An image from The Blues Brothers. 

Two news stories are sitting in my consciousness side by side. One is Columbia University losing federal funding and the related plan to deport a Palestinian grad student activist who had a green card. As a Jew, I am deeply troubled by the chilling effects of removing funding from universities that allow certain kinds of protests. I'm even more appalled by the threat of deportation for one's political views. And doing that in our name, as though it made Jews safer? News flash: it does not.

The other story is about the rabbi who was disinvited from speaking at an anti-Nazi rally. (See also Cincinnati rabbi disinvited from rally against neo-Nazis over his support for Israel.) Rabbi Ari Jun believes "that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in some portion of their ancestral homeland." He also believes that Palestinians have that same right to self-determination; opposes settlements, the war in Gaza, and Netanyahu; and dreams of a two-state solution. 

As Rabbi Jun notes, his views are pretty mainstream in liberal Jewish communities, but the organizers of this rally decided he's not welcome. Here's a(nother) progressive organization deciding that a Jew who supports both Israelis and Palestinians is beyond the pale. This kind of thinking is all too common (see Adriana Leigh's I Will Not Hide My Judaism in Progressive Spaces). It makes me sad, it drives a wedge between allies, and it feels deeply counter to what I think the world most needs.

Here's the real kicker, in Rabbi Jun's words:

The topic on which I planned to speak was the importance of building broad, intersectional efforts to fight against the threats of Nazism and white supremacy, despite the differences that might otherwise exist in the groups invited to such coalitions.

The kind of coalitions I am speaking of aren't always comfortable for everyone around the table, but they work. You can’t fight back against existential threats by limiting the number of people who join you. You fight back, successfully, by living within the discomfort of finding allies for specific purposes, even if you know you do not agree with them on all things.

This feels so important to me in this moment of what the Guardian calls the crisis of Trump’s assault on the rule of law. This is an unprecedented time. Things are bad, and I fear they will get worse, for so many communities: for Jews, for Palestinians, for queer people, for people of color, for immigrants and refugees. We need coalition-building. We need to be able to stand together and support each other, even when we don't agree on everything, even when standing together is uncomfortable.

We need to be able to stand together against Nazis. I don't particularly want to stand with those who think either Israelis or Palestinians should be exiled from the land -- I think that's unrealistic, it's "unserious thinking," and it's the opposite of helpful. But in order to push back against Nazis I would gladly link arms with people who hold views I find disagreeable, because the threat of Nazism is too great. I'm disheartened that the organizers of this rally don't seem to share that principle. 

And we need to support the constitutional right to peacefully assemble and protest, even if those protests make us uncomfortable. I am uncomfortable with "From the river to the sea" and "we don't want no two states." But if someone can be deported for political views, then we're back to McCarthyism. There's a reason the ACLU stood up for the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie. No matter how objectionable some views might be, Jews should stand for the right to express them.

Neither of these is the way to combat actual antisemitism or support Jews in flourishing. 

*

Here's the good news I can offer today. On Sunday, a dozen people sat around a table at my synagogue and participated in an autobiographical comics workshop called Drawing Through Conflict, co-led by local Jewish comics artist Anna Moriarty Lev and art therapist Kaye Shaddock. It was part of an ongoing series of opportunities and events organized by a small group of congregants who believe in the importance of learning together about the Middle East even when we might deeply disagree. 

Around that table we did not all share the same views about, or experiences of, Israel and Palestine. Over the course of two hours, as drawing prompts took us deeper, we allowed ourselves to be vulnerable with each other. We wrote and drew and laughed and cried and trusted each other with our stories. Does this "solve" anything in the Middle East? Of course not. But does it have the capacity to impact our hearts, our connections, and our local community? Absolutely. And I believe that matters.