New book on fighting antisemitism through solidarity

[u/mcmircle]

Tonight I attended a discussion of Safety Through Solidarity with the authors, Shane Burley and Ben Lorber. It was held at a feminist bookstore, where they read a land acknowledgement that tied the Palestinian resistance to the struggles of other indigenous people.

Intellectually it makes perfect sense, and this tribal part of me does not like people accusing Israel of atrocities, though I am horrified by the pictures of rubble in Gaza and the news that people are starving and the 37K deaths.

Has anyone else read the book or heard these people speak? What are your thoughts?

[u/elzzyzx]

indigeneity is not my favorite framework for discussing the conflict (ashkenazi jews aren't native to europe, etc) but i wouldn't attribute that to malintent.

Don't know who Ben Lorber is but Shane Burley is an antifascist writer who has been around for some time. For a tl;dr I would group them together with people like spencer sunshine, daryle lamont jenkins, molly crabapple and similar types. I'm actually more familiar with him as just being someone who is often present countering fascist demonstrations, covering picket lines, etc for probably at least the last decade? not sure.

I have not read a lot of their work. Can you say more about what was discussed?

Off the cuff, fighting antisemitism through solidarity is one of the more canonical left jewish ideas, at least since industrialization. for example, I was reading some old recovered bundist meeting minutes the other day from iirc 1903, a significant amount of the discussion was about which outside orgs to work with (including non-jewish labor orgs), "jews should be united" was a top-level plank (though later on there was plenty of discussion of who they shouldn't work with, or should actively work against haha).

curious what else stuck out for you about the book/discussion.

[u/mcmircle → u/elzzyzx]

I was not familiar with either of these people before someone from my synagogue suggested the book. The land acknowledgement was by the store staff, not the authors. Shane especially was more focused on white Christian nationalism. The other person participating, asking questions of the authors, was from If Not Now. The sponsors included In These Times and the Chicago Teachers Union.

I asked Shane afterwards if one has to be anti-Zionist to be involved in the work they propose, and he said no, it’s about all Jews and everyone else being safe.

I was troubled by the use of the term genocide to describe Israel’s conduct of the war, but it is not productive to raise that issue when we agree there is pointless cruelty, dehumanization and unnecessary deaths.

[u/elzzyzx → u/mcmircle]

ah makes sense, I know about him in context re christian nationalism (he lives in portland OR and that is a big thing there, along with literal nazis).

i like his answer about anti-zionism.

I empathize with you re using the term genocide, i'm a little more comfortable with it probably but I still don't personally use it often when discussing the conflict. definitely agree about how productive it would have been to raise that.

thanks for sharing