Mapping Jewish Dissent: Jewish
Anti-Occupation Activism in Toronto
In June 2003, more than 200 people gathered in
Toronto to discuss how to intensify the critical
Jewish response to the 36-year-long Israeli
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Offering
workshops on such topics as "Jewish Law, Jewish
Ethics and the Occupation", "Jewish-Palestinian
dialogue", and (I'm not making this up),
"Coming out of the anti-occupation closet, or,
I'm Against the Occupation but Afraid to Tell My
Mother," the conference was the first such event
of this magnitude in Toronto. Rene Biberstein, a
reporter for the Toronto weekly NOW, wrote that
"it felt more like a much-needed group hug than a
political planning session for Jews who were
frustrated by being cut adrift by the mainstream
Jewish community and its increasingly right-wing
reps at the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai
Brith." Conference attendees, Biberstein noted,
seemed blissful about finally being amongst
friends.
In January of this year, intrigued by many
aspects of this growing form of Jewish activism,
my co-author Emma Jo Aiken, an anthropologist,
and I, a sociologist, undertook an ethnographic
study of anti-occupation Jews in Toronto in order
to understand how they negotiate the difficult
terrain of constructing what might be regarded as
an almost impossible category of political
subjectivity. What seems clear is that a
political identity based on criticism of Israel
from a Jewish perspective is less than legitimate
in the eyes of both those who uncritically
support the Israeli state and those who
unreservedly condemn it.
Jewish opposition to Israel's occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza is not a new phenomenon in the
Diaspora. It emerged soon after the Six Day War
in 1967 and accelerated considerably with
Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. However,
since the outbreak of the Second Intifada in
September 2000, Jewish anti-occupation activists
have become a visible political force in Jewish
politics in the United States. Groups such as
Brit Zedek V'Shalom, whose membership currently
numbers 20,000, and the Tikkun Community, which
has approximately 5000, have stepped onto the
national Jewish stage with dozens of local
chapters forming across the U.S., and now in
Canada. Local groups such as Not In My Name
(Chicago), Jewish Voices against the Occupation
(Seattle) and Jews for Global Justice (Portland,
Oregon) have sprung up in almost every major city
in the U.S. These groups have sponsored speaking
tours for Israeli youth who have refused the
draft and for soldiers who have refused to serve
in the occupied territories. They have brought in
speakers representing a group co-founded by
bereaved Palestinian and Israeli parents. They
have mounted ad campaigns in local media opposing
the occupation and put up web sites with links to
Israeli anti-occupation and human rights groups.
And they have conducted "Women in Black"-style
vigils at Israeli consulates. While not nearly as
well-publicized, Jewish anti-occupation activism
in Canada has also burgeoned since the beginning
of the Second Intifada, adopting similar
strategies to its U.S. counterparts.
Both in Canada and the U.S., Jewish dissent from
what political scientist Ofira Seliktar calls the
"sacred unity" principle of the Israel/Diaspora
relationship has come to be characterized by many
in the Jewish community as a "more severe form of
deviance than intermarriage." Jewish
anti-occupation activists contend with
accusations of self-hatred and inauthenticity, as
well as hate messages, listings in defamatory
websites and even death threats, all of which
have been initiated by other Jews. The
suppression of Jewish dissent can be viewed as a
boundary maintenance mechanism helping to define
who can be included in, and who excluded from,
Jewish communal membership - political allegiance
to Israel serving as a litmus test for
determining who may claim to be authentically
Jewish. As former head of the American Jewish
Congress and outspoken critic of Israel, Henry
Sigman remarked in a 2002 New York Times
interview: "if you do not support the government
of Israel then your Jewishness, not your
political judgment, is in question."
For dissenting Jews, being branded as
"self-hating" constitutes a particularly bitter
irony since many, if not most, claim to criticize
Israel because of, not in spite of, their Jewish
values. "No label", argues the distinguished
philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler,
"could be worse for a JewŠwho knows that
ethically and politically, the position with
which it would be utterly unbearable to identify
is that of the anti-Semite." Indeed, for some at
whom it is directed, the label of self-hating Jew
may conjure up the chilling spectre of Jewish
collaboration during the Holocaust, rendering the
charge particularly offensive. Progressive Jews
whose psychic and political lives are profoundly
informed by the Holocaust, claims Butler, operate
from a position of abhorrence to silence and
collaboration with illegitimate and violent
power, and a commitment to speaking out against
such power even in the face of personal risk.
"What", asks Butler, "do we make of JewsŠwho are
emotionally invested in the State of Israel,
critical of its current form and call for a
radical restructuring of its economic and
juridical basis precisely because one is
invested?" It is this question that we sought to
answer in our research. For us, a perfect
metaphor was to be found in a story related to us
about a demonstration mounted during a speaking
engagement in Toronto by former Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Police had mandated
that "pro-Israel" and "pro-Palestinian" groups
congregate on opposite sides of the barricades
that had been erected. Jewish anti-occupation
activists we interviewed told us that they
refused to stand on one side or the other of the
barricade, demanding instead to stand between the
two groups. The police refused. As impossible
subjects, those who reject a bifurcated politics
of non-recognition literally had no ground upon
which to stand.
The ubiquitous perception of Diaspora Jewry as
unquestioningly loyal to Israel affords the
critical, but "invested" Jew little discursive
space in which to constitute him or herself as a
legitimate political subject. This is the case
both in relation to the mainstream Jewish
community as well as in relation to many sectors
of the political Left. What we set out to do was
talk with activists in Toronto struggling to open
up new discursive possibilities for Jewish
Diasporic politics in order to understand their
backgrounds, their motivations and the public and
private consequences of involvement in this form
of Jewish dissent.
It's important to note that this is a form of
authoethnography inasmuch as both researchers
sympathize with the project of Jewish
anti-occupation activists and one, myself, is an
active member of a Jewish anti-occupation
organization.
We circulated letters of invitation to
participate in research to seven groups that we
identified as Jewish organizations which engage
in activities protesting Israel's continued
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. We then
conducted interviews with 15 subjects from six
different groups in the Winter and Spring of this
year, using 11 open-ended questions. Informed
consent was obtained from all participants.
In terms of demography and Jewish background,
overwhelmingly the informants indicated family as
the basis of their Jewish background and sense of
Jewish commitment. One activist interviewed was
himself a Holocaust survivor, while three others
were descendants of Holocaust survivors. More
than half (eight of 15) had a self-described
"strong" Jewish background, consisting of Jewish
day school, daily after-school classes, or
currently sending children to day school. Also,
eight informants indicated previous participation
in Zionist youth movements. Only two of 15
informants grew up with no Jewish education or
affiliation whatsoever.
When questioned about their relationships to
Jewish Life, 13 informants indicated their
participation in Jewish holidays, two keep
kosher, and one keeps the Sabbath. When asked
about their Jewish upbringing, four informants
expressed a sense of alienation from, or sense of
"not fitting in" to the Jewish communities of
their youth. In terms of a sense of current
community belonging, the relationship to Jewish
life was often described as a contradictory
"insider/outsider" experience. Ten informants
expressed a sense of alienation from the
"mainstream" Jewish community, with two
indicating class issues as part of the problem.
Periodically, informants indicated a geographic
element to this issue, in that "downtown Jews"
were somehow more tolerant than their more
affluent (or more religiously observant) uptown
or suburban counterparts. As one informant put
it, "you can't go north of Eglinton with my
views".
Most informants, (12 of 15) cite their political
activism as the primary source of Jewish
community and identity. While some reported a
connection to religious or ritual practice
(indeed half are synagogue members), most
informants express a deep connection to Judaism
through what they describe as its historical
connection to issues of social justice. When
discussing the motivation behind joining and
participating in their respective groups, many
informants indicated that they needed a place for
Jewish connection, and that membership in their
group provided them with a sense of community not
found in other Jewish settings.
Of the 15 informants, four are Israeli citizens,
two of whom emigrated there as adults. Two other
participants had lived in Israel for a year, and
five had visited Israel, some more than once.
Only four of the 15 participants had never
visited Israel. Almost every informant (13 of 15)
indicated a problematic or ambivalent
relationship with Israel. When asked to describe
their relationships to Israel, informants
responded with powerful and emotional descriptors
such as: "spiritual agony"; "a relationship of
shame"; "sad"; "love/hate"; "embarrassed";
"collective responsibility"; "collective guilt";
"default allegiance"; "passionate and traumatic";
" a constantly painful process"; "profound sense
of guilt and responsibility"; "very strong
affiliation"; "close". Significantly, only two
of 15 informants expressed complete disaffection
with Israel. Indeed, almost half (seven of 15)
consider themselves Zionists. Reflecting on why
she is still a Zionist, one older informant
remarked, "I am closer to the smell of the
camps".
Many informants expressed a strong connection to
the traditions of socialist thought and dissent
that are part of the history of Zionism. Several
dated their entry into their current critical
political position from significant events such
as the invasion of Lebanon, the massacres in
Sabra and Shatilah, and the first and second
Intifadas. What seemed clear from the interviews
is that rather than operating from a position of
self-hatred, these individuals appear to be
motivated by a deep commitment to Jewish life and
that their relationship to Israel is
characterized by very intense and mixed emotions.
The desire to protest against Israeli policies,
for all those interviewed, came from a belief
that as Jews, they have a moral and ethical
responsibility to do so. For some this desire
comes from a place of deep love for Israel. As
one informant expressed it: "It's my country
right or wrong, but I've got to change it."
We asked them about influences on their opinions
of Israeli/Palestinian conflict. These influences
included: family, participation in other Left
activism, the Israeli Press, news, military
experts who are against the occupation, and
ideological positions disseminated by their
national or international parent groups. Two
informants had recently visited Jewish
settlements and the occupied territories,
including refugee camps. These visits, as well as
viewing the impact of Israel's security fence on
the Palestinian population, served, in their
words, "as a process of "de-mystification the
Other". When informants cited specific readings
or theorists that impacted their opinions, these
references were often Jewish: Israeli journalists
Amira Haas and Gidon Levy, Zionist leader Ze'ev
Jabotinsky, philosopher Martin Buber, and
assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
All of the informants indicated that their
political opinions have at some point been a
cause of conflict with friends and family. At
least one informant reported that her activism
has been a source of "total disaffection" from
her family. Overwhelmingly, informants indicated
that they avoid conflict by "agreeing to
disagree" with friends and relatives. This
situation is described by one informant as an
"agreed-upon silence".
Almost half of the informants (seven of 15)
indicated that at times, they had experienced
some sense of discomfort with the non-Jewish
Left. For instance, while describing experiences
of perceived anti-Semitism, one young informant
described conflicts he's had with "the idiot
Left". Another described feeling discomfort when
"the mood on the left about suicide bombers goes
beyond my boundaries". One expressed a sense of
uneasiness at demonstrations that he feels are
"anti-Israel". One of the informants who
identified herself to be quite distant from
Israel described feeling very uncomfortable with
the Durban UN conference on racism. Having no
space to express political views within either
the family or the mainstream Jewish community
clearly acts as a marginalizing factor for these
individuals. However, many informants expressed
a further sense of conflict within wider Leftist
political circles, thus accentuating the
impossibility of their subject position.
These groups are generationally mixed, with age
ranges from 14 to 80. Most groups have 10 to 20
members, with the exception of two of the groups
that are affiliated with parent organizations in
Israel; these groups have 100 + members. All the
groups meet regularly-between weekly and
monthly-and all are self-funded.
Each group reported that their membership held a
significant range of opinions, although
"anti-occupation" was cited as a baseline. For
several of the groups, debates around the
Palestinian "right of return" were cited as being
particularly difficult. All groups maintained
that membership requires no specific ideological
principles. Because of the difficulty involved in
expressing their views within the mainstream
Jewish community, and/or the Left, informants saw
their groups as safe places to struggle with and
debate the political and ethical issues raised by
the occupation.
Several of the groups interviewed had experienced
direct censure of one form or another from other
Jewish organizations. The censure originated from
both right-wing fringe organizations and from
more mainstream Jewish ones. Four members of one
group found their names on the "Self-Hating and
Israel-Threatening (SHIT) List" website put up by
the Masada 2000 organization which lists 7,000
names of what the group defines as self-hating
Jews (amounts to a who's who of Jewish American
social scientists, among others). Group members
have had announcements of their activities
rejected by Jewish community publications or had
their events reported in negative terms in these
publications. Activists related that on several
occasions their groups had requested use of
Jewish communal spaces for speakers who were
critical of Israeli government policies and were
refused. Recently one group was told that they
could use a Jewish Community Centre for a two-day
event featuring a well-known American Jewish
activist, but that they could not advertise the
location publicly. Almost all groups reported
encountered hostility from parade marshals and
participants when attending Jewish events under
anti-occupation banners. The leadership of one
group, which defines itself unequivocally as
Zionist, was summoned to the offices of a
national Zionist umbrella organization for
censure after members of the group challenged a
representative of the Israeli far right who spoke
at a communal Israel Independence Day
celebration. One activist reported a series of
aggressive interventions from Jewish communal
leaders when he attempted to have the
controversial film Jenin, Jenin screened on his
high school campus. For the one group which
defined itself as "tolerated' and "part of the
spectrum of the official Jewish community",
censure had not been experienced. "People think
we're romantic and naïve", said one man
interviewed, "but there's no hatred."
The atmosphere of suppression of dissent and
alternative voices about the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict described by participants raises
troubling questions about the state of critical
inquiry and the tolerance of ideological
difference in the Canadian Jewish community. In
critiquing this phenomenon in the American Jewish
context, academic and essayist Alissa Solomon
asks cannily, "Whatever happened to 'two Jews,
three opinions'? To the essential shaping fact
that Abraham argues with God? To the very idea of
the Talmudic tradition? To good old Jewish
disputatiousness?"
We believe that this study raises troubling
questions about how dissent from mainstream
Jewish support of Israeli government policies is
perceived and addressed within Jewish communal
life. There is certainly evidence here to dispute
the accusations of self-hatred attributed to
Jewish anti-occupation activists, most of whom
have multiple ties to Jewish identity and all of
whom see their activism as deriving from Jewish
ethical precepts. Conflict with family and
censure by organizations supposedly
representative of the entire Jewish community are
particularly problematic. Conflict compromises
family ties which are for many the root of Jewish
affiliation, while censure restricts discourse,
rendering Jewish life politically sterile and
unwelcoming to those with disparate views. The
silencing of dissent and the muting of discourse
doesn't bode well for the development of viable
Jewish communal life in the 21st century. We need
to recognize that anti-occupation activists are
in fact finding Jewish affiliation through a
politics of dissent. How many Jews, we must ask,
are unaffiliated because of a discomfort with
official politics? Dissenting Jews occupy an
impossible category of political subjectivity and
are thus largely excluded from Jewish public
discourse. As Canadian Jews, we must ask
ourselves, what is at risk when dialogue and
debate about this issue are denied?
In closing, I'd like to quote the American
essayist Susan Sontag writing in Wrestling with
Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to
the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
"To fall out of step with one's tribe; to step
beyond one's tribe into a world that is larger
mentally but smaller numerically, if alienation
or dissidence is not your habitual or gratifying
posture, this is a complex difficult process. It
is hard to defy the wisdom of the tribe, the
wisdom that values the lives of members of the
tribe above all others. It will always be
unpopular-it will always be deemed unpatriotic-to
say that the lives of the members of the other
tribe are as valuable as one's own. It is easier
to give one's allegiance to those we know, to
those we see, to those with whom we are embedded,
to those with whom we share, as we may-a
community of fear."