At 6:45pm on November 9, as part of the programming for a BiCo “Shut Down for Palestine” event, students convened in a Dalton Hall classroom for a Teach-In by SJP organizer MK titled “Whose Birthright?” The presentation took attendees on a mock Birthright Israel Trip, detailing the itinerary of the journey, and the significance of each activity in terms of how it relates to Israel’s pushing its Zionist ideologies through the program.
MK began with a land acknowledgment, and then continued with a description of the Birthright Israel program, which was created for the purpose of, as one of its co-founders puts it, “selling Jewishness to Jews.” MK stated, “We want to challenge that Jewish identity is innately connected to Israel.” She noted that 80% of birthright trip students are from the US and Canada, and that in this way the institution “has become a facet of American Jewish life,” which “gives white Jews claims to others’ land.”
The difference between the treatment of Birthright students and the treatment of native Palestinians was emphasized as MK described the process at Israel airports: “You, as a birthright student, do not get interrogated as Palestinians do.”
In many ways, she argued, the Palestinian identity and claim to the land is entirely erased from the experience of a Birthright student. For instance, participants visit kibbutzim, small towns typically centered around communal agricultural labor. These towns represent the tensions between Zionism and Socialism, MK contended; they are advertised to students as peaceful and lovely places, but they are built on stolen land.
MK went on to discuss the perception of many anti-Zionists that Birthright has a pro-natalist association, as it was sparked by a demographic panic when many American Jews began moving to the suburbs in 1945, thus diluting Jewish populations. MK included a story about her own interfaith family here, noting that her parents are an example of this phenomenon. She continued to lay out how the belief in the attachment of all Jewish people to the land of Israel plays into the Birthright trip’s encouragement of participants forming connections with local Israelis, and how children are often born of these relationships.
One slide in her presentation cited a quote from actress Ruby Marez about her Birthright trip, in the Taglit-sponsored book What We Brought Back: “…this gorgeous Israeli soldier I met was half Saudi and half Sephardic Jew … If we all put down our guns and hopped into bed with each other this world would be such a good looking, happy, peaceful place.” MK noted that the “Make love not war thesis is super harmful,” as it, however indirectly, deploys the womb to achieve political goals. The concept of “pinkwashing” was also alluded to, in the context of Birthright students being taken to Tel Aviv, which is presented to them as a progressive place, when the reality is that gay marriage is not legal in Israel.
At 7:15, there was a pause in the proceedings to let more people into the classroom. By then, students were sitting on the floor and leaning against the walls to be accommodated.
Next on the mock Birthright trip itinerary was a visit to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. The layout of the exhibits, MK said, “manufactures a narrative that Israel is the final mode of Jewish history,” as students look out on the city from a stunning spot, after being led through the documentation of the Holocaust. According to some, the visit manipulates grief in support of apartheid.
Finally, Birthright students are given the chance to visit the grave of Theodore Herzl, father of modern political Zionism. “You hold hands around Hertzl’s grave,” MK said, “and sing the national anthem.”
The room was then opened for discussion, and a lively conversation commenced. One attendee asked how one might approach dialogue with someone who believes in indigenizing Jewish people to Israel. She asked, “I’ve never known how to articulate why exactly that doesn’t seem right. How would you debunk this idea?” MK responded by explaining this “mythological ancestry,” saying, “My grandparents are older than Israel … there are Jews who are indigenous, but they’re not the Ashkenazi Jews who are often given the right to return to Israel.”
Another audience member asked, “I’ve been hearing a lot of discussion about anti-Zionism vs antisemitism. I was curious if you could shed some light on how this is perpetuated by Israel.” In response, MK described the events of the 1967 war, when Israel’s boundaries were expanded. The state had argued then that they had to take more land, because their Arab neighbors were threatening to push them into the sea. Yet expanding the boundaries of the Israeli state did not necessarily benefit the Jewish people, MK asserted. In her view, Israel only claims to represent Jews. “To me,” MK stated, “the truest form of Jewish liberation is when Jews have rights in whatever country we reside in.” She added, “[Jewish Voices for Peace] is the place where I feel I can be most authentically Jewish – the most progressive anti-Zionist faces are the kindest ones.”
The conversation then moved towards the topic of the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a chant which has sparked debate over its significance with its use at pro-Palestine protests. One attendee said, “I just don’t understand their stance on [FTRTTS] being pro-genocide when there’s actually a genocide happening [in Gaza].” MK nodded: “It’s detracting so much from what’s actually being said … Instead of fighting for a free Palestine, we’re fighting to prove that we’re not antisemitic.”
Another audience member made a point to read out the definition of antisemitism given by the US, as it includes opposing the state of Israel. Another said exasperatedly, “I think it’s crazy that we do land acknowledgments [for college events], but “From the river to the sea is a land acknowledgment, [and we’re not allowed to say that].”
In the final moments of the event, one vocal attendee stated, “Having neutrality at the moment won’t do us any good. Please get yourselves involved. It’s consistently [people of color] who get involved, and often we’re the ones paying for it.”
After the teach-in wrapped up, the BiCo News spoke to MK about her hopes for the future of this dialogue, which include an approach much more focused on the current situation in Gaza. She said, “I just hope we can stop making this a conversation about antisemitism.”
