Dear Stan,   This is a crucial historical moment for Jewish Voice for Peace.

Join me in supporting JVP’s work with a year-end contribution — and you’ll have twice the impact because a generous JVP member has agreed to match all donations received by December 31 up to $200,000. The new government in Israel has proved to be the most shamelessly racist in its history. Yes, but racism has been there from the beginning, a founding credo, when Palestinians were radically dispossessed in 1948 to make way for Jewish lives whose right to land and sanctuary was considered immeasurably more important than the lives and rights of the Palestinian people. In the intervening years, supporters of the Jewish State were able to tell themselves that the State of Israel is a democracy even though they conceded that some of its policies were wrong. But “democracy” cannot describe a country founded through violence and dispossession, whose entire history is punctuated by violent detention, bombardment, siege, illegal land acquisition, and imperial expansion.   Although the political conflicts at Jewish dinner tables across the diaspora are a sure sign that the consensus on the “democratic” character of the State of Israel has broken apart, this dawning realization comes very late in the history of the oppression of the Palestinian people. Of course, it is good that we are shocked by Israeli racism, now increasingly shameless, for the world should not be this way. And yet, many of us are coming late to this sense of shock and outrage. It is time to act now, knowing that it has been time to act for a very long time!

Our numbers are our power, and our power to act is crucial to reverse the tide of injustice that consolidates state racism. Your year-end contribution will have twice the impact when you contribute by December 31!

$20 into $40 $40 into $80

$50 into $100 $75 into $150

Judaism is not Zionism, and Jewish values provide many paths to justice, to resistance, and to the steadfast opposition to racism, nationalism, and militarism.  Jewish Voice for Peace remains the most principled Jewish organization opposing Zionism. JVP supports the rights of boycott, divestment, and sanctions, exposes the rise of military violence and surveillance economies, and works closely with Palestinian organizations to show that the road to justice cannot be traveled if compromise and denial remain the norm. Steadfastly, we must oppose the Israeli dispossession and disempowerment of the Palestinian people, the murder of journalists, the detention and murder of Palestinian youth, the denial or basic legal rights of movement and political self-determination, and the very definition of Israeli statehood that excludes its Palestinian population from full rights of belonging. With JVP, we oppose the all too normalized international position that continues to deprive the Palestinian people of essential rights of political self-determination.   As the largest Jewish organization that has declared itself anti-Zionist, JVP has taken on an indispensable role in public life that is singular, timely, and critical. JVP offers a way for Jews to re-imagine what Jewish ethics and politics can be once freed of the scourge of racist forms of nationalism and state violence. It is also a way for us to act in coalition with our Palestinian allies for a world in which we inhabit this world on equal terms and reimagine radical democracy. JVP is at the forefront, showing what an ethical Jewish life can be — a Jewish life lived in solidarity with the oppressed, working to expand the network of activists who support the long struggle for justice in Palestine. The ongoing attempts on college campuses to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism are clearly false and damaging. We are asked to understand the “feelings” of those who feel attacked by just criticisms of the Israeli state. And yet, what about the feelings of Palestinian students whose history of suffering is effaced even as it is continues? Those feelings are not considered equally valid, even though justice is on their side. The struggle against Israeli state racism is a struggle against colonial rule and racist political structures. It is not against the “Jews” for we are, and should be, part of every struggle for justice. That struggle should happen everywhere there is colonial dispossession, murderous acts against unarmed populations, and the State of Israel should not be exempt from our critical opposition.   However alarming the new Israeli government surely is, let us remember that this is now a new and vital opportunity to expand our base, to bring others into Jewish Voice for Peace, and to stand firm for a just vision and a just activism in which we act in support of our Palestinian allies as they seek to live in freedom and equality, and without the daily threat of violence and imprisonment. Palestinians deserve to live without constant grief over those lives brutally extinguished. The struggle for justice and freedom is expanding, and Jewish Voice for Peace is the organization that will keep us honest, resist complicity, and expand our networks of solidarity. JVP is critical during this time when authoritarian regimes are starting to look like the new normal, and the State of Israel intensifies this normalization.   And this is why your support is so crucial. JVP is nearly 90% funded by individuals like me — and you. Your gift today will help JVP remain fiercely independent.   Onward,

Judith Butler

P.S. No other organization fights for Palestinian rights and freedoms while animating Jewish social justice principles with the strength, integrity, and clarity of JVP. Help us win this battle, and the next. Join me in showing your support of JVP with a contribution today!