Freedom Advocacy Network

Links:

Meeting Video Recording: https://youtu.be/vgbfwuuGElw 

https://socalbund.blogspot.com/

https://www.antisemitismcurriculum.org/copy-of-about-2 (Real intersectional Antisemitism curriculum)

https://jewishbund.org/

https://www.derspekter.org/

Notes:

• The Bund started the same year in 1898, coincidentally the same year as the start of Zionism
• Their plan was at the time to petition England to migrate to Palestine
• Ottoman empire was less violent than Europe – but only allowed Jews to do specific trades like money lending, mercantilism
• There were many violent pogroms murdering entire Jewish villages in Europe around this time
• Bundism and Zionism were formed to fight this repression
• Mainstream Jewish thought was that Jews would be invited to Palestine without taking over Palestine
• Bundism: Our land is wherever we are – these are our cities – these are our places. 
• Doikayt: hereness – living here – vs Dorkayt: thereness aka Zionism
• Labour Unions in early 1900s were armed
• Zionism: There is violence here, send us somewhere else
• Zionism has contradictory nature of believing that Palestine belongs to Jews yet were not religious
• The British actually believed that if they supported Jews, then the Jews all over the world would support Britian – even though they were just 30-40 million Jews
• Zionists started terrorising Palestinians – including Jews in Palestine
• Jews ended up being considered “first class race”
• Britain did its usual divide and conquer thing
• Hitler started rounding up the Jews and putting them in concentration camps – and did it with support from European – this was in the early 1930s
• Britian: What are we going to do about the Jewish refugees? They didn’t like the, started sending them to Palestine
• Jews were running away from the problems of Europe
• The Bund did fight back – they were responsible for many of the uprising including the Warsaw uprising – and Germany destroyed the entire ghetto to stop the uprising
• Zionists in Palestine only wanted the “whitest” Jews
  • Havara agreement, Zionist and Nazis agreement
  • 40,000 Jews from Germany moved to Palestine – were moved to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, etc.
  • 200-300,000 Jews were sent back to ghettos, etc.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haavara_Agreement 
• Why does it seem like Jews are silent? It’s scary – Evan has personally been getting death threats and weird unsolicited packages
• Stalin stopped Germany
  • Stalin in many ways was sympathetic to Jews
  • Soviet Union was built on equality – it gets a lot of hate from the West because they were the enemy – Stalin didn’t want people to be subjected to state violence – but committed state violence to ironically achieve that goal
  • There were and always will be lots of Jews in Russia
• The Jews that were in Palestine were terrorists
• Stalin armed the Jews in Palestine – he wanted them to survive
• Arab nations armed the Palestinians
• UN in 1948 formed Israel and as it’s first project started “managing” Palestine
• US setup Israel and neighboring nations to be their proxies
• Bund members in many parts of the world executed
• Europe closed it’s borders to Jews – they ended up in Palestine
• After 1948, Jews in Arab countries dropped dramatically – moving them to Palestine
• Zionism suppressed Bundism amongst Jews
• Zionism was almost modelled after aryan style new “race”
• There were immigration quotas everywhere after the Holocaust
• Israel still suppresses dissent internally – especially Jews that disagree with Bundism
• JVP, IfNotNow, etc. except these orgs, almost all Jewish instituions send money via dues to Isarel
• Modern Bund is trying to build local Jewish communities “where we are” – solving local problems
• “We don’t work well in a kingdom”
• We are trying to bring the focus back to where we are
• One of the biggest problems is that the Empire has setup Zionists to represent Jews
• Elicia:
  • https://www.derspekter.org/ – International Jewish Labour Bund – has chapters across the US
  • Most active ones are NY, California, Montana, DC and others
  • Melbourne has the oldest Bund
  • Many European groups are also organized under the Bundist flag
  • Bundist groups are strongly aligned with Indigenous groups along with Palestinian solidarity
  • Also connected with local labour groups
  • https://jewishbund.org/ 
• Samantha
  • Member of JVP
  • Trying to get relatives to think about Bundism
  • How do I hold space for people in my life for people who are supportive of genocide
  • Like I wouldn’t invite a Nazi to my hosue
• Evan:
  • Civil wars are some of the worst wars – families are literally fighting each other
  • There is a gradient of thought – left, right, middle – FOCUS ON THE MIDDLE
  • The idea of excommunication comes up – there is no central Jewish authority to excommunicate people
  • Judaism has a central value of life – “an act that does not preserve life is not Jewish”
• Elicia
  • I don’t have capacity in my life with folks who don’t see Palestinians as humans
  • But I am connected with people who are connected with Israelis – I am supporting such people
  • If I don’t have the capacity, I can still at least talk to local Reform Synagogue – at least moving people in the direction that they are more open
• Salman
  • What can we do that is helpful?
  • What should we stop doing?
• Evan
  • Don’t say anything that you wouldn’t say about your own community – e.g. “Jews are pedophiles”, “Muslims are pedophiles”
  • Good resource: https://www.antisemitismcurriculum.org/copy-of-about-2 
  • Don’t spread myths like “Jews controls the world” or “AIPAC controls the world” – We  don’t control anything – sometimes people end up “riding the wave” of Jew hatred
• Elicia
  • It is really hard – I am angry with the Israeli government’s constant conflation of Judaism with Israel – I have a lot of compassion people – I recommend they look at real antisemitism training
  • Israel’s constantly reinforcing these tropes – they are responsible for a lot of it – but we also have to recognize the role of Christian Zionism
  • We can’t absolve the institutional Jewish community of these conflating
• Evan
  • Every Jew form a young age is fed a steady diet of Holocaust images
• Gardy
  • What do you think about different definitions of antisemitism
  • What do you think about statement “Jews have inordinate amount of power in the US”
• Evan
  • Jews don’t have over-represented power in reality – in the US it’s white people
  • Zionism welcomes this as that continues to make them look like victims and send more people to Palestine
• Elicia
  • US government and Christian Zionists are using Jews as pawns as a means to expand global colonialism
  • They will most likely blame the Jews for everything – Trump administration is very likely do that – “this will likely get turned back against the Jews inside the united states”