Portside

Jewish Voice for Peace is guided by a vision of justice, equality and freedom for all people. We unequivocally oppose Zionism because it is counter to those ideals.

After news that broke over the weekend that the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute rescinded an award that was to be presented to Dr. Angela Davis, the Birmingham City Council unanimously passed a resolution of support for the civil rights icon.

Reader Comments: Impeachment; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Returning to a 70% Marginal Tax Rate; TSA Agents Call-In Sick and the Right to Strike (Not); New Attack on Civil Rights Icon Angela Davis, Jews, BDS and Anti-Semitism; and so much more.....

Last week Portside posted Rosalind P. Petchesky's piece, An Appeal to Jewish Women to Support the 2019 Women’s March and Its Leaders. Preserving the unity and diversity of the anti-Trump movement is crucial. Here are responses from Portside readers.

Two things can be true at once. Jews are individually and collectively victims of anti-Semitism - violence, hate speech, bigotry, and prejudice - and Jewish people are beneficiaries and upholders of the American system of white supremacy.

American Jews have nothing to fear from the new congressional critics of Israel. Naturally, conservatives in the United States — though not only conservatives — have denounced Tlaib and Omar’s stance as anti-Semitic. It is not.

I am the Jewish teenager who wore the Star of David to make sure everyone knew she was a Jew. I am my mother, who taught her children that no one is free unless everyone is free... For all those Jews, for Israeli Jews, for Palestinians, and for the world, I am the anti-Zionist Jew.

There were no federal laws concerning immigration until 1924. When a massive influx of new immigrant groups came at the turn of the 20th century — Italians from Southern Europe and Jews from Eastern Europe — a backlash developed. A new law required for the first time that immigrants to the U.S. have visas, introducing the concept of “having papers” to American immigration policy.

What Gary Cohn, Steven Mnuchin and Jared Kushner did - or, rather, what they didn't do - is a shanda. They'll know what that means, but, for the uninitiated, shanda is Yiddish for shame, disgrace. All three let it be known through anonymous friends and colleagues that they are disturbed and distressed by what Trump said after the white terrorist demonstration and attack in Charlottesville. But not in public.

Campaigns to silence criticism of Israel don’t protect Jews — they endanger them. A national conversation on what antisemitism is — and what it isn’t — is long overdue. Recent reshuffling among the Trump administration may have Steve Bannon on the outs, but we are only weeks removed from a white supremacist as “the shadow president.”