The Elephant in the Room
Haverim,
I am writing to ask if you’d be willing to add your signature to this statement concerning the troubling developments in Israel. This appeal, which has garnered over 1700 signatures (many by distinguished and rather mainstream scholars and other public figures), calls upon leaders of North American Jewry to take action and make their voices heard, not only on the current erosion of democracy in Israel, but also regarding what we believe is the often-ignored root cause of this process, namely the ongoing occupation and oppression of millions of Palestinians.
Your signature will greatly contribute to this effort to alert Americans, especially American Jewry, to what is unfolding in Israel; to mobilize Jewish leaders to take action against the dark forces that have taken hold of Israel; to support and redirect the protest movement, and, most importantly, to apply pressure on US policy-makers to stand up to Netanyahu's extremist government and to work toward true democracy and equal rights for Jews and Palestinians alike.
If you agree with this statement and decide to sign it, please also forward it to others you believe might share our sentiments and sense of urgency.
L'shalom,
Rabbi Mordechai Liebling
To sign the petition, email: <academics.speak.out@gmail.com>
Art by Shoshke ©
The Elephant in the Room
We, academics and other public figures from Israel/Palestine and abroad, call attention to the direct link between Israel’s recent attack on the judiciary and its illegal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinian people lack almost all basic rights, including the right to vote and protest. They face constant violence: this year alone, Israeli forces have killed over 190 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and demolished over 590 structures. Settler vigilantes burn, loot, and kill with impunity.
Without equal rights for all, whether in one state, two states, or in some other political framework, there is always a danger of dictatorship. There cannot be democracy for Jews in Israel as long as Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid, as Israeli legal experts have described it. Indeed, the ultimate purpose of the judicial overhaul is to tighten restrictions on Gaza, deprive Palestinians of equal rights both beyond the Green Line and within it, annex more land, and ethnically cleanse all territories under Israeli rule of their Palestinian population. The problems did not start with the current radical government: Jewish supremacism has been growing for years and was enshrined in law by the 2018 Nation State Law.
American Jews have long been at the forefront of social justice causes, from racial equality to abortion rights, but have paid insufficient attention to the elephant in the room: Israel’s long-standing occupation that, we repeat, has yielded a regime of apartheid. As Israel has grown more right-wing and come under the spell of the current government’s messianic, homophobic, and misogynistic agenda, young American Jews have grown more and more alienated from it. Meanwhile, American Jewish billionaire funders help support the Israeli far right.
In this moment of urgency and also possibility for change, we call on leaders of North American Jewry - foundation leaders, scholars, rabbis, educators - to
Support the Israeli protest movement, yet call on it to embrace equality for Jews and Palestinians within the Green Line and in the OPT.
Support human rights organizations which defend Palestinians and provide real-time information on the lived reality of occupation and apartheid.
Commit to overhaul educational norms and curricula for Jewish children and youth in order to provide a more honest appraisal of Israel’s past and present.
Demand from elected leaders in the United States that they help end the occupation, restrict American military aid from being used in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and end Israeli impunity in the UN and other international organizations.
No more silence. The time to act is now.
To sign the petition, email academics.speak.out@gmail.com
As of Monday morning, August 21, 2023, the petition has garnered over 1,900 signatures. The limitations of The Shalom Center's email distribution software will not allow us to display all the signatures here. Below are the first 20 and most recent 20 signatures as of Monday morning:
Signatories
Shira Klein, Associate Professor of History, Chapman University
Omer Bartov, Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Brown University
Meir Amor, Associate Professor Concordia University (ret.)
Lior Sternfeld, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Penn State University
David N. Myers, Professor of Jewish History, UCLA
Yair Mintzker, Professor of History, Princeton University
Tamir Sorek, Professor, Penn State University
Nitzan Lebovic, Professor of History, Apter Chair of Holocaust Studies, Lehigh University
Samuel Moyn, Professor, Yale University
Amos Goldberg, Research Institute of Contemporary Jewry, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Zach Adam, Professor Emeritus, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Sarah Stroumsa, Professor Emerita, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Daniel Blatman, Professor Emeritus, Department of Jewish History, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ella Segev, Associate Professor, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Ben Kiernan, Professor of History, Yale University (ret.)
Efraim Davidi, lecturer, Tel Aviv University
Yael Hashiloni Dolev, Professor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Anat Matar, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Tel Aviv University
Dr. Noga Wolff, Independent Scholar
Omri Boehm, Associate Professor of Philosophy, The New School for Social Research
[ . . . ]
Jacqueline Rose, Professor, Co-Director, Institue for the Humanities, Birkbeck University of London
Jo Ann Cavallo, Professor, Italian, Columbia University
Mikael Levin, Artist, Photographer
Charles Perkins, PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Santa Barbara
Henry Rousso, Emeritus Senior Researcher, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Tali Nates, Founder & Director, Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre
Dr Oded Na'aman, Senior Lecturer, Philosophy & Centre for Moral and Political Philosophy, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
E R Hurvich, Rabbinic Student, Aleph: Alliance for Jewish Renewal
Rabbi Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, PhD, Professor, Religion; Coordinator, Jewish Studies, Wheaton College
Janet Theophano, Adjunct Faculty, Folklore, Anthropology; Dean of Academic Affairs, College of General Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Rabbi Ruhi Sophia Motzkin Rubenstein, Temple Beth Israel- Center for Jewish Life, Eugene, OR
Abigail B Bakan, Professor, University of Toronto
Wolf Gruner, Founding Director, USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research; Shapell-Guerin Chair, Jewish Studies; Profesor, History, University of Southern California
Rabbi Ken Rosenstein, Boston, MA
Rabbinic Pastor Heena Reiter, MSN, P'nai Yisrael Chavurah, Charlottesville, VA
Tami Gold, Professor, Hunter College
Cantor Michael Zoosman, Co-founder, “L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty”
Avrum Rosner, retired National President of the Canadian Council of Railway Shopcraft Unions and CAW National Representative
Evelyn Mehl, Retired Lutheran pastor, synodical leadership positions, published writer in church publications
Riva Hocherman, publisher, New York