for liberation in ways that maybe were previously demonized. Or conversations around who's able to use violence, and there's more things we can talk about.
[01:19:34.570] - Caullen
The one thing I'm very curious about, especially with having you all in this room, is the conversation around liberal Zionism. It's something I was unfamiliar with prior to a couple of months ago- I went to an event, and there was someone, anti-Zionist Jewish, white person who did a bunch of stuff in Gaza and other places in Palestine. And folks were asking her, Hey, this is great, we know all that. Tell us, in Israel, what is it like? Because there's folks who don't like Netanyahu. There's all these different... They were trying to bring about these striations of people politically and ideologically, which I'm not discounting. But it's like, to the day, you are a Zionist by benefiting off the land and the apartheid state and everything like that.
[01:20:15.850] - Caullen
So I'm just curious about... talked about Zionism earlier, I don't know if the question is, what is liberal Zionism? Or, the spectrum of Zionism that exists elsewhere or particularly in Israel, especially around... I'm afraid of the narrative after Palestinians do get free. And it's like, and liberals in America be like, Oh yeah, Netanyahu is this big bad guy, tsk tsk. And it's like, Well, you know.. He's not great, but also it's bigger than him, obviously.
[01:20:46.600] - Lesley
Well, and a lot of these issues were around a long time before Netanyahu got in.
[01:20:50.310] - Caullen
Exactly. So I know that's it's own bucket, but I'm in the conversation around these different buckets of Zionism. I would love to shed light on that.
[01:20:59.970] - Rabbi Brant
I mean, I would say, first off, the Z word gets bandied about in a lot of unhelpful ways. But maybe to start, I'll just state, definitionally, what I would say, the definition I'm going by is Zionism is the ideology and the movement that seeks to create a Jewish majority nation state in historic Palestine. That, on a very bare bones, that's the definition of Zionism that I'm using.
[01:21:33.300] - Rabbi Brant
It's true, as Lesley mentioned before, prior to '48, there were other forms of Zionism: cultural Zionism, which wasn't necessarily statist. There were forms of Zionism that the end game was not creating an exclusively Jewish state. Hannah Arendt and Judah Magnus, who was a prominent American rabbi who moved to Palestine. Martin Buber, Albert Einstein was part of this movement, too, that called themselves Zionists but wanted to create a binational state for all. A democracy for all who lived there. After 1948, all of that was moot. And I should also mention that those other movements were also a distinct minority, that political Zionism, the kind I just defined, was always the dominant ascendant form of Zionism.
[01:22:26.650] - Lesley
Well, and I think exclusivist.
[01:22:30.130] - Rabbi Brant
And I would say after '48, it's all completely moot. I mean, Zionism is embodied by the state of Israel. Zionism is supported by the government of Israel. There are Zionist institutions like the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund. And organizations like the Zionist Organization of America that are all ultimately about the upbuilding of a Jewish majority nation state, an ethnonational state that is predicated on the identity and majority of one particular group of people in that land.
[01:23:05.610] - Rabbi Brant
And so the term "liberal Zionism", given everything I've said, sounds like a bit of an oxymoron. There's nothing "liberal" about ethnonationalism. So what is that about? I mean, it's largely an American term, I think. And it's a term I would have used to describe myself. I remember when I started getting politically involved on the issue of Israel-Palestine, this was back in the '80s. Back then, even the suggestion of talking to the PLO, of suggesting there should be a Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state, that was way beyond the pale in the Jewish community and in the American political establishment. But I positioned myself on that "left edge" of the Zionist movement and was involved in organizations like Peace Now, Shalom Achshav, and others that were calling for it when that was considered actually a relatively edgy thing to do.
[01:24:04.540] - Rabbi Brant
And after Oslo, all of that became moot. That the two-state solution was synonymous with just entrenching the status quo, the settlement regime in the West Bank, creating Jewish facts on the ground, dispossessing Palestinians from their homes through home demolition and ethnic cleansing and periodic wars and military incursions. That is what liberal Zionism became. For me, in the midst of all of that, that's what caused me to really start to question, Wait a minute, I've been predicating my Jewish identity on this hypocrisy. I would not call myself a liberal anyways. So when I say there's nothing liberal about ethnonationalism, I'm not sure I'm trying to wave the flag of liberalism here. But I would say that, you know, let's just talk about a democratic state for all of its citizens. Let's use that term.
[01:25:08.370] - Lesley
But you said that "liberal Zionism" is American. So what do you think-
[01:25:13.340] - Rabbi Brant
Israelis would not use that term.
[01:25:14.630] - Lesley
Yeah. Do you want to talk about the supposed socialist aspect?
[01:25:18.790] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah, the Kibbutzim. Yeah. I mean, labor Zionism was Zionism. Labor Zionism was, yes, built on this socialist ethic, but it was also about settling-
[01:25:29.860] - David
and displacing.
[01:25:31.410] - Rabbi Brant
And displacing. The Kibbutzim were located, most of them, on top of ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages and often named after them in Hebraic- using Hebraic terms. So yes, they were socialist utopic visions, but for Jews only.
[01:25:47.550] - Caullen
For people who are not you- yeah.
[01:25:48.560] - Rabbi Brant
So even there, that hypocrisy was evident. I think for me, it all goes back to something I think, Lesley was saying this when she said this well predated Netanyahu. The entire enterprise is predicated on a settler colonial ethnonational project that makes nobody safe. It certainly doesn't make Palestinians safe, to put it mildly, and it doesn't make Jews safe either, which was the hallmark of what Zionism was supposed to be about. As far as Israelis today, I would say the strong, strong majority of Israelis today are Zionists. They believe in a Jewish state.
[01:26:38.140] - David
I've seen the Vice videos, my guy, so I know what you're talking about.
[01:26:40.840] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. Yeah.
[01:26:40.840] - David
"I live here now." "If I don't take it, someone else is going to take it." I'm like, this motherfucker is literally just telling the news like that. And he's from New York or some shit! I don't know.
[01:26:48.930] - Lesley
Oh, you mean the settler who moves into somebody's house in Sheik Jarrah?
[01:26:52.200] - David
There's plenty of them, but I think that's the particular one.
[01:26:55.240] - Rabbi Brant
The bottom line is, there needs to be a Jewish majority nation state in this land, that is the strong majority of Israelis. I have good friends who are anti-Zionist Israelis and let me tell you, right now, it is not a good thing to be.
[01:27:10.500] - Lesley
Many of them are under attack.
[01:27:12.840] - Rabbi Brant
Under attack. Many of them are leaving. But many of them, I have a friend who's like, I don't have a second visa- I have to stay here and fight. They are under serious attack in this particular moment. So I think it's really important to point out that, yes, Netanyahu is a piece of shit. He's a huge problem. He's garbage. But this isn't about him.
[01:27:39.877] - Lesley
It didn't start with him.
[01:27:40.030] - Rabbi Brant
This is about a systemic ideology and movement that has been around for almost 100 years and is at the root of what we are seeing going on right now, and has always been.
[01:27:53.930] - David
And aided and applauded by American congressmen.
[01:27:56.740] - Caullen
Is part of that why y'all moved from non-Zionist to anti-Zionist? I want to speak on that a little bit, too.
[01:28:06.474]
[both] Yeah.
[01:28:07.590] - Rabbi Brant
When we started Tzedek Chicago, before we even started signing members up, we wrote out our core values statement. And we said we are non-Zionist. I don't think that was a time where the term "anti-Zionist" was as part of the ether as it is now. And perhaps it felt like maybe if we're going to get this congregation off the ground, that's maybe a bridge too far. But a few years into it, I remember we had a conversation on our board, and I was talking with our President at the time and said, "What do you think about changing non to anti?" And they said, "I was thinking the same thing." And we brought it to the board and we had this amazing conversation. And they voted unanimously to make that change. But we ended up doing a months long process with the congregation where we had meetings to talk about it. And the real reason- the difference that I would say- and I think we ended up voting in the congregation that over 70% voted to make the change.
[01:29:16.380] - Rabbi Brant
There was a quote from Angela Davis that was very impactful on us all. The quote goes, "In a racist society, it's not enough to be non-racist, you have to be anti-racist." The point being, if you're calling yourself non-Zionist, then you're only saying, That's not me. But you're not taking a stand. You're not saying, This needs to be changed. You're just saying that-
[01:29:41.830] - Lesley
This is actively bad, and we need to actively be fighting against it.
[01:29:45.210] - Rabbi Brant
Saying "anti"... And people say, Well, I don't like saying I'm "anti" something. Well, would you call yourself an anti-racist?
[01:29:50.690] - Caullen
Of course. I have the "We believe" sign in my front yard.
[01:29:53.380] - Rabbi Brant
And I really believe this. I wear the badge of anti-Zionist Jew very proudly because we need to name it. We need to say it. We need to say this needs to be dismantled and transformed the way Jim Crow was, the way apartheid was, that it's not enough just to say, That's not me.
[01:30:12.920] - Lesley
Well, and I also want to bring up JVP was not always anti-Zionist.
[01:30:17.230] - David
JBP?
[01:30:18.970] - Lesley
Jewish Voice for Peace.
[01:30:20.690] - David
Oh, I appreciate you. I was like, Pritzker?
[01:30:24.170] - Caullen
Let's talk about it!
[01:30:25.730] - David
No, just go ahead.
[01:30:26.640] - Lesley
So a few years before, Tzedek took that decision, JVP went through the same process nationally. I think it was almost a year long process where we were asking a lot of the same questions. What did it mean? We also haven't talked about what it means to be anti-occupation as opposed to being anti-Zionist. There are groups that are anti-occupation, which say, Israel shouldn't be dominating the West Bank. Israel should leave the West Bank and let the West Bank alone. But that's still not really dealing with the fundamental question of the dispossession that happened, that- I wouldn't say happened in 1948- that started in 1948, because it's still happening. We talk about the ongoing Nakba.
[01:31:08.490] - Rabbi Brant
Is the Golan Heights occupied? Is East Jerusalem occupied? Is 1948 occupied? Or is it just the West Bank?
[01:31:14.210] - Lesley
Right. So being anti-Zionist, we're saying this whole process of building a nation state that was an ethnostate that was based on kicking out anyone who was not from that ethnic group is wrong, and that we have to fight against it. But initially, JVP as well, was a little bit more positioned as anti-occupation. I think most people believe that they were anti-Zionists. In fact, a lot of people were surprised to find out that we weren't officially anti-Zionists.
[01:31:39.410] - Lesley
But it wasn't unanimous. There were a few people who just said, again, I don't want to be anti. We don't want to close any doors to people. But I think we felt, and one of the reasons why I think JVP is really seen as an ally much more than some other Jewish movements in support of Palestine, is there is- Palestinians see JVP as being truly a solidarity organization. And saying that we were anti-Zionist was part of sealing that deal. There were steps that we took initially-
[01:32:12.350] - Rabbi Brant
It was accountability to Palestinian partners. They were asking for it.
[01:32:15.610] - Lesley
It was accountability to Palestinians. Initially, JVP was not officially in support of the Boycott Divest Sanctions Movement. That was another conversation moving from just anti-occupation to saying, yes, we actually embrace this movement, it's a non-violent movement supported by Palestinian Civil Society as a way to break down the Zionist system. But it took a little thinking and talking to say, yes, we were going to adopt that. And the next logical step was adopting an official stance as anti-Zionist. And I think that just meant the world, that meant an awful lot to our Palestinian partners that we were willing to stand out and name that.
[01:32:57.140] - Rabbi Brant
I was hoping that by now there would be more synagogues that would call themselves exclusively anti-Zionist. There are some other Jewish groups, religious Jewish groups. And there are some, as Lesley called them, wide tent congregations. They say, Well, our members are Zionists, we're anti-Zionist. We're open to all.
[01:33:17.700] - Lesley
We're open to white supremacist and to anti-racist.
[01:33:20.810] - Rabbi Brant
The insidiousness of inclusivity.
[01:33:22.780] - David
I don't mean to keep the episode going longer, but I am curious- so after 300 days, what do y'all hear within your communities of Jewish folk that is the biggest like, "No, I'm not going to be anti." I'm just generally curious. What do y'all hear from that aisle, that side of the aisle, if you will?
[01:33:47.010] - Rabbi Brant
I'll be honest with you.
[01:33:50.560] - David
Give it to me.
[01:33:51.370] - Rabbi Brant
I think this moment has split us wide open.
[01:33:57.500] - Lesley
The Jewish community.
[01:33:58.990] - Rabbi Brant
The Jewish community. I think, and I don't think there's any going back. I think it's a schism. I'm not trying to be over dramatic. My feeling is, if you are going to be a Jewish institution or even a Jewish person that is supporting genocide, then you're not my community. Now, I want to say a caveat. I know there are families that are being torn apart by this. I counsel them a great deal, and I don't mean to make light of that. I do a lot of this political pastoral counseling these days. But I mean, in the larger picture, what do I see on that side of the aisle, I see a lot of... Well, I see "we stand with Israel", just a lot of disgusting-
[01:34:48.490] - David
Nationalism, almost type of attitude.
[01:34:48.840] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah, just doubling down on what this horrible... It's saying that-
[01:34:53.990] - David
They deserve it.
[01:34:54.520] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah, or that they're human shields or whatever.
[01:34:56.160] - David
Oh, human shields.
[01:34:56.900] - Rabbi Brant
And then there's the "liberal Zionists"
[01:35:01.306] - Caullen
Air quotes.
[01:35:01.720] - Rabbi Brant
Who, in some ways, make me even more enraged because they're not... As horrible as the "we stand with Israel" folks are, they're being honest.
[01:35:11.850] - Caullen
I know who you are.
[01:35:13.250] - Rabbi Brant
Liberals, don't get me started about liberals. They're just sitting on the fucking fence.
[01:35:17.250] - Lesley
It's the white people in "Letter From A Birmingham Jail"
[01:35:19.870] - Caullen
Yeah.
[01:35:20.410] - Rabbi Brant
It's just like, they're purporting to maintain this moral high ground when they are just not taking a fucking stand on genocide. I have no time for that. I feel like we're creating in our corner of the world, and it's growing, there's no question. It's small. We don't have nearly the resources, to put it mildly, of the larger community. But I want to focus on the rest of the time I have left on building this community up, because I think Jews supporting genocide is the- or anybody supporting genocide, but as a Jew, it's just the ultimate betrayal of everything that we stand for, that we've lived through, that we should be.
[01:36:03.370] - Lesley
I think one of the beautiful things about the student encampments was that you really saw that. You saw all these young Jews who wanted to be in solidarity, not just with Palestinians, but with immigrants and African-Americans and the LGBTQ community, the whole anticolonial, antiracist, anticolonial, anti all the stuff. So I think that is maybe a hopeful sign of the way things are going to go.
[01:36:28.990] - Rabbi Brant
It was beautiful.
[01:36:30.020] - Lesley
But I think it is... We always make the point of saying, it's not that all Jews believe this. There's what Zionists believe as opposed to what all Jews believe. But if you're talking about Jewish institutions, sadly, that is pretty much what they're all standing for. So the Hillel on campus, and the Jewish federations and the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Council and JCRC.
[01:36:56.417] - Rabbi Brant
JCRC: Jewish Community Relations Council.
[01:36:56.570] - Lesley
And the vast majority of synagogues. And the "we stand with Israel" signs, those didn't go up on October 7th. I mean, those have been up pretty much forever. And it's even worked into the liturgy. And I remember, again, the same synagogue in Evanston, the former rabbi there was quoted as saying that he thought that the Israeli basic law should be considered sacred text for our congregation.
[01:37:23.100] - Caullen
That's so weird on so many levels.
[01:37:25.300] - Rabbi Brant
The Declaration of Independence.
[01:37:25.300] - Caullen
The Declaration- yes. The Israeli-
[01:37:26.120] - Rabbi Brant
Not the basic law.
[01:37:27.050] - David
Okay okay.
[01:37:27.050] - Lesley
The Israeli Declaration of Independence- a Gentile, or a goyim, auxiliary branch.
[01:37:35.820] - David
I don't know if I'd go to a place, cause like... I know what a Gentile is because of Christianity.
[01:37:41.120] - Caullen
I'm a Gentile.
[01:37:41.380] - David
I'm like, Oh, I'm the Gentile now?
[01:37:43.340] - Caullen
Gentiles are cool. I'm here, what's going on?
[01:37:44.470] - David
My name is David. Fuck, y'all know what it is? I'm beloved! Y'all are ain't beloved! Fuck y'all!
[01:37:47.860] - Lesley
I think there are people who are maybe... They feel uncomfortable joining Jewish Voice for Peace. They think, Oh, I'm not Jewish, I don't belong. But we do- one wonderful thing that JVP does is, every day they have a half an hour period where you can get online with people and just get information about what's going on in Israel and Palestine and get action steps. So, here's a letter you could write to the New York Times or your local paper. Or, here's a piece of legislation that you can advocate for. Obviously, there's a lot of information on the website. The Instagram pages, there's a lot of great information on the JVP Instagram page. JVP Action, which is our 501(C)(4). So JVP Action does the electoral political work. So JVP Action endorses candidates, endorsed Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, and so on.
[01:38:42.340] - Rabbi Brant
Jews for Jamaal.
[01:38:43.860] - Lesley
Jews for Jamaal.
[01:38:44.550] - Caullen
I love a good acronym. Or no- I love a good...
[01:38:48.440] - Lesley
Alliteration.
[01:38:48.800] - Caullen
Alliteration. There you go. Acronym is cool, too.
[01:38:50.800] - Lesley
If people are interested in the electoral aspect of it, going to the Jewish Voice for Peace Action website and Instagram page is a really great way to do that.
[01:39:01.930] - Lesley
And just one thing, I have this on my list of sources that I gave y'all, is "Drop the ADL", which is an organization- it's not exclusively a Jewish or a Palestinian organization, but it is calling out the Anti-Defamation League's flagrant, flagrant support of Palestine and flagrant attacks and censorship of Palestinians, but also pretty much anybody who speaks up for Palestinians. And we were really thrilled recently that Wikipedia decided that the Anti-Defamation League is no longer a viable source for antisemitism statistics.
[01:39:41.860] - Caullen
Let's go!
[01:39:42.910] - Lesley
Because pretty much-
[01:39:43.270] - David
Wiki? Wiki?
[01:39:44.870] - Lesley
Pretty much anybody who waves a Palestinian flag, they're going to say it's antisemitic.
[01:39:49.470] - Rabbi Brant
I just learned today that Wikipedia is now referring to what's going on in Gaza as a genocide.
[01:39:56.740] - Lesley
Yes.
[01:39:57.000] - Rabbi Brant
They're calling it on the website, they're calling it the "Gaza Genocide".
[01:40:02.020] - Caullen
Hear that eighth-grade teacher who said Wikipedia wasn't a viable source? Out here. I want my grade back! I want an A+.
[01:40:07.930] - David
Listening to the people, whatchu doing?! Complaining!
[01:40:10.590] - Rabbi Brant
An open source, yes.
[01:40:12.220] - David
No, but I do appreciate that. The line I just want to make sure we get recorded was, really appreciate y'all coming in and being as vulnerable as y'all were. I'm sure that having some of these conversations- I mean, maybe you as a Reverend, you're probably having them way too much.
[01:40:27.050] - Caullen
Rabbi.
[01:40:27.440] - David
Rabbi- oh shit.
[01:40:28.620] - Caullen
Wrong religion.
[01:40:29.397] - Rabbi Brant
The Very Reverend Rabbi.
[01:40:29.730] - David
Wrong religion, my apologies, let me repeat that.
[01:40:32.420] - Lesley
No, he's the Irreverent Rabbi.
[01:40:34.490] - David
The Irreverent Rabbi. I love it. No, but I can imagine you as a rabbi, you have too many of these conversations. That's what I was trying to get at.
[01:40:42.270] - David
But I do think for all of our listeners and for me on a personal, I just really appreciate y'all being here with us and talking through some of these things. Because to be honest, that's how we learn. You know what I'm saying? Like, realistically, I started with the little like, my tia watches Telemundo, type shit. But low key, if that's the only source of information you got, you know what I'm saying? You know, how you were mentioning, I haven't met a Palestinian, somebody, like, I know so many people who don't know any Jewish people. I don't know a single Israeli. And on the other fence, I maybe don't know any single Palestinian folk. I may not know any folk who is fighting for Palestinian liberation. So I do think all these conversations are important.
[01:41:16.680] - David
I just wanted to give grace and thanks to y'all for sharing that. And thinking of what are other ways that people can get involved, which is what y'all were talking about. But I am curious for any of our listeners who may be Jewish, who may be interested in learning a little more, Brant, what would be a way for them to get involved?
[01:41:32.940] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. So my congregation, our congregation, Tzedek Chicago, is... During the pandemic, we went online like everybody did. And what that did to us is, while we still have a strong Chicago core, we went global, literally.
[01:41:49.242] - David
That's cool. Global?
[01:41:49.440] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah. I mean, around the country and also around the world. And some of our most active members are way outside Chicago, or the United States.
[01:41:56.830] - Lesley
We have board members from New Zealand.
[01:41:58.590] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah.
[01:41:59.240] - David
Yoooo, shout out The Shire.
[01:42:00.600] - Caullen
Shout out- *laughing* I was gonna say.
[01:42:00.600] - Rabbi Brant
Time zones are a little bit challenging. So the majority of what we do is still online, but we do a number of things in person and online. But if you go to tzedekchicago.org, T-Z-E-D-E-K, chicago dot org. You'll see a calendar, we do every Friday night, we have a Shabbat service online. Every Saturday morning, a Torah study where you can just throw a dart at the Bible and see a verse about going to the land and dispossess the Canaanites and destroy... And so, we talk about that. We don't apologize for it. We don't ignore it. We talk about how these texts are used for colonial conquest.
[01:42:44.090] - Rabbi Brant
And then we do… Like, tonight is the beginning of the holiday of Tisha B'Av. It's a fast day. We're going to go- after I leave here, I'll spend a little time. And then we're going to go to Federal Plaza and sit on the ground and chant from the Book of Lamentations, which is traditional on this day. But we're going to do it at the seat of state power and send out our laments and our solidarity.
[01:43:07.960] - Lesley
But we also do fun things.
[01:43:08.660] - Rabbi Brant
Yeah, we do fun things.
[01:43:09.460] - Caullen
That sounds fun to me.
[01:43:10.500] - Rabbi Brant
Well, did I mention Lesley's eulogy for liberal Zionism?
[01:43:13.900] - Lesley
Yes. I must say that was great.
[01:43:16.100] - Rabbi Brant
Yes, we also do fun things, but we are Jews.
[01:43:18.390]
*laughing*
[01:43:20.580] - David
And with that.... No.
[01:43:22.940] - Lesley
You didn't mention the fantastic anti-Zionist book discussion group?
[01:43:27.030] - Rabbi Brant
Yes. Our wonderful member, Lesley Williams, leads a reading circle. Maybe you'd like to talk about that?
[01:43:33.400] - Lesley
Yeah. I mean, so just in terms of learning more, I think even many people who grew up in the Jewish community don't know all that much about the actual origins of Israel and Zionism. So once a month, I guess it's the third Wednesday of the month, and it's online, and the guy from New Zealand comes to this discussion group.
[01:43:54.360] - Caullen
Shout out New Zealand! Coming through.
[01:43:56.860] - Lesley
But we discuss some very well-known writers like Edward Said and Ghassan Kanafani and Hannah Arendt, but also a lot of more recent writers. We've also discussed books by Avi Shlaim and Ella Shohat, who were Iranian and Iraqi Jews who were forced to become Zionists, in a way. And just that experience of the non-European Jews and what their experience was in Israel. And we read text by some fiction, but mostly non-fiction. Sometimes short stories will be- in September we'll be reading short stories from a book called Palestine: 100 Years After the Nakba [Palestine +100: Stories from a Century After the Nakba], where Palestinians imagine what life could be like in Palestine 100 years after the Nakba.
[01:44:46.480] - Caullen
Can I join? I want to make it in.
[01:44:47.960] - Rabbi Brant
You can!
[01:44:47.960] - David
For 24 years, it was like, yo... For all of our listeners, all information in the episode notes, so definitely check that out. Again, shout out to our guests. Thank you for hanging out with us. But if anything, see y'all, see them in the streets, see them doing their thing. But from Bourbon 'n BrownTown, as always, stay Black, stay Brown, stay queer.
[01:45:04.910] - Caullen
Stay tuned, stay turnt.
[01:45:06.670] - David
We'll see you for the next one.
OUTRO
Song from Rap Street Palestine (Ard Kan3an & ana Palestine) cypher.