Jewish demonstrators in New York protested aid to Israel

Those present during the protest prayed for a truce in Gaza and appealed to Schumer to end US military aid to Israel, whose military is heavily dependent on US weapons, rocket fuel and other equipment, writes The Guardian. The entire event took place shortly before the Senate unequivocally accepted a package of military aid for Israel worth 26 billion dollars (614 billion crowns). The police started detaining the participants of the event only after the religious rituals were over.

This is how protesters celebrated the Seder, which is part of the Jewish holiday of freedom of Passover, in front of Schumer’s residence at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. At the same time, Schumer belongs to the minority of Democrats who have recently criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We, as American Jews, will not be used, we will not be complicit, and we will not be silenced,” Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Morgan Bassichis told the crowd. “Judaism is a beautiful, thousands-year-old tradition, and Israel is a 76-year-old colonial apartheid state. This is the Passover of our exodus from Zionism. Not on our behalf. Let Gaza live.”

The US Senate has already approved aid to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine

The Jewish Voice for Peace was founded in 1996 and is an American anti-Zionist left-wing Jewish organization that has long supported the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign against Israel, and whose opposition to this state does not only apply to current events. Members of its advisory board include playwright Tony Kushner, philosopher Judith Butler and academic Noam Chomsky.

Speakers at the event included journalist and author Naomi Klein, Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour, and several Jewish students suspended from Columbia University and Barnard College because of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations there in recent days. Rabbi Miriam Grossman led the prayer before the first cup of ritual wine. “We pray for everyone under siege, for everyone facing hunger and mass bombardment,” her prayer read.

Klein spoke after eating the bitter herbs that represent the bitterness of slavery during the ritual Seder meal. “This Passover is not like other Passovers. So many people are not with their families, but this movement is our family,” she recalled the rift the war in Gaza caused in many Jewish families.

“Our Judaism cannot be controlled by an ethno-state because our Judaism is international in nature. Our Judaism cannot be protected by a rampaging army of an ethnostate, because the army only sows sorrow and reaps hatred, including hatred against us Jews,” Klein continued.

Passover as a protest

Passover is one of the most important Jewish holidays, commemorating the release of the Israelites from slavery and their journey to freedom, and is often used by Jewish communities to protest global injustices. The Seder then takes place during the first two days of Passover, which began on Monday and lasts eight days outside of Israel.

According to its organizers, Tuesday’s protest was modeled after the Freedom Seder of 1969. It was organized by Arthur Waskow on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. He thus tried to connect the story of the Jewish exodus with the struggle for civil rights in the USA and against the war in Vietnam.

“Passover is about liberation,” a 31-year-old Jewish woman explained of her participation in the event in Brooklyn. “In our family, Palestinians have always been a part of celebrations and mourning. The demand for liberation is now more important than ever … as Americans, we find billions in our tax dollars in a military aid bill for Israel outrageous and horrifying.”

Jewish groups across the US have already organized several significant anti-war events since October 7. They were also held at such important and well-known places as the Capitol or the Statue of Liberty. Activists organized another Seder dinner a day earlier on the first day of Passover at a protest camp on the campus of Columbia University.

The war these Jewish protesters are protesting began with an October attack by Hamas on Israeli territory, in which the terrorist group killed approximately 1,200 people. The Israeli counter-offensive in Gaza is responsible for at least 34,000 lives, including 13,000 children, according to the Hamas-controlled authorities there. On Tuesday, 200 days had passed since the beginning of the war.