We are an organisation of South African Jews wishing to see and mobilise towards a Free Palestine in our lifetimes. We strongly believe in the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, “Repairing the World” or the spirit of repair and reparative justice, which embodies social action and the pursuit of social justice.
Our Jewish faith, praxis, and ethos, as well as that of us as human beings demands of us the refusal of the fascist conflation of antisemitism and anti- zionism. It demands of us to bear witness, and to stand up against genocide. We will not allow our Judaism, in all its beautiful forms, and the memory of our ancestors to be weaponised for further and interlinked genocidal fascist projects for the genocide in Gaza and across Palestine. We stand for an immediate ceasefire, the opening of humanitarian corridors, and the dismantling of the settler colonial zionist project. together to show our commitment to our Jewish identities which require us to strive for peace and justice.
We also feel compelled to speak out given our national identity. Many of us were active in the struggle against apartheid. Having experienced, and contributed towards, South Africa’s journey from an unjust regime to a democracy, we hope to contribute to democratic change in Historic Palestine. We also see the parallels between South African history and the plight of the Palestinians.
We acknowledge that our history of dispossession, and the Holocaust in particular, was an important factor in the formation of the State of Israel. In part it was an attempt by the international community to rectify the wrongs that were done to us. However, wrongs against one people cannot be corrected by wronging another. The Palestinians should never have had to bear the burden of Europe’s misdeeds.
We therefore acknowledge the vast tragedy of the Nakba (the exterminatory ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, and the displacement of a majority of the Palestinian people), the many injustices that followed it and which occur to this very day. For this reason we seek social and restorative justice in Historic Palestine.
