In their haste to unify Jewish youth in support of Israel, American Jewish institutions have bred an often unrecognized racism among the next generation of community leaders. By Roi Bachmutsky Demonstrations in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah have come alive again as of this past Friday, aiming to show solidarity with the Shamasneh family who have appealed the impending eviction from their home. Unbeknownst to many, the struggle in Sheikh Jarrah reaches far beyond the borders of Jerusalem. In fact, it affects ethnic tensions half a world away by influencing how American Jewish youth internalize the separation between…

Just Vision's Peabody Award winning film, My Neigbhourhood (directed by Julia Bacha and Rebekah Wingert-Jabi), tells the story of Mohammed El Kurd, a Palestinian teenager in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah whose family is forced to share a section of their home with Israeli settlers. Mohammed comes-of-age in the midst of unrelenting tension with his neighbors and unexpected cooperation with Israeli allies in his backyard. The struggle against evictions of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah returned this week as the Shamasneh family stands to lose its home, which would be the neighborhood’s first eviction since 2009. An Israeli…

The Prawer-Begin Plan is not the first time the state has displaced Bedouins in the Naqab (Negev). But it is a sign of how, 65 years after the state’s establishment, Israel still treats thousands of its Palestinian citizens no differently than those in the territories. By Amjad Iraqi On April 25, a bus carrying Bedouin residents of Al-Araqib drove from the Naqab (Negev) in Israel to the Palestinian village of Susiya in the West Bank. The people were meeting for the first time to watch a screening of a new film by Adalah (the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights…

From up close, a wall can seem smooth, unbreakable and infinite – it is the only thing in sight. The wall, a wall of despair or a wall of separation, is real. But by taking a few steps back, either physically or spiritually, cracks in the wall can come into sight. By Moriel Rothman I’ve been in the U.S. for almost two weeks now, and I’ve begun to see cracks in the "Despair-Wall" that I wasn’t seeing – or wasn’t able to see – 14 days ago. When I boarded the plane departing from Ben Gurion International Airport, it was with feelings of darkness, of…

Some Palestinian prisoners are released while solidarity continues for those on hunger strike, demonstrations target the separation wall, settlements, and school closures, and life goes on amid Gaza's rubble.                  

J14 leader Daphni Leef has been charged with rioting, more than half a year after she was violently arrested during an attempt to reignite the protest movement of the summer of 2011. Her trial will begin on January 23. By Leehee Rothschild Look at this photo of Daphni Leef. Look at her, thrown at the floor, crushed under uniformed men - uniforms which define them as the guardians of law and order and give them the authority and power to use reasonable strength, allowing them to define what's reasonable. Look at them triding on her, pulling her, dragging her, beating…

The eviction of  a Palestinian family from their home in Sheikh Jarrah, planned for today, has been delayed by two months.  The Shamasneh family was slated to be evicted from their home at 2:00 p.m. today, December 31, so that the Israeli Custodian for Absentee Property could take possession of the house. The Jerusalem District Court ordered the eviction to be postponed until March 1, 2013 after the family's lawyer appealed to Israel's high court. Activists and politicians who support the Shamasnehs in their fight to stay in their East Jerusalem home emphasize that this is just a temporary postponement…

On December 31, as Americans celebrate New Year’s Eve and Israelis lift a glass to “Sylvester,” a Palestinian family will be evicted from their East Jerusalem home to make way for Jewish settlers. The Jerusalem District Court has ruled that the Shamasneh family must leave the house they have been living in 1964—three years before Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem began—by 2:00 PM on Monday afternoon. Ten people currently live in the home, including six children. The court has granted ownership to the Israeli Custodian for Absentee Property, which was represented by lawyers who also represent settlers’ organizations, including the…

In Israel, a settler's pre-1948 property claim provides legal grounds for the takeover of private Palestinian land. The property deeds of scores of Palestinians are disregarded, because there is one set of laws for Jews and another for Palestinians. Separate and unequal. By Moriel Rothman Last month, as last minute wrangling over the Democratic Party platform offered Americans a front-row seat to the farce that often accompanies discourse about Jerusalem, events in the holy city reached their own new level of absurdity, though with far more serious and immediate consequences. Early on Sunday, September 2, Jewish settlers took over a single room…

Just Vision's latest film is a moving snapshot of the Palestinian plight with Israeli settlement policies in an East Jerusalem neighborhood -  and the Israeli Jews that raised awareness about the issue by protesting there. While there is no happy ending, the movie introduces audiences to some of the Palestinians and Israelis who found themselves taking part in a common struggle.  On several occasions during the winter of 2009-2010, I joined a small group of Israeli protesters who walked on Friday afternoon from downtown West Jerusalem to a demonstration in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. They carried red…

A lot of nonsensical accusations are leveled at Israel's anarchist activists, a small group of citizens engaging in civil disobedience and nonviolent protest against the occupation. Most of them are lies. The fact is that the anarchists are the only group in Israel engaged in serious anti-occupation activism. This is a translation from Hebrew of my weekly column in Time Out Tel Aviv. It was written as a response to the labeling of J14 activists as "anarchists" by Israeli Knesset Members and journalists. You can read the original here. Thanks to Lisa Goldman for translating the piece. THE ISRAELI RIGHT has learned a…

A family in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina has now joined the story of the families in Sheikh Jarrah, evicted from their home with the same legal tactics, in order to make way for a new Jewish settlement. By Moriel Rothman Beit Hanina - Wednesday morning, a Palestinian family of 11, the Natche family, was evicted from their home in Beit Hanina (Hebrew report). The legal process behind the eviction was launched by Aryeh King, the head of a group known as "The Israel Lands Fund." Their claim to the property was based, like in the cases in…

Israeli Solidarity activist Daniel Dukarevitch-Argo, who first got to know Sheikh Jarrah almost a decade ago, tells the story of the protest movement  from the ground up.  A new film by Just Vision about the struggle in Sheikh Jarrah will soon be released around the world. Simultaneously, opinion articles and summation pieces have begun to appear, adding to a months' long debate about the Solidarity movement's decision to stop the weekly demonstrations in the East Jerusalem neighborhood last September. Before one specific myth becomes cemented in general public opinion, I promised myself to try to describe what events looked like…