Jewish Voice For Peace 2017 National Membership Meeting

Susan Bramhall, Jewish Voice for Peace

Seven members of Jewish Voice For Peace New Haven traveled to Chicago to join over a thousand others at the semiannual national membership meeting of Jewish Voice For Peace (JVP) March 31 – April 2.

This year’s conference reflected the intentional efforts of JVP to become more inclusive and delve deeply into the implications of intersections with related social justice movements. Many speakers presented information on the underlying colonial and racist nature of the Zionist project leading us inevitably to understanding the many separate struggles as one movement with common goals.

The first day of the conference was devoted to the first-ever gathering of Jews of color, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews in solidarity with Palestine and in partnership with JVP (JOCSM). A general session presented by Ilise Cohen titled “Understanding Israeli State Racism and Hierarchy through Mizrahi History, Accommodation, Struggles, and Resistance” was an eye-opening tour of racism within the Jewish community. JOCSM and JVP stand in strong support of the #BlackLivesMatter Vision For Black Lives platform.

Growing out of this deepening connection is a new campaign that will be kicking into high gear this summer: Deadly Exchange. The project will focus on the deadly falsehood that violence against some communities will create security for others as has long been perpetuated by the policies of both the U.S. and Israeli government. The focus will be exposing and working to stop the training of U.S. police by Israeli forces in the art of occupation. And, yes, it happens in Connecticut as well as Ferguson and Atlanta. Stay tuned for more information.

A last note we’d like to share is that the New Haven chapter was honored to facilitate a well-attended train-the-trainers workshop on conducting Anti-Islamophobia workshops. We have just completed the second of these self-study sessions in partnership with members of the Muslim Coalition of Connecticut and hope to offer more in the future. Contact [email protected] for more information.

Videos of keynote sessions by Judith Butler, Linda Sarsour, Rasmeah Odeh and others are all available online at nmm.jewishvoiceforpeace.org.