March 24
GUESTS: Jessi Sander, a Jewish American school teacher, and her lawyer Robert Herbst talk about why she was fired from her job by the Westchester Reform Temple for a recreational blog post criticizing the most recent attack on Gaza by the State of Israel.
A Jewish Teacher Criticized Israel; She Was Fired
Jessi Sander was fired for her beliefs. Not for beliefs she had expressed in the school that had hired her as a teacher. Sander was fired for some blog posts she had written years before.
The official position of the Westchester Reform Temple is that teachers' opinions fall under the protection of free speech. Not only that, the Rabbi who hired Sander had talked about the importance to the Jewish faith of expressing and discussing ideas.
PEP has long been a problem for the nation's liberals. "Progressive except for Palestine" holds that human rights values and racial justice should apply to all. Well, not to all. Palestinians don't get human rights because they keep reminding the world that Israel has stolen their homes, slaughtered their youth and pushed millions off their lands. Instead of upholding "Jewish" traditions, PEP zealots allow no debate on Israel's right to commit these war crimes. Like all colonial philosophy, those being occupied and oppressed are less than real people.
I am sorry that Jessi Sanders is paying the price for this hypocrisy. And like many Jewish people of her age, she is fighting back against Israel's apartheid. As Joel Kovel, author of Overcoming Zionism, said several years ago, "It's a fight between Jewish values and Jewish tribalism." Joel paid a price himself for writing the book. He was pushed out of his teaching position at Bard College, that supposed bastion of liberal thought in Upstate New York. Liberal of course, except for Palestine.
Joel died several years ago, and Jessi Sanders will someday overcome the racism she has found in the Westchester Reform Temple. But will the six million Palestinians in the diaspora ever regain their homeland? Will the five million Palestinians living under a brutal occupation ever get their lives and their dignity back?
We as Americans hold the key to ending the occupation. Our Congress members must stop getting payments from the Israel Lobby. Maybe then our elected representatives will stop giving Israel 3.8 billion a year for weapons to kill Palestinians. The shameful courting of our police departments by Israeli money and training might come to an end as well. And the billions that Israeli megadonors put into racist campaigns against Muslims will be exposed and terminated.
There is a lot of work to do, and genuinely progressive Jews will be standing there with us as we shine a light on Israel's crimes. Not in our name!
