Media Roundup: “Palestine is really the center of the world.”

As the right-wing repression playbook laid out in Project Esther is enacted by the extremist Trump administration, JVP members made headlines gathering for a four-day, 2000-strong National Member Meeting where we took stock of the current moment and laid out our plans to confront the present moment.

Grounding in the reality that the Trump administration is continuing to arm and back Israel’s intensifying genocide and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, while coming for our movements and our fundamental rights, speakers like Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Dr. Angela Davis reminded us of what we’re fighting for and our commitment to make our strongest possible contribution to Palestinian freedom.

Project Esther: NYT Details Right-Wing Plan to “Rebrand All Critics of Israel” as Hamas Supporters, Democracy Now!, May 19, 2025.

“Project Esther was created by the ultraconservative white Christian nationalists and should be understood as an addendum to Project 2025, which is the Heritage Foundation’s plan to remake the U.S. in an ultraconservative image. It has absolutely nothing to do with Jewish safety, and it is intended solely to destroy the Palestinian liberation movement, using tools that can then be used against all communities and movements and democracy itself.” – Stefanie Fox, Executive Director, JVP

The Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement, The New York Times, May 18, 2025.

“Trump is pulling straight from the authoritarian playbook, using tools of repression first against those organizing for Palestinian rights. And in so doing, sharpening those tools for use against anyone and everyone who challenges his fascist agenda.” – Stefanie Fox

​Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Gaza: Why Does U.S. Have Money for “War and Genocide” But Not for Healthcare?, Democracy Now!, May 12, 2025.

Jewish Voice for Peace held its largest-ever national member meeting in Baltimore earlier this month, with more than 2,000 attending. We feature the address of Democratic Congressmember Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, who addressed the conference as it began. “Why is it that our government always has enough money for bombs, to bomb people, to kill people, but never seems to have money to provide people with healthcare, with housing, enough food for their families?” Tlaib asked in her address.

“Palestine Is Really the Center of the World”: Angela Davis on Gaza, Black-Jewish Solidarity & Trump, Democracy Now!, May 6, 2025.

“As Israel represents itself as the purveyor of genocide, assisted by the United States, it’s important to have a powerful force of progressive and radical Jewish people, working in the tradition of Jewish activists, who stand up not only for their own people, but who have taught us about international solidarity and what it means to engage in struggles for freedom.” – Dr. Angela Davis

Jewish Students Lobby Congress Against Weaponizing Antisemitism to Silence Critics of Israel, Democracy Now!, May 8, 2025.

Columbia University has decided who is Jewish, who is not Jewish, and then, from there, who is worthy of protection, who is not worthy of protection. And while we as Jewish students are fully, you know, transparent and honest as the repression and harm we have faced as Jewish students is not anything near what our Palestinian peers have faced, we are here directly to talk about this issue of weaponizing antisemitism to harm anybody and anyone, because it’s all interconnected. I mean, look at the abduction of Mahmoud Khalil. Look at the abduction of Mohsen, when you’re using antisemitism as a weapon.” – Carly Shaffer, JVP Columbia

Meet the Jewish students speaking to US lawmakers about Columbia’s protests, Al Jazeera, May 7, 2025.

“Trump’s mission is not about protecting Jewish students. It is about using fears of anti-Semitism – because of the way that the Gaza solidarity encampment was portrayed last year – in order to target non-citizen student activists, in order to target academic freedom, free speech, and really put many, many people in danger.” – Sarah Borus, JVP Columbia

Massive JVP member meeting vows to fight Zionism, fascism, and the weaponization of antisemitism, Mondoweiss, May 14, 2025.

“The overt, indiscreet mendacity of the Trump administration’s rhetoric and policies is coalescing in the formation of a united front against fascism. This front has the potential to adopt Barbara Ransby’s words as a mantra: “collective liberation is our only chance for survival.” In the struggle for collective liberation, Jews have a unique mandate–taking down the antisemitism smokescreen.” – Joseph Mogul, JVP Twin Cities

At Jewish Voice for Peace conference, a balance of popularity and risk under Trump, Religion News Service, May 9, 2025.

“It’s in community that you can kind of face those contradictions and figure out what it’s going to take to keep fighting — even though it’s a bigger uphill battle than ever — and figure out what it’s going to take to keep growing — even though they’re making the cost of the work scarier all the time,” Stefanie Fox

Elise Stefanik threatens Haverford College president at latest hearing on campus antisemitism, JTA, May 8, 2025.

“By painting events that criticize the state of Israel as antisemitic, the Committee erases the range of views about the State of Israel, especially amongst Jewish people.” – JVP at Haverford College

What does it mean to be a Palestinian Jew today?, Real News Network, May 13, 2025.

“To create Palestine as, allegedly, a state for the Jews, and to turn Palestinians into an exterminable group. So when I relate to the term genocide, when I wrote several texts since the beginning of the genocide, I put aside the legal definition of genocide, and I am trying to reconstruct how the genocide against Palestinians started. And it started in the wake of World War II when Western power, through the mediation of the UN, decided that Palestinians are exterminable for the sake of Zionists, for the sake of creating a Zionist state.” – Ariella Azoulay

“Israel is the religion: Zionism, genocide, and the generation divide in the Jewish world”, Real News Network, May 20, 2025.

“I gradually began to understand that Zionism as a political ideology is actually based in British colonialism and imperialism concepts. And also that Zionism, the privileging of Jews over other folks in historic Palestine requires harm to Palestinians. And I’m into mutual liberation. And so Jewish supremacy didn’t kind of fit with that ideology.” – Alice Rothchild, JVP Health Advisory Council

At Providence City Hall, the divide over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict reaches new heights, Boston Globe, May 16, 2025.

“There is a great propaganda machine that would have us say that that‘s divisive [to raise a Palestinian flag]. I don‘t think my safety is at all harmed by or affected by statements of Palestine solidarity.” – Jackie Goldman, JVP Rhode Island 

Smiley says city council ‘fanning flames’ by raising Palestinian flag, ABC 6, May 15, 2025.

“Standing in solidarity with Palestine is in fact part of our obligation as Jews and non-Jewish allies. Mayor Smiley is severely misinformed as he insinuates that solidarity with Palestine and flying the Palestinian flag makes Jews less safe. We find his remarks to reinforce anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism.” -JVP Rhode Island

Jewish Demonstrators Hold “Emergency Passover Seder” Outside NYC’s ICE Offices, Truthout, April 15, 2025.

“This Passover, the Jewish festival of liberation, we cannot celebrate as usual while Palestinians in Gaza face famine and the U.S.-backed Israeli government uses starvation as a weapon of war,” – Jay Saper, JVP-NYC

LIVE: Jewish New Yorkers hold seder at ICE to demand release of Columbia University’s Khalil, Reuters, April 15, 2025.

This Passover, We Must Reckon With Israel’s Massacre of Children in Gaza, Truthout, April 11, 2025.

“As a congregational rabbi, I’ve been asked recurring questions over the last two Passovers. How can I celebrate this holiday while a genocide is being committed in my name? How can I observe a festival of Jewish liberation while a Jewish nation-state is acting as a pharaoh over an entire people? While I understand the anguish behind these questions, I believe the Passover ritual actually offers us an important opportunity: to squarely face the way the Exodus narrative is playing out in a very real way in our own day, to ask hard questions and avoid the simple, pat answers.” – Rabbi Brant Rosen, JVP Rabbinical Council

Jewish student groups bring unique Passover Seder experiences to the table, The Daily Northwestern, April 13, 2025.

Paz Baum said her passion for the holiday motivated her to help host last year’s Jewish Voice for Peace Seder at the Deering Meadow encampment, which encouraged support for Palestinian communities affected by the Israel-Hamas war. She said she hopes to continue that message with this year’s Freedom Seder, hosted by JVP along with other campus groups.

Liberation Seder: Hundreds of Jewish Protesters Demand Release of Foreign Students Abducted by ICE, Democracy Now!, April 14, 2025.

I’ve always thought of Passover as a celebration of liberation. And liberation can never be just the Jews. The only way to fight for liberation is to fight for everybody.” – Marianne Pita, JVP-NYC

JVP hosts Passover ‘Liberation Seder’ across street from Hillel, Michigan Daily, April 15, 2025.

“When I see a piece of Matzah, I think of the flour massacre on (Feb.) 29, 2024, where over 118 lives were lost and more than 700 individuals were injured while desperately searching for food after months of imposed starvation. The magnitude of this violence with a simple act of seeking flour that led to death reverberates in my body. But even in the face of starvation and seemingly insurmountable violence, Palestinian people resist against their oppressor.” – Zelda Manela

Protesters hold Passover Seder at ICE headquarters, demand release of Mahmoud Khalil, Religion News Service, April 14, 2025.

“In every generation, every person is obligated to see themselves as though they had personally left Egypt… In this context, Egypt becomes a metaphor; in the biblical Hebrew, it means a narrow place. Think of a narrow place — it doesn’t get more literal than Gaza, this literally narrow strip of land that has been under siege for two decades and that is being bombed and bombed.” – Rabbi Abby Chava Stein

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