Pro-Jewish, Anti-Zionist: how can we speak about liberation this year?

To our Palestinian friends and our allies in the mahi tahi,

This night is not like all the other nights. We gather for our Passover meals while your people are being starved in our names. How can we speak while this unthinkable crime is ongoing?

The holiday of Passover commemorates Jewish liberation. It is not enough that we were freed from oppression. We are feeling our rage and finding our place to act against the oppression of any people by another.

We are instructed to retell the story of our liberation, and we will.

75 years ago, some of our antecedents took the homes of yours. Some were seeking shelter from a cataclysm while others were capitalising on it. We regard every survivor with compassion. The echoes of their traumas live on within both of our peoples.

Our cataclysm was exploited to justify your Nakba. We listen without defensiveness while you tell us what that has meant. Until we address that with restoration, reparation and return, your catastrophe will live in the present tense.

Since then a bitter, violent disparity of power and consequence has prevailed from the river to the sea. We call for our people to surrender their power, to elevate and centre your justice.

The Zionist project of displacement and erasure is finding its fullest expression this year. We see desolation, starvation and terror inflicted upon your families in our names. Our tears and our horror are boundless, but tears are no help without actions. We will not rest until every person who is cold and hungry finds food, safety, home and comfort. Even then, we will not turn away until the quiet of ceasefire is followed by the real peace of justice. That will be the hour of your and our liberation.

What does it mean to be pro-Jewish anti-Zionist this year? It means directing our outrage into action: being seen and heard in solidarity, protesting the brutality and the appropriation of our good name. To be pro-Jewish means digging beneath the travesty of Zionism, unearthing thousands of years of Jewishness and bringing that into the light.

It means establishing a Jewish community where all are welcome and no one is harmed – an Aotearoa Tangata Tiriti Jewish community that is part of the long work of liberation. We are not safe while others are targeted; we are not valued by devaluing others.

Trauma is resolved with acceptance and belonging. May we find resolution together in time.

That is the lesson we take from our Passover festival of liberation: we reject the oppression of one people by another.

Soon, in our time, may we be all be free.

Alternative Jewish Voices – Dayenu