Jewish peace activists across the US call for immediate ceasefire and justice for Palestinians

As Rabbi Alissa Wise scrolls through social media, her feed is littered with videos of dead Palestinian children, parents holding their lifeless bodies with screams caught in their throats and eyes sunken with grief.

Like millions around the world, she has been haunted by the gruesome scenes flooding out of Gaza, where civilians have endured more than two weeks of an Israeli siege and bombing campaign that has collapsed homes, destroyed vital infrastructure and sparked a humanitarian crisis.

The airstrikes have killed more than 4,600 Palestinians so far, including an estimated 1,900 children, and wounded at least 14,000 others, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza. Another 1.4 million people have been internally displaced, the United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

“It’s wretched. I wake up every single morning with tears in my eyes, rage in my heart and I channel it into action,” Wise, a rabbinical council member with Jewish Voice for Peace, told CNN. “My coping mechanism is to yell into the void, yell into the halls of Congress.”

She feels the same grief and horror over Hamas’ surprise attack in Israel on October 07, when the militant group brutally killed more than 1,400 people, including civilians and military personnel, and abducted over 200 others, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel says its mission in Gaza is to root out and destroy Hamas, which governs the small territory. But it is the 2.2 million Palestinians living there, unable to escape, who are bearing the brunt of the attacks.

It is these lives that Wise and other Jewish American peace activists are mobilizing to save with their calls for an urgent ceasefire.

Lately, thousands of Jews and allies marched on Capitol Hill, where they carried Palestinian flags and rallied in support of Palestinian rights, while Wise led a smaller sit-in with hundreds of activists inside one of the Capitol buildings.

The action was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, two of the largest US Jewish groups calling for a just and peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

At the sit-in, led by two dozen rabbis, they blew shofars, a traditional horn made from ram’s horn and used in Jewish rituals, and shared testimonials from Palestinians suffering in Gaza. They wore shirts that read, “Not in our name,” and unfurled banners demanding a ceasefire.

The activists also called on the US government to stop providing aid to Israel, which Wise says “encourages and funds the mass murder of Palestinians.”

Wise was one of more than 355 activists, mostly Jewish, arrested during the event, according to Jewish Voice for Peace spokesperson Sonya Meyerson-Knox.

Thousands more Jewish Americans continue to gather in protests across the United States, calling on President Joe Biden and other elected officials to rein in Israel – arguing more civilian deaths is not the answer to Hamas’ deadly attack.

“As Jewish people whose ancestors went through the Holocaust, when we hear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant use words like ‘the children of darkness’ and ‘human animals’ to describe Palestinians, we feel the resonances of that in our bones,” said IfNotNow political director Eva Borgwardt, referring to recent comments made by the Israeli officials.

“We know exactly where that language leads, and we are here to stop what they clearly intend to be a genocide. We will come to the doors of our lawmakers; we will be at the doors of our lawmakers for as long as it takes.”

Moments after Rabbi Wise was released by authorities, she learned one of her closest Palestinian friends lost his entire family in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

“I fell in a puddle on the floor. It was a very sobering reminder of exactly what we’re trying to prevent,” Wise said. “It’s critical for American Jews to stand up and say, ‘never again’ is never again for anyone.” The slogan has been a rallying cry of the Jewish community since World War II.

“If we’re going to learn anything from history, it’s that the things that we stand for are for everybody, no exception, and that includes Palestinians,” she added. “We’re pulling back on organizations that suggest Jewish safety must come at the expense of Palestinian life. We say, it’s not either-or, it’s all of us or none of us.”

In addition to organizing civil actions, Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow are also educating communities through digital media, engaging with journalists, organizing petition drives and coordinating telephone and email campaigns aimed at elected officials and news organizations. Much of their work is done in partnership with smaller Jewish groups, as well as Arab, Muslim and Palestine solidarity activists.

Jewish Voice for Peace, founded in 1996, describes itself as the largest Jewish pro-Palestinian organization in the world, with over 440,000 members and supporters across 30 states. IfNotNow also has a large US network, with tens of thousands of Jewish members who have taken direct actions to protest the Israeli occupation since 2014.

“The work of our movements over the past nine years and decades of work by our predecessors has been preparing all of us to meet this horrific, genocidal moment,” Borgwardt said.

“Stopping this war feels like the biggest test of our lifetimes. We understand how we got here and that to end this nightmare and achieve true safety for Palestinians, Israelis and Jews, we need to end decades of occupation and apartheid and fight for equality, justice and a thriving future for all.”