podcast friday
Dec. 15th, 2023 06:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI have a much longer post percolating in my little squirrel brain about the concept of Jews as a political category, informed by some of the bullshit I've had to hear over the past few months (and lifetime), but it needs to percolate just a little longer. In the meantime, a two-parter from Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff that sums up many of my opinions.
"Israeli and International Solidarity With Palestinian Struggle" (Part 1 | Part 2) is about folks who are much braver than I am and actually put themselves in the path of walls, bullets, and bulldozers rather than just, say, spouting off in internet arguments. Matt Lieb, who I love every time he's on Behind the Bastards, is the guest, and he gets it—he says all of the messy, complicated things that I feel as a Jew, as a leftist, as a diasporic person whose beliefs around Palestine and Palestinians are often assumed to be something other than they are. This is, obviously, a very important episode to air now, with the death toll in Gaza ticking up towards 19,000 as of last night, 7500 of these children. It's a light in the darkness, which is really what the show is about, and something that I needed to listen to in the exact week I listened to it.
Today, Jews are at the forefront of the struggle beside our Palestinian siblings—occupying buildings, shutting down highways, interrupting speeches. But it's like we don't exist. The Jewish anti-Zionist tradition, whether one agrees with it or not, is as old and deeply rooted in the Jewish community as the Zionist tradition. It is not, of course, politically convenient, especially not right now. And I am so so grateful to this podcast for shining a bright light on it (not that everyone profiled necessarily identifies as a Jewish anti-Zionist but a lot do).
Anyway, go have a listen. It says it better than I ever could.
"Israeli and International Solidarity With Palestinian Struggle" (Part 1 | Part 2) is about folks who are much braver than I am and actually put themselves in the path of walls, bullets, and bulldozers rather than just, say, spouting off in internet arguments. Matt Lieb, who I love every time he's on Behind the Bastards, is the guest, and he gets it—he says all of the messy, complicated things that I feel as a Jew, as a leftist, as a diasporic person whose beliefs around Palestine and Palestinians are often assumed to be something other than they are. This is, obviously, a very important episode to air now, with the death toll in Gaza ticking up towards 19,000 as of last night, 7500 of these children. It's a light in the darkness, which is really what the show is about, and something that I needed to listen to in the exact week I listened to it.
Today, Jews are at the forefront of the struggle beside our Palestinian siblings—occupying buildings, shutting down highways, interrupting speeches. But it's like we don't exist. The Jewish anti-Zionist tradition, whether one agrees with it or not, is as old and deeply rooted in the Jewish community as the Zionist tradition. It is not, of course, politically convenient, especially not right now. And I am so so grateful to this podcast for shining a bright light on it (not that everyone profiled necessarily identifies as a Jewish anti-Zionist but a lot do).
Anyway, go have a listen. It says it better than I ever could.
