Today, Thursday 30 November, Tzedek Collective is leading a group of Australian Jews in a public sit-in to express solidarity with Palestine and protest Australia’s complicity in the ongoing injustices perpetrated against Palestinians by the Israeli government, military and settlers.
Tzedek Collective has organised this sit-in to demonstrate the Jewish values of justice, liberation and solidarity, and to actively call out Israel’s attempts at genocide and its violent occupation of Palestine. We speak out today because we know that the safety and freedom of Israeli Jews and of the Palestinian people are not at odds with each other in a zero-sum game, but rather are inextricably linked with each other. A future for Jews in the Middle East can only be achieved through solidarity with Palestinian people, and not through the cycle of violence perpetrated by the settler-colonial state of Israel.
The dominance of mainstream Jewish organisations by Zionist ideology does not reflect the full diversity of the Australian Jewish community or the Jewish diaspora worldwide, and promotes a false equivalence between Jews and Israel. We call on all Australian Jews to reclaim our independence from the Zionist project and engage in meaningful dialogue about what it means to be Jewish in the diaspora, and what equality and justice for Palestinians and Israelis could look like.
Tzedek Collective acknowledges its roots in the worldwide Jewish diaspora and our specific context as settled upon local Aboriginal lands. Tzedek Collective strongly resists all forms of settler-colonialism, and we reject the notion of a Jewish state premised upon the past and present elimination of Palestinians from their lands.
Our Jewish ethics, culture, and intergenerational lived experiences of oppression compels us to speak out against all violence, including Israel’s current attempts at genocide and settler-colonial violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. We do not accept that Israel is acting in self-defence – such rhetoric is a front for the ongoing Zionist project of ethnic cleansing and repression of Palestinians.
Today we come together and sing to demonstrate that Israel does not represent us or our Jewish values. We know that our collective liberation and safety lies in our solidarity with all oppressed groups.
More details to come – keep an eye on our socials! We will be livestreaming on Instagram.