Jewish Americans hold nationwide Oct. 7 vigils for Palestinian, Lebanese, and Israeli lives

On Oct. 7, thousands of American Jews with the organization If Not Now held vigils around the US to grieve the tens of thousands of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Israeli lives collectively lost over the past year. For many anti-Zionist Jews, the past year has been a time when their political commitments and principles have been put to the test. While the Biden and Netanyahu governments continue to weaponize antisemitism to justify the genocide in Gaza, many Jewish people are instead taking up the banner of justice and equality for Palestinians. The Real News reports from DC, speaking directly with organizers working with the Jewish American community to demand an arms embargo of Israel.

Production/Post-Production: Jaisal Noor

Transcript

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Eliana Golding:

Our tears are abundant enough and our hearts are big enough to grieve for every life taken, every universe destroyed, whether Palestinian, Lebanese, or Israeli. It is not either or. We need one another. Jews cannot be safe if Palestinians are not safe and free.

Jaisal Noor (Narrator):

On October 7th, hundreds of American Jews held a vigil in Washington D.C to solemnly commemorate the one-year mark since the Hamas attack that killed 1,100 Israelis, and to condemn Israel’s continued genocide in Gaza that’s killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, though one study estimated in June that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributed to the current conflict.

Lauren Maunus:

We grieve the continuing genocide in Gaza, which we as Jews, many of whom had ancestors killed in the Holocaust, recognize as an attempt to wipe a people out.

Jaisal Noor (Narrator):

Speakers also condemn the ongoing attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Eliana Golding:

We grieve for the hundreds of Palestinians killed in the West Bank by the Israeli military and settlers, many of them in violent pogroms, reminiscent of those unleashed against our ancestors. We grieve for Palestinians continually displaced through occupation and apartheid.

Jaisal Noor (Narrator):

And Israel’s escalating attacks in Lebanon.

Lauren Maunus:

It is unimaginable that a full year later we are seeing similar scenes in Lebanon to those we saw in Gaza. Residential buildings bombed to rubble, Israeli and American officials using dehumanizing rhetoric to justify massacres of civilians and no ends to the violence in sight.

Jaisal Noor (Narrator):

The action was organized by If Not Now, a Jewish organization dedicated to fighting for Palestinian equality. Organizers said 4,000 turned out for vigils across Boston, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. While they mourned each Jewish life lost over the past year, their message contrasted sharply with mainstream Jewish organizations. Speakers demanded an immediate ceasefire and an end to US weapon shipments to Israel.

Ethan Miller:

While we grieve today, we also are taking action to ensure that there’s not another sent to Israel to be used to kill any number of more innocent people, and that as American Jews, our voices need to be heard.

Jaisal Noor (Narrator):

Among the speakers was Lily Greenberg-Call, the first Jewish Biden administration appointee to resign over the U.S.’s ongoing support of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Lily Greenberg-Call:

I felt that, one, I needed to leave to be in integrity with myself, that I could not represent the President as he is making Jewish people the face of the American War machine, and using our trauma and our pain to justify slaughter of another people, and that I would actually potentially have more power to change this and to end what’s happening if I stepped out and if I resigned.

Jaisal Noor (Narrator):

Organizers emphasized that criticizing Israeli policy is not inherently anti-Semitic, and highlighted the challenge of speaking out for Palestinian rights in Jewish spaces.

Lily Greenberg-Call:

And I think the greatest threat for Jews remains white supremacy and white nationalism. And it’s very convenient for those people, especially to conflate anti-Semitism with critique of the state of Israel, because it distracts from the real threat. The only thing that will keep Jews safe is a multiracial democracy. And there’s a lot of people in this country, especially who are invested in fighting against that.

Jaisal Noor (Narrator):

Speakers emphasized Jewish safety will not be achieved through what they repeatedly named as Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Lily Greenberg-Call:

We are here to really emphasize that the only way out of this is a new politics that values every single human life as equal, as dignified. And the only way to get to a thriving future for Palestinians and Israelis is a ceasefire and an end to the occupation and apartheid.

Jaisal Noor (Narrator):

For the Real News, this is Jaisal Noor reporting from Washington.