Meagan Cass
We are Jewish Voice for Peace/St. Louis, founded in 2014. For years, mainstream outlets such as the St. Louis Jewish Light and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have spoken in our names, misrepresenting our views.
With the Jewish new year Rosh Hashanah, and the one-year anniversary of the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, we offer the reflection below:
Our Jewish community celebrates Shabbat in a public park, surrounded by old trees. We eat falafel and share a bottle of Aldi wine. Our children play in the fading light.
Our Jewish community supports Palestinian human rights.
Our Jewish community knows that the prominent Jewish institutions of St. Louis cynically misrepresent our support for Palestinian human rights.
Our Jewish community planned Rosh Hashanah. Who will bring the apples, the honey, the sweetness?
People are also reading…
Our Jewish community asked each other during last week’s gathering: how can we eat, speak, plan, do anything while the state executes a man represented by the Midwest Innocence Project, Marcellus Williams?
Our Jewish community believes in the Jewish principle, “Save one life, save the entire world.”
Our Jewish community, like all Jewish communities, has experienced multiple forms of antisemitism. Our Jewish community does not need to tell you that we mourn the loss of Jewish lives past, present, always.
Our Jewish community knows Jews will only be safe when Palestinians are free, when Israel is made to cease its genocide on Gaza, when the United States stops funding Israel’s genocide on Gaza, when the United States stops funding Israel’s war on Lebanon, on Lebanese civilians.
Our Jewish community mourns Fatima Abdullah, a fourth-grader killed in Israel’s pager attack that took place in Lebanese grocery stores, homes, markets on Sept. 17.
Our Jewish community mourns Hind Rajab, the 6-year-old shot to death by Israeli soldiers on Jan. 29.
Our Jewish community knows that the prominent Jewish institutions of St. Louis strategically obscure, minimize, and seek to justify and normalize Israel’s genocidal actions. They attack our community for recognizing those actions. They claim to do so in the name of our safety, but this only hurts our community.
Our Jewish community thinks of Maura Finkelstein, the first tenured professor fired for speaking up for Palestinian human rights, on Sept. 27. How many more Jews will face material consequences for speaking the truth, will lose our livelihoods, our diplomas, our ability to stay in college, will be brutalized by the police?
Our Jewish community knows that Palestinians and Palestinian Americans have already suffered untold losses of far greater gravity.
Our Jewish community thinks of the Arab college students Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Ahmad, shot in the street Burlington, Vermont for wearing Keffiyehs on November 27, 2023. Awartani remains paralyzed from the chest down.
Our Jewish community thinks of Steve Tamari, a history professor at SIUE who participated in a non-violent protest for Palestinian human rights at Washington University on April 27. Police broke several of Tarami’s ribs and his hand.
Our Jewish community thinks of the clear pattern of censorship of Palestinian artists and of art supporting Palestinian human rights, of Palestinian painter Samia Halaby, whose retrospective was canceled by Indiana University because she spoke in support of Palestinian human rights; of the St. Louis Palestinian dabke dance troupe Canaan Wellspring, who were denied the chance to perform at the St. Louis art fair in the name of Jewish comfort. The mere thought of their bodies joyfully dancing was deemed a threat.
Our Jewish community mourns 6-year-old Palestinian American Wadea Al-Fayoume, stabbed to death for being Palestinian on Oct. 14, 2023, in Plainfield, Illinois.
Our Jewish community knows that prominent Jewish institutions of St. Louis stay strategically silent on these hate crimes, loss of life, brutality, discrimination, and racism against Palestinians and Arabs.
At the turn of the Jewish new year, our Jewish community finds sweetness in each other. We know, at our core, that our future does not lie with Zionism. Our future is intertwined with the futures of all who we think of, remember, mourn, and with all for whom we struggle.
Cass is a writer, educator, and member of Jewish Voice for Peace St. Louis.
0 Comments
'); var s = document.createElement('script'); s.setAttribute('src', 'https://assets.revcontent.com/master/delivery.js'); document.body.appendChild(s); window.removeEventListener('scroll', throttledRevContent); __tnt.log('Load Rev Content'); } } }, 100); window.addEventListener('scroll', throttledRevContent); }
Catch the latest in Opinion
Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!