Today, on the Jewish festival of Purim, Tzedek Collective along with members of the Palestine justice community joined together on Gadigal land,outside the Enmore Theatre to protest the ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ tour with British journalist, Douglas Murray.
“We protested Douglas Murray’s event because he is an outspoken propagandist for Israel’s genocide,” Tzedek Collective member Alana Lentin said. “One day he’s saying the Nazis were misunderstood, and the next he’s saying Hamas is worse than the Third Reich.”
This Sunday afternoon, we performed an antizionist reading of the festival’s traditional text, the Megillah, that Jews read to relate the story of Purim, when a genocidal empire attempted to enact a genocide against the Jews. Today, Israel is carrying out a genocide against Palestinians. We recognise that Purim is historically a day on which Israeli settlers increase their violence against Palestinians, using the holiday as cover. Settlers weaponise the story of Purim by taking it to its dangerous literal conclusions, turning the tables on history by unleashing untold violence against Indigenous Palestinians on their own land. As Jewish people, we say: not in our name.
Tzedek Collective was formed in response to a growing need among Jews in so-called Australia for an anti-zionist space based on the principle of doikayt (hereness) and committed to anticolonial action for furthering Indigenous sovereignty and Palestinian liberation.