Standing Together: We Have More In Common Than You Think

Rabbi Lizzi spoke with representatives of the Standing Together movement, whose mission is to bring equality, political, and climate justice to all citizens of Israel, and peaceful coexistence with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. On the Eve of Yom HaAtzma’ut, which celebrates 77 years of Israeli independence, Itamar Avneri and Angela Mattar — a Jewish and Palestinian leader — spoke about the challenges and bright spots they’re seeing, and how we here in Chicago can push for the Israel we know is possible.

Website of Standing Together
https://www.standing-together.org/en

May 4 Chicago Rally for Peace
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1h3R7LkJGURB7J3Q9y0K2BnZD5rEJGFigcb1okZyHze4/viewform?edit_requested=true

Illinois Friends of Standing Together Mailing List Sign-Up
https://gmail.us22.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=86cc164369e740a2f35e05e8a&id=e9f465b26b

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

Good morning and welcome everybody. Bucha marabba, is that? How you say it sort of,

it's perfect. Welcome

to Itamar and Angela, who are leaders in standing together movement in Israel, whose whose mission is, I'm just going to read this. This is straight from their website, to build a new majority within Israeli society that supports peace, equality and social and environmental justice. The organization operates in eight local chapters, Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv, BeerSheva, Southern triangle and Sharon region, Northern Triangle and abkhana, Galilee, heartland, Nazareth and the valleys, has 12 student chapters and a nationwide climate chapter, and they also run the humanitarian guard and support additional initiatives that are like organizing national and local campaigns across the country. And I'm sure they're going to tell us all about this. And this is the second time that we have hosted, actually, it's the third time that we have hosted leaders from standing together. We had a lonely and Sally Abed in person a few years ago, and then we had a lonely and Rula a year and a half ago, or something, also on Zoom. They were sitting in Israel, and now you are here in Chicago, and you're still on Zoom because it's 830 in the morning and and it's a little too early to get a big group of people together in person. But what this makes possible is we have community members, actually all over the country who are here with us in this room. So if you're here with us from somewhere else, go ahead and tell us in the chat like where you're joining us from, because it's fun that actually what this makes possible is, in this moment, you're here, not not only in Chicago, but Upstate New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Florida. Pretty cool, right? So I'm glad this worked out. I'm going to introduce Itamar and Angela. I'm going to ask a couple opening questions, and then a few of you sent me questions that you were curious to ask them about. They have kind of a presentation they'll share with us, and then, and then we'll just see where the conversation goes. And we're really so grateful to have you So Angela matar is a Palestinian activist, medical student and leader in standing together, born and raised in the Galilee village of how do you pronounce it? I don't want to mispronounce it

Berlin, but you can call it a blend, like most Jews do,

all right. There's a sound in there that I would need to Yes,

yeah. Thank you so much. She was so considerate. She

was driven to activism after witnessing the deepening discrimination and violence against Palestinians. After in the aftermath of October 7, it became a turning point, propelling her to join standing together and fighting for justice through a non violent resistance on campus, she leads efforts to build Jewish Palestinian partnerships and confront systemic discrimination. And her activism extends beyond University walls resisting land theft in places like Al mahor baijallah Angela work is fueled by hope for justice and equality, both in the broader society and within her own Palestinian community, where she strives to challenge fear and inspire young people, especially young girls, to believe in their power to create change. So welcome Angela and Itamar. Avnei was born and raised in kVAr hachhoresh, a kibbutz near Nazareth. He is a founding member of standing together and a member of its national leadership. He's a community organizer and an elected city council representative of Tel Aviv, Jaffa. Itamar is a prominent voice in the LGBTQ community and a member of the Israeli climate forum. He's a PhD student in the history of science at Bar Ilan University. Welcome Itamar, and I don't It's not a coincidence, but it just happens to be that the two of you are here. Here you were in Evanston on Monday night. Tonight, you'll be in Evanston, right, or in

Hyde Park, and yesterday we were in Bridge view. Wow.

So you are making the rounds around the Chicago area, and you happen to be doing this at least today, at a time when, where you come from, it is a very intense time. Now it's been a very intense time for the last 19 months, but specifically these days on the calendar. Today is Yom Hazikaron, tomorrow is Yom ha atmud. Memorial Day and Independence Day kind of both rolled into this 48 hour period, and one day is very somber and remembers fallen soldiers, victims of terrorism, and it flows into today, which is or tomorrow, excuse me, which will be the 77th anniversary of the birth of the State of Israel. People, which Israeli Jews and people around the world celebrate, and which I think is a very complicated day for Palestinians and people who are in solidarity with Palestinians, because it there's a lot of trauma there. And so before we get into specifically standing together, I actually wondered, like, how are the two of you doing here in Chicago, when over where you come from, you know, this day is this it's like a heavy day, and so you're both not at home, and you have a lot of distance. Is that nice? Is that hard? What? How are you feeling?

First of all, Rabbi Lizzi, thank you for having us. Thank you for asking. How are we feeling? It's hard question, actually, and I'll be honest with you, it feels really strange to be here in Chicago like so much, what's happening back home is weighing us. Would much rather be at home. I'd say that, and I will take the risk and see that. Hey, tomorrow also feels the same. So much is happening in a very, very, very quick pace that we see through our screens from here. And just to put you in the picture and like, give you examples, like, just last week, the Israeli police banned us from holding pictures of Palestinian children murdered in Gaza during our protests. So in response, our movement put those same pictures on every bus station in Tel Aviv, unapologetically, and showing the Israeli community the reality in Gaza, because the Israeli community is really protected. The media doesn't show anything what's going on right there. And we also organized a demonstration that brought out 10,000 people, all standing in solidarity with the children of Gaza. We distributed 1000 pictures and with their names in Arabic and Hebrew, and just looking at this from behind my screen on my phone, just gave me so hope. It made me, made me feel a little bit guilty for not being at home with my people standing there in solidarity at the same time the repression back home like it's real. Our student chapter are they're facing consequences for holding those pictures. For example, the Haifa University's chapter was suspended until next year, and it happened just now, and we're not at home to do something about it, and it's since we're talking about Thomas Haran. I don't know if you're familiar, but at home, we have Combatants for Peace, also a peace organization that held a joint memorial to hold both pains of Palestinians and Israelis in one place, and me, I need tomorrow. Like just yesterday, we saw it that people from the right wing attacked in Rana, where they were doing this joint Memorial. And it like that. It was horrendous. I'm looking and I can't believe that this is what I'm seeing here. So, yeah, it's becoming really tough back home to hold both pains at once, both stories at once, and with all that. And while it's tough to be away from the fire, it's also confront comforting to know, to take a breath here, knowing people are doing the work, and there are people here who like, want to hear us, want to listen to us, and spreading the word with us. So thank you. Thank you everybody for being here. Yeah,

I agree with everything. I mean, we've been on the road for a week and a half now, and we really want to go home, and we're going home tomorrow, so don't worry about us. There's an old Hebrew song from the 15th century or 14th century or 16th century, I don't really remember, and it opens like this in Hebrew, Mishkan, softma, Rabbi, my heart is in the east, but I'm in the west of West, the end of the West. How can I even taste the food that I'm eating? And how can this food be tasty, and that's, that's the feeling right now, and especially in such tense days. Well, I have to say, sometimes it's nice to skip those days and to be abroad during those days, but yeah, the amount of of worries that we have right now, just to put more and more context to what Angela said. So there was yesterday, the screenings all around the country, of the joint memorial ceremony, the joint Israeli memorial ceremony. And one of the screenings, it was in Rana, as Angela said, it was in a synagogue, in a synagogue in the middle of Ra Nana. And what happened there? There was a pogrom. Over there, hundreds of mobs. A mob of Jewish extremists from the far right came. They attacked the synagogue. They burst into the synagogue. It was extremely dangerous. It took hours to get everybody out, the whole night. In Israel, we were trying to connect with our activists to see if everybody is okay. How are they doing? So it's very, very hard to think right now about how painful things are in our country, and sometimes I would even say it to find hope. But then again, I corresponded today with Irit. Iriti is the organizer on the ground in Rana and the area, and I asked her how you're doing, and she said, Well, I'm on fire. Let's continue. So sometimes it's really, really hard, and then people remind you that where there is struggle, there's hope. And thank you for this question. Well,

I think that's a great segue into the work that you do. And you know some people here are very familiar with standing together, and some people here, and I imagine listening, it's the first time they're hearing about you. For people who have been in and around the Mishkan community, they must think standing together is this enormous, very impactful, influential organization in Israel that's making a huge change. And then I think they would be surprised to know how recently, relatively, the organization has been created, and about the unique organizational structure that you have. And I'm curious, as you explain what you do, you know, kind of a little bit more about the organization, why this work feels so threatening to people. You know, why they would close down? I mean, yes, okay, at the Haifa chapter, they closed it down because they said of a, you know, you were breaking the rules about, you know, they didn't want to, they didn't want to be provocative and show Gazan children on posters. But that was probably a pretext, because, like, they're actually like, they're threatened by the work that you do. And so why is that? And what? And really, like? What's the positive version of like? I can imagine what people would say. But why? Why do you do what you do?

I believe that to answer all parts of your question and to really be connected to all the audience right here, it's very important before we talk about the movement, and why do we do the things we do, and why the Israeli community and the reality in Palestine Israel is the way it is that people would understand what does it mean to be a Palestinian in Israel, and what does it mean to be a Jew person in Israel? So if you don't mind, would like to share our personal stories how we got to the movement, and Itamar also one of the founders of the movement, so he can also tell you how the movement started and why it happened. And we will give you all the answers you want. So I'll start with my personal story. My name is Angela, everybody. I'm a Palestinian Israeli citizen, and all over the news, all you can see is Palestine versus Israel. Never Palestine Israel in the same place. But here I am best of both worlds, holding both those words in me to understand what does it mean? Yeah, and you've heard I'm a medical student, a little standing together, but I want the focus now to be on what does it mean to be a Palestinian in Israel, I grew up in a Belin. It's a small village in the north, and like most Palestinian families, we don't do politics. My family is so apolitical, and it's not because we don't know that there are some things that are dangerous and needs to be fixed, but I know that also, a lot of Jews will in diaspora will agree and relate that they've told you, keep your head down, don't raise your voice. It's like, survive the day, get your education, go back home. This is safer. And I was told the same thing my whole life. But silence doesn't shield you from reality. Started asking a lot of questions growing up, like, why don't I learn about the catastrophe, what happened in 1948 to my grandmother and my grandfather in the curriculum in my school. Why do I look at my village and I ask myself, why do villages are so poor when I see on the internet the Jewish settlements expanding and having all the resources, and why I a Palestinian in Israel, was convinced that I'm so different from Palestinians in Gaza, from Palestinians in the West Bank, Palestinians in diaspora, and they made us feel like we don't share the same story of disposition. So we will neglect the fact that we live under the same system of control and go on with the lives of that resisting the system or making a change. I believe that growing up, the question that mostly really broke me is, why do I feel like a guest in my own homeland? Took me years to reconcile the fact what I feel but I couldn't do politics. I couldn't be someone who resists the system, so I just maintained my i. Identity was so important for me to explain the meanings of the COVID and the patterns to hold pride in who I am in 2021

I remember vividly I heard about standing together for the first time. They were Jews and Palestinians fighting side by side in the sheik Zara against the evictions in Jerusalem, and I was my heart was filled with joy. For the first time, I see a place where I can hold both my Palestinian identity and my humanity without anybody telling me otherwise. And I wanted to join the movement to be honest back then, but I had a lot of fears, because there are a lot of struggles across communities, but there are a lot of struggles also inside my own community, like the thought of normalization and betrayal, for example. Like if you do a joint work with Jews, the person who is occupying you, oppressing Palestinians and your people in many places, then you are betraying your own people. So I admired from afar, though, deep down, I wasn't, I wasn't content with this thought, but it was safer. No, it's never easy to find courage, especially when you don't feel like you're in an instant, urgent threat to your life. It took me years, and then October 7 happened. October 7 happened. I woke up, and before I got to process anything like I was looking here and there. I was so exposed to the media, and I was so exposed to the Palestinian media. This is like, this is one of the perks. And I don't know what curses of being the best of both worlds, but you know everything going on, and you hear the same the same story in two different narratives, and you always grow up seeking for the truth and looking doubtfully at everything. So I think this is a curse at the end, more of a blessing to me, more than more of a curse to the people around me, but more of a blessing to me and people who were really my good friends before October 7, started asking me to prove my own humanity, like I always talked about my Palestinian identity, for them, it was if I identify as Palestinian, then I support everything that Hamas is doing. So it was really, really fast. It slapped me in the face again that I was never considered a first class citizen in Israel. I had to prove my humanity. I had to show people that I condemn Hamas like this question like, not only in diaspora took us, yeah, it was with us at home, in everybody's eyes. My My roommate was with hijab, and we lived in Haifa back then because I wasn't in med school yet. I was learning studying my medical engineering in Haifa Technion, and she didn't come to the apartment for two months because she was afraid to go out in the streets in her hijab. And I knew I had to do something, so I started alone, protecting Palestinian students who are politically persecuted, who were told that they are terror sympathizers and spread their screenshots and their pictures and their faculties all over, telling people that they're a terror sympathizer merely for like liking a post or sharing something a verse from the Quran that people didn't understand its meaning, but they interpreted as the way they wanted to interpret, out of fear, out of trauma, out of what makes them feel more comfortable, because I was protecting those students in my campus, I became a terrorist sympathizer in everybody's eyes. Got a lot of death threats. I got a lot of DMS that really made my life miserable for a long time. And luckily, standing together, reached out and they said, Do you want to help build a new chapter, new student chapter in the Technion that was the fastest. Yes. I said, like I was so alone that, yeah, Mom, help me be with me. I don't want to be alone anywhere. I want people who believe in the same things I believe in, and want to be part of the struggle. So I took all of the thoughts of normalization, I tossed them, and I don't know where, because I knew that we Palestinians are not only part of the struggle. We must lead it. We must lead it and build something inside the community that we live in. So we were kicked out of every room. Simple dialog between Jews and Palestinians were considered incitement. Right Wing always persecuted us in campus, showing our pictures and stuff, until we did something really courageous. In my eyes, people see it as stupid. My parents definitely saw it as stupid. But I don't we held pictures of the hostages inside of the campus, and because it was illegal to protest inside the campus, we agreed that we will also hold pictures. It wasn't pictures. It was too scary. It was drawings, drawings of Palestinian children that were being killed in Gaza just one centimeter outside the campus. So it would be legal and inside the campus, we were human. Beings, and outside the campus, we were terrorist sympathizers. We were terrorists. And that was the day I went viral in my campus, and I couldn't take it anymore, so I paused for like a week, and then I got accepted into med school. And you know, where's my med school, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. So you know, where did I move to? To Jerusalem, like in Haifa, you can see there's an occupation, but, like, it's really not that bad. And you reach Jerusalem and it's on full display, you can see it with your own eyes, everything. So my parents were happy for a while that I'm finally letting go of standing together and activism and going to live my life, but here I am today. Look at me, where I am today. So I reached Jerusalem 15 minutes away from me. Was the West Bank, and was that was the first time I understood. What does it mean, a settler, violence. What does it mean, land theft? What does it mean occupation? What does it mean army control on millions of Palestinians. We had an non violent resistance camp for like, 30 days protesting a land theft in mahura, and a settler came to me, and he released his dog at me, and I was bit really hot in my leg. I was hospitalized immediately, and while I was in bed, rethinking everything, like, does it? Is it really worth it? I had to cut contact with my family for six, seven months. I had no money. I had no home. The answer was yes, because I don't only care for justice. I want to fight for it. I want to be part of fighting for it, alongside to people who was with me when I was hospitalized, and made me realize it was never Jews against Palestinians. Was always, always and forever, people who believe in justice and liberation, in peace and in humanity and equality, against those who don't and those who don't are a minority, whether we like it or not, whether we see it or not, and this is why what we're doing, standing together, we want to build this new majority that will build the power from the ground up to eradicate the hold of the narrative and power in the hands of the right wing, the government and its supporters. And this is my story. I hope you now understand more about Palestinians in Israel, and I would love for you tomorrow to tell us he has a wonderful story as well, and he'll tell us how the movement started.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Angela. Thank you, Angela.

You know, I heard this story many, many times already, as you can all guess, and each time around, it's, it's so inspiring. And I think the story about the settler, I mean, it's, it's horrible, and it's terrible. And in a way, Rabbi Lizzi it's part of the beginning of the answer to your question about why people are so afraid of that. Because back home in Palestine Israel, people are immersed in trauma and in pain and in fear. And there are leaders, leaders in our government. I mean that they are. They're proud fascists. They're talking about Jewish supremacy, and they want us to fear they want us to hate each other on October 7, on on the day Itamar benville and others told us that the pogrom is on its way. I live in South and Tel Aviv, very close to to Yafa, to Jaffa, and they told us that Palestinians are going to march on our neighborhood any moment now. And so I think one of the reasons that people react the way they react, some people react the way they react to standing together and to our work, is because they were taught to fear and hate, and they were taught by our government and leaders that it's us versus them, that there's no such thing as an innocent Palestinian, that the children that we didn't kill in 2014 are those that made October 7, etc, etc, etc. And I think the reason that the government attacks us and right wing extremists attacks us is because they know that when we share our stories, like Angela just did, all the walls are starting to break right. All of a sudden, you understand that, hey, those are human beings with story and feelings and narrative, and this narrative is not against me, just a different narrative, a different story that also happened, and we can actually listen to each other and work together. I think that's why people are so afraid, or some people are so afraid, but also many, many people are coming and, you know, joining the movement because of of this, those powerful stories and the powerful leadership of Angela and many, many others. I was born in a small kibbutz in northern Israel, just outside of of Nazareth. I was never very political. I mean, I loved politics. I loved reading about politics. I had a lot of opinions, but I was never really, really, really political. Up until 2000 or six or 2007 when I moved. And to work in Kibbutz Barry the Gaza envelope. The reason I moved there was that I had two friends. They were brothers, and they lived in Bay Area, and they told me this, and you can come and work, it's going to be fun. And I came, and when I moved there, it was the beginning of the area of missiles, or rockets, shooting from Gaza to the Gaza to to the Gaza envelope. I'm saying rockets or missiles. Those were pipes. There was not, wasn't really very, very dangerous, but it was frightening. We didn't know what to do. There were no shelters at the time. And I asked my boss, when I came there for the first time, what should they do if there's an alarm about a rocket coming from Gaza? And she told me, Oh, if there's an alarm, what you need to do is to count to 20. And I asked her, and then what? And she told me, that's it. If you got to 20, it's already fell somewhere else. That's how close the Gaza envelope, Barry and the other kibbutzim from Gaza are. It's less than a kilometer away. And I did it every time there was an alarm, I count to 20, and I discovered that I'm still alive because it already fell somewhere else. But I'm kind of ashamed to say, even today, almost 20 years after that, that what really kept me up at night wasn't the alarms from about missiles from Gaza, it was the Israeli bombings in Gaza. Because you should know that also, when there's no official war, the Israeli army is sometimes bombing Gaza. And those explosions, they were loud and they were powerful, and it was frightening. I was lying away in my bed at night listening to the explosions and thinking, What's going on over there. And it was very, very scary. And as I said, I'm feeling ashamed a bit right now to say it. I also felt ashamed back then that I was so afraid of the alarms, but then the explosions are so hard on the other side of the fence. And I was lucky. I was lucky because in during Saturdays, the dining room in Kibbutz Barry was closed, so I ate at the at my friend's house and with their parents and their mother was vivid, silver, vivid silver. Some of you, I guess, know her. She was a very prominent figure in the Israeli peace camp. From Canadian descent. She was one of the founders of women wage peace. She had a lot of connections with people in Gaza, amazing woman, fierce woman. She was murdered on on October 7. We spoke about that. I used to tell her about the feelings that I have and all of those things. And it wasn't something specific that she said, but from those talks, I learned, and I understand that it's okay to feel afraid. It's absolutely okay to feel afraid, but I can also use this fear and try to transform it into something good, because if I'm afraid, I have to think about the people in Gaza who are so afraid, and if I don't want to be afraid anymore, I have to think about, how can we create a situation where they're not afraid anymore, because my safety depends on their safety, and vice versa. And I also learned from her that if I want to work toward peace, there's no such thing working toward peace, but only with Jews, because our land is a shared land, and the peace would be with Palestinians. And so from the get go the work, this work, this process, must be a shared process, a shared work. And that was when I started to look for places to work together, Jews and Palestinians and I met many activists during the years, but we didn't do something very, very substantial up until late 2015 in late 2015 the Fred Intifada broke out. It was called in the Israeli media, the Intifada of the loneliness, or the Intifada of the Knights, very scary time in Israel. In Israel, Palestine Palestinians were afraid. Jewish people were afraid. There were lunches and lynches and stabbings and civilian arrests on the streets, and one day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went out to the public during the Intifada and said, I am being asked whether we will always live by the sword. Then he passed for a second and he added the answer is yes. Now No, I don't really like Benjamin Netanyahu, of course, but I'm still expecting the elected leader, not anymore, but I was expecting the elected leader of my country to at least gave me some hope to at least have some sort of vision for better tomorrow, for a better future. But there was none. And what was even harder was that almost no one in the political sphere in Israel tried to challenge Deen upon that and said, How dare you? How can you say that? Or. Of course, it's hard right now, but maybe we can try and do something in order to make it better. And so this group of activists that I already knew, we decided together that if no one is going to give us hope from above, we're going to build it from below. And we declared an anti occupation peace demonstration in Jerusalem in the middle of the Intifada. It was october 17, 2015 and we thought that, if we are going to be lucky, 500 people would come, who would come to such a demonstration? But 3000 people came. And then we had another one in Haifa, and then we had another one in the triangle area. And more and more and more demonstrations. And the feeling was so powerful. So we've decided that this time around, it's not going to be enough for us just to mobilize all those people, just to tell them, now we're voting now. We're demonstrating Haifa now in Jerusalem, etc. We want to stay together. And in order to stay together, you have to build some sort of a political home for us, some sort of organization, some sort of a movement, a movement where we can decide and articulate our vision together, and enact our leadership together. And that movement came to be standing together, nakamah in Arabic, om dim Biak in Hebrew. Since the beginning of the movement, we've done a lot of things. We had a lot of fights about housing, about raising the minimum wage. We were successful in raising the minimum wage in Israel against deportation of asylum seekers, another victory of the movement and another many other organizations.

Can I just interrupt you to just say a little bit more? One of the first things that when I learned about this organization I was impressed by was the idea that Sally talked about this, that the challenges that are facing, for example, Haredi women who just want to make minimum wage doing their work are the same struggles shared by Palestinians who just want to make minimum wage doing their work. And so rather than pitting identity groups against each other, part of what standing together theory of change is is working from the shared interest across identity groups and building power for the benefit of everyone you know to sort of explode the illusion that we have to be against each other. Actually, you're much powerful, more powerful when you work together. And what an incredible vision it is like of the really, what the State of Israel was created to do, to see like Haredi college students working with Palestinian college students, or, you know, baristas, or whatever it is to achieve minimum wage, you know. Or could you just say a little bit more about how you felt those kinds of campaigns that were not about, you know, quote, unquote, liberation, you know. But actually, yes, they were about liberation on a small scale, because it was people working together. Can you tell? Tell us a little bit more about

that? Yeah, sure. Absolutely happily and thank you for the question and the comment. It's extremely important. So as you said, Before, our goal, our aim, our objective, is to build a new majority inside our society, the Israeli society, so we'll have the power to achieve what we believe we all deserve, which is a just peace, equality and social and environmental justice in our theory of change. It was like that from the get go, and I think that's what different in standing together, and that's also what frightening their right wing so much we believe that everybody is a potential partner. Everybody is a potential partner. Palestinians and Jews, of course, but also inside our society. So in the Jewish community, for example, we want to work, and we believe it's possible to work with Jewish Orthodox, with people in the peripheries, people from Mizrahi descent. I'm from Mishkan descent, people from Ethiopian descent, and more and more, although we are being educated, usually by politicians, that's impossible, because in Israel and in many other places, politics revolves around identity instead of about shared interests. So the campaign to raise the minimum wage, I think it's a case in point. It's a case. It's a great example, sorry, because what we did, we identified that the minimum wage in Israel is way, way, way too low. There are about 1 million people who earn minimum wage and another million people who are affected by the minimum wage. So we will be able to raise the minimum wage. We are going to affect the lives of 2 million people. And who are those people? Palestinian citizens of Israel, heretic women, Jewish Orthodox women who works but earn only minimum wage, and Jewish people from Ethiopian descent, those are the three main groups. And you know, many people told us that's impossible to do a campaign like that, because those groups are never going to work together. But we proved them wrong, and just I'll share a very, very brief story about that. We went to brenebrock, the Jewish Orthodox city in center Israel, because we wanted people to sign the petition about raising the minimum wage. It. And we went there with our purple shirts that saying the name of the movement on dim be a hot Keith man, yes, thank you for that in Hebrew and Arabic. And people thought to us, you're nuts. Nobody's going to speak with you if you have Arabic on your shirt. And we said, That's exactly the opposite. We want them to know who we are. We want them to know that we are Jews and Palestinians together. We want them to know that we are also against the occupation, because that's how you build trust. You bring yourself and you're telling this is who I am, this is what I believe in. And I want to work with you on this issue, and if you sign the petition about the minimum wage, we'll never use your name in something about the occupation if you don't agree with that, and we'll never use your name for any other cause just about raising the minimum wage. And we'll prove to you that we'll do that. And people signed, Jewish Orthodox people came with us to the Knesset, to the Parliament, and we were able to pressure almost all the parties in the parliament and to build, actually, a very big coalition, and the renewable ways, the minimum wage was risen because of that. So it's a proof, it's a guessing point of how we can work together around shared interests. And I think that the most important thing there. And again, this is what frightening the right wing is that we are extremely open about who we are when we're doing that. If we would have come with black shirts with nothing, they would sign the petition. More people would sign the petition, but then they'll Google on Deena had standing together. They discovered that, ah, those are actually Jews and Palestinians, all those leftists, and they say they try to trick us, but because they know who we are, because they saw us as we are, it worked, and this is what we are trying to do. And just last sentence, this is also what we are trying to do right now. When we're fighting for peace, we're fighting against the occupation. We want to do real humanization, to remind people that there are people in Gaza, innocent people in Gaza, innocent children in in Gaza. But we're also telling people that this is going to be good for all of us. We're doing it out of moral reasons, absolutely, but also out of very selfish reasons. We want to live a better life. I don't want to be scared anymore. And I think that the majority of the people don't want to be scared. And when you approach people like that with belief in them, in the good in them, when you tell people, there is hope and we can build it together, it works. So we didn't want yet, we must admit, but I'm I do believe that we are on the way. And Angela, if you want to add something, sorry, I spoke quite a lot. You

said everything perfectly. Maybe you would listen to question from people wonderful,

um, one question that somebody sent in, and I don't see him here, so I'm just going to, I'll ask it on his behalf, and I'm going to add to a little bit. And you referred to it earlier, Angela, you said that, you know, one of the challenges working within the Palestinian community, of working alongside Jews to transform Israel is that it is normalization of the State of Israel and which makes it illegitimate. In their eyes, that work and and I would say there is a parallel, a parallel critique from the right, with Jews, with Israeli Jews, which is that working with Palestinians, I don't know Itamar, maybe you can, maybe you could tell what's the critique that you know Jews give you when you you know this is what I do. What's the, what's the usual critique they don't want like, they don't want peace. Really, they're fooling you. Like, what, what kind of stereotypes you hear is that, is that something like that, you know, it's like you're being naive. Jews have to be strong. We have to, you know, defend and protect each other. So I wondered if you could talk about, well, how, how you respond to this critique, and how you educate people? So thank

you for the question. It's really important. I struggled for a long time with the concepts of normalization and accusations from my own community, and I believe now that normalization, I can see it like because I'm so I believe the things I say normalization is normalizing occupation is normalizing a system that is trying to divide us with all the power he's got. And I believe what we're doing, neonitamar and in the movement, is not normalization. It's co resistance. We're co resisting the system that is trying to convince us that we Jews and Palestinians don't have more in common than the things that divide us. How do I respond? At first, I used to try to engage in conversation. Used to explain myself, and then I understood, and maybe also Jews will relate. To this that it was never about other people. I was not I was never trying to explain myself to other people. I was trying to explain myself to myself. And the minute I healed that poor in me and reconciled with all this parts that made all these dilemmas come to the surface each each and every while, like I stopped listening to people, it was always accusations on social media from Palestinians, from diaspora, more than in the land, because in the land, they understand that we're in the fire will tell we're not tailoring our activism to fit global criteria, or, I don't know, we're tailoring the work we do to work actually in Israel like we can't work in a way that people want us to work at just because, I don't know, just because the BDS, for example, thinks that resistance is ABC. It was never our goal to satisfy the BDS or anybody. We're doing something that will actually work and help build a new majority inside of Israel that will change the political power and political will inside the society itself. And this is my resistance. This is my form of resistance. And anybody who is trying to disregard me from speaking up while I put my life in my safety, in my studies, every day, on the line for a better future, then the problem is not in me or my resistance. Is definition of resistance. So have dialog I

wanna. I wanna just like a pull it, pull it thread or underscore something that you just said. I'm not sure everybody here realizes there is a global movement called boycott divestment sanctions, which claims to speak in the interest of Palestinian Liberation and supporting the Palestinian cause, and in doing so, has boycotted standing together because of it, because it normalizes Israel, normalizes the all the things that you just said and and just to your point, what that does is silence your voice, the voice of all of the Palestinians who are working alongside Jews to realize a better future, who believe deeply that this is the way to do it. And I just, I wanted to pull that out, because I think very often we, we in our various identity groups, can get can can feel the pressure of a group that claims to speak in our interest, saying you're not the real thing, sit down, be quiet. Let us speak for you, and it disempowers us. And that would disempower you, and you're here saying, no, actually, the way forward is to work with Jews and Israelis. How else could we imagine sharing this land and then Itamar, can you speak kind of on the parallel side of how you I mean, the majority of Israeli Jews standing together is not a it's not yet one day, but it's not yet, does not yet represent the majority of Israeli Jews. I imagine you have this conversation frequently, you know, with friends, especially post October 7, can you talk about how you respond and why you know how you share the importance of this work, of

course, but, but first of all, I want to say it's, it's true. We're not yet the majority. We're not yet in the government, but in many cases, I do believe that we are the majority, and actually the government is the minority. If you looking at polls right now, for a year and a half now, they're losing in each and every poll. They're not going to build the next coalition if we'll have elections tomorrow. So they're the minority. Standing together was the first movement to speak about hostage deal. It was October 9, two days after October 7. Back then, less than 1% of the population supported a hostage deal. Now it's in the 80s. Percent. We are the majority. The government is the minority. And also, many people thought, maybe even I thought that, you know, on the day, on October 7, it's going to be impossible to work together. Jews and Palestinians. Everybody thought that we are going to fall apart. We didn't only not falling apart. We grew. We grew a lot since October 7. So not to the numbers of a majority yet, but we are, in a way, getting there. Many students joined standing together immediately after October 7. You mentioned 12 student chapters. We had four when we just started in October 7. Okay, many people just joined and came so, in a way, I just want to say it's true that many Jewish Israelis are afraid of this kind of work, and there's a lot of pushback. I will talk about that, but also many, many people actually look for it, seek for this kind of partnership, because I think deep down, and also just out of sheer instinct, people understand that no one is going nowhere. No one is going nowhere. 7 million Palestinians and 7 million Jews are not going to disappear, and so people understand that the only way to go forward is to work together. Now, of course, there's also pushback. There are a lot of people who are afraid, a lot of people who are angry. There are a lot of people who are saying that Angela tricks me and she what's what she really want to do is to throw. Drove me to the sea, but just now she's playing along nicely, but maybe the West. The best way to explain how we respond is to share with you about my brother in law. My brother in law, my sister's husband, he has a family in Barrie as well. His aunt and uncle were murdered on October 7. His cousin Itai was kidnapped to Gaza and murdered there by his captures. 99 days later, he was able to survive 99 days, and then he was murdered the the Hamas terrorist also took his grandma, but then released her so they found her in the kibbutz without her glasses without her earring machine. I don't know how to call it in English, because they took it off and just released her in the kibbutz. And he himself. He was drafted on the day October 7, he served for more than 100 days in a row, and more than 300 days total. He didn't see his children for all this time, my niece and nephews. My sister, of course, was furious, and he disagreed with me on a lot of things. But what he knows, because we have a lot of conversations about that, is that I'm doing what I'm doing out of patriotism. I see myself as a patriot of Israeli society. I'm not doing it because I hate my society, and I want to that the world will tell me, Oh, how wonderful you are. You are the tokenized Israeli from the left that understand everything. No, I'm doing it out of self interest. I want to be safe. I want him to be safe. I want his children that I love. They are the most important things in the world for me. I want them to be safe the moment you understand that, the moment you understand that I'm doing what I'm doing, because I really want that my society, our society, will live in a better life, and would be in a in a better shape. It helps, because it alleviates the pain and the tension, and then we can argue. But arguments are all right, and this is what we are trying to do. We are trying, sorry, we are trying to claim patriotism. We are trying to claim and to say we are actually the majority, because we are talking about the interest of the majority, and we are doing it because we love the people they in the government. Those are the people who really don't like us and don't think about us.

Someone asked in the chat, how can we help from here?

Well, I wanted to mention a couple things that are happening in Chicago. One of them, so one of them I'm going to put in right now is the local Chicago chapter of friends of standing together. And so this is how you get on the mailing list of local, the local standing together, friend, friends of standing together mailing list. There's a rally on May 4, so this coming weekend for peace that is organized along with rallies all over the world for peace, that standing together is also organizing in Israel. And so I think, like there's a movement building of people cheering you on from afar, I will say I am a monthly donor, because I really believe in what you're doing. And I think there's something there's something important. When the thing that you said on October 9, we need a hostage deal. We don't want to create more trauma and violence. We do want the hostages to come home, and we do want to negotiate a diplomatic settlement. You know, the thing that you were saying then, that nobody supported 1% is now the thing that 80% of people support. You know, 18 months later, but unfortunately, after however many dozens of 1000s of people have died, you know, in Gaza and also the Israelis. You know, Israeli soldiers and people who continue to be sent into war. I think you're onto something when the thing that you said from the beginning is the thing that people come around to, you know, after time, and it's really hard to be the people who are out in front and and you're, you're doing that anyway, so I, I'm proud to support you monthly, and it seems like a couple people here are also monthly supporters, and support your work from afar. Thank you, Angela, for putting the website of standing together in the chat, and when people see that it's in Hebrew, just click the little button that says en, and it will go into English.

But what else? Everything you said, I agree with, for me, a lot of people in Toronto and Canada, and you said Keith to me and said, the struggle is yours. Like you Jews and Palestinians can do a lot back home, but we here. We have nothing to do. But you do. You have a voice. You have power to spread the word, to tell people that it was never Jews against Palestinians, to maybe also talk about how anti semitism does exist. And I'll be the first. Person to come and fight against it with you, but it's so important not to confuse criticizing a government or solidarity with Palestinians with anti semitism, and fight back like spread the word in your Jewish communities. Also put pressure on your governments to do the work to arms embargo, to pressure the Israeli government, you have a voice here, so use it. We all have different roles. Maybe back home, we need to level up our work a little, because we're in the middle, in the eye of the fire. But here, you also have a voice. So organize, and if you don't feel like you have a political home or a protest to go to, because none of the protests really encourage you to go to because they don't align fully with what you believe in. Organize your own protests. Organize your own people. So this is important also, please speak up and spread the truth.

There was a sort of a famous protest that happened at UCLA that devolved from, you know, it was the encampments over here and the pro Israel people over here, and things were beginning to get almost to a place of violence. And my own Rabbi described people wearing their purple shirts, you know, the standing together people basically interrupted, like came in between the heat of the faces of these people here, and these people here to say, from Gaza to Tel Aviv, children want to live, you know, like from Gaza to Tel Aviv, Yala di motzim, Chaim, you know, they just want to live. And that's what they started chanting. And what she described was it that moment channeled the self righteousness of both sides into chanting that simple chant together, and it diffused the moment, not saying everybody put on their purple shirts and then held hands and saying Kumbaya. But it's just the power of having an alternative vision than the us versus them, you know, blue and white versus green and red and black. It, ha, you know, it there's talking about this, and then doing this creates a space for and even if it's a space for argument, it's still a space for argument that comes from a place of, at the end of the day, we want our children to live,

and we don't have to agree on everything in order to want our children to live.

Maybe I'll just add and what you described right now. It's the perfect metaphor. Sometimes it feels like people abroad, people around the world, treat our life as if it's a it's a soccer game. They're cheering for one group, hence they hate the other group and they cannot listen to the other group. It's black and white for them. And you know what I want to say, the overwhelming majority of the people means well, they're harder in the right place. They feel like they need to pick a side, and we want them. We want you to pick a side, absolutely, but we want you to understand that the sides are not what the media is telling us and what the politicians are telling us, the sides are not as follow all Israelis with the right wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, it about bankville, but Smotrich against all Palestinians with Hamas. Those are not the real sides back home. We know that back home, according to surveys and polls after October 7, also in personal society, also in Israeli society, the majority of the people say that they are support a two state solution. We know that the real sides are the warmongers on one side, the Israeli government and Hamas. They're not working together, but they are feeding from one another, and Benjamin Netanyahu told us many years ago, Hamas is an asset for him, and they are on one side, and the other side is the side of the people, people in Gaza, people in the West Bank, and people inside Israel, both Jewish and Palestinian citizens who share the same interest, the interest of living in peace. Now, don't get me wrong. We're not saying, I'm not saying that we are all equal. Of course, the first and foremost and the most important thing is to save the people in Gaza, including the hostages who are dying right now. Then the West Bank, who suffers the amount of violence in the West Bank right now is sky high. And also inside Israel, I'm speaking here. I'm sitting next Angela is in the next room, but we are not equal. I'm much more privileged than Angela. We are different in that way, but we are the same if we're thinking about the interest. And so we want you to pick a side, and we want you to pick the side of the people and spread this message. Message, pick the side of the people and help us doing what have to be done, which is again, building a new majority inside our society, because no one, no one from abroad, is going to save us. It's only on us. Thank you.

That was a rousing finish that might be a good place to stop. Rebecca singer, you have a question. So

first of all, thank you so much. And I see lots of models here for work. That we you could use this model in our country right now, because, don't know if you've heard there's also a little bit of fascism going on here, proto fascism, but you just said something really interesting to me, demaron, I'm interested to hear more. You recognize that the privilege that you as an Israeli, as a man have over you know, especially vis a vis Angela, as a Palestinian and a woman. And so how do you but you agree on so many of the goals, how do you navigate that and those power differentials and differences in privilege as you go forward and not let that? How do you acknowledge it, work through it, and not let it stop you from this much bigger goal that you all have? And that's a question for both of you, and how do you navigate that space?

So first of all, acknowledging it, I think it's extremely, extremely important. First Second of all, we are trying to build structures that help us to make it more equal. So for example, in standing together, the national leadership is half and half. Of course, there are more Jews in Israel, but the national leadership is fnf also, by the way, men and women are not only Jews and Palestinians. So those things, we're also trying to use our privilege when we can. It's much more dangerous to Angela to speak out in social media. She's doing that, but it's much more dangerous for her, and so me and other leaders who are Jewish, we are stepping forward, and we're doing that sometimes because we know that for us, it's less scary and it's less dangerous. And so we're trying to also use it, and also we're not sinking into this identity politics altogether. Okay, we identified when we have privileges. It's important to do that, and then we are talking and creating a better vision that is based on our shared interest. And I think that's the way to tackle this situation. Thank

you, Lisa. More. I appreciate it.

This is actually the last question here that I'm seeing in the chat from Lisa. I think is actually a could be a nice way to end here too. She says, could you actually describe your vision for Palestinian and Jewish Israelis and everybody else who lives in Israel? But those are the those are the two big, big groups coexisting. She writes a lot of what we're seeing today, such as the government treating Palestinians as second class citizens, passing laws that demote the status of Arabic, for example, promote the status of Jews and Jews as Judaism and the Jewish people as a national unit, demoting other kinds of peoples. It seems like a long standing pattern that affects Israeli Arabs and other minority communities. I understand where it stems from. It seems to reflect a broader government vision. What's your vision of coexistence?

I wouldn't call it coexistence. It's not coexistent. It was never coexistent. They used that word for a long time that this is the reason why we're here in this reality. So call it co resistance. And this is my vision to co resist together a system that is making it more more privileged than I and reach a point where I don't feel like, I guess in my own homeland, or I feel like I have to look over my shoulder every time I speak Arabic in the bus. So my vision is full equality, full justice and peace. Co resist and use that word more often. Please, people,

Sally, Sally Abed, whom you met, she's always saying it's not about finding the middle ground. We don't care about the middle ground. We are about creating a completely new ground. And this is what standing together is trying to do. We want to see a land where everybody is free and are not oppressed or not oppressors, because that's also terrible to be. Less terrible than be oppressed, but also terrible to be we want to see a land where everybody has their independence and sovereignty, that there is no such thing as second class citizens. I want to see a land where everybody can speak both languages, Hebrew and Arabic. Full disclosure, I can't speak Arabic. I can't speak Arabic. I try to learn as a grown up, but I can speak Arabic, and I think the overwhelming majority of Jews in Israel can speak Arabic. So we want to see a learn a land where I'm waking up in the morning and it's my land and it's my country, but it's also Angela's land, and Angela's country and she don't have to be feared to speak Arabic in in in the public extension, or something like that. Or maybe I should say, I want to see a land that looks like the office of standing together. I am very privileged. I'm also working in standing together. Sometimes I don't really want to get out of bed, but I know that the medicine for that, for the despair, is to go to the office, because I enter the office and everything is in Arabic and Hebrew, and there are Palestinians and Jewish people there, and they're talking both languages, and they're fighting and they're joking, and they're working together toward the same mission, toward the same. Asian, and it's going to be a process. And I want to see a land where we are all doing this process together. I want to see a land where the office of standing together is not a unique thing, but it's just the normal thing.

Thank you. And just to say, like as we go into celebrating, acknowledging the birth of the State of Israel written into the declaration of independence as a commitment to the equality and social and political rights of all of its inhabitants, regardless of religion or race or sex. And I think it honestly sounds like what you're describing is an attempt still to live up to that original vision, which still has yet to be brought to fruition. And so my prayer is that you succeed in your work. And you know, none of us have to have all the answers. I think very often in these conversations, you know, they're like, these Gotcha. But what about the time when they did this to us? What about, you know, and, and it's easy, you know, okay, great. You want to, like, look at all the roadblocks in the way of the vision. Or should we, should we hold a vision and just keep day by day, trying to trying to get there, because it's a good vision. It's a worthy vision, and it might be the only vision that actually achieves the goal that everybody shares, which, in fact, is that your children, your grandchildren, live in peace. So Inshallah, Kenya. Hiratson, may it be so. Thanks everybody for being here. Thank you for

having Thank you very much for having us. Thank you very, very much. Thank you for everybody.

As folks are signing off, feel free to unmute and say thank you. You

guys do, and I hope that next time we'll meet you in person. Yes, I

mean, I mean, and people, time is a charm, that's right. And when people, if people want to go see you in person, they can tonight. Yeah,

tonight at 7pm at a car in Hyde

Park. K am bad, as it turns out. Yeah, very good. Thank you. You've been listening to contact Kai, a production of Mishkan Chicago. If you were inspired or informed by this episode, please leave us a five star rating on Apple podcasts so that others can encounter our work, and if you appreciate what Mishkan is doing, I invite you to join as a builder or make a donation on our website at Mishkan chicago.org, Shabbat shalom. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai