Uncovering Histories and Zochrot
The 4th of July has forever been one of those occasions where I wish we could just take giant X-rays of this place, this country – turn the layers inside out, uncover its history. What did this street used to be named? Over whose home was this highway built? From whom was this neighborhood stolen? And at whose expense was this city, this country built? Literally looking at those x-rays might be the most potent way to understand the many fraught and disturbing answers to those questions.
While this is certainly not the same as talking about similar history-layer-uncovering work being done in Israel/Palestine, it still feels connected to me – and I thought that posting about it would be an opportunity to engage some of the comments on my last post (particularly, the questions about what it really means to be an anti-Zionist, which I appreciate, and hope I can continue to address in coming posts). So in that light, I want to mention the work of Zochrot – a group whose goal is just this kind of uncovering, of reminding. As an anti-Imperialist US citizen, and as an anti-Zionist Jew, it’s important to me to be a part of making visible the history that governments, history books and popular discourse try so desperately to erase – both here, in the U.S., and internationally - and this is central to Zochrot’s work.
For me, one big part of being an anti-Zionist is to remember – and to bring into public conversation as much as possible– that what’s happening in Gaza and across Palestinian communities today started the moment the state of Israel was founded. While it is widely accepted to talk in our Jewish communities about 1967 being the year that marks the beginning of Israeli occupation of and military violence against Palestinians, it’s so important to remember that 1948 was the year that more than 500 Palestinian villages were depopulated and/or destroyed, and 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their lands, communities, and homes, so that a Jewish-majority state could be created.. Israel’s continued violence against and repression of Palestinian communities today is a continuation of the project of 1948 – a Jewish majority state at the ongoing expense of another people.
Zochrot does an excellent job of uncovering the history of the place we call Israel that is so rarely publicized or talked about. They bring tourists and locals to see where Palestinian villages used to stand, what streets used to be named, and what that map of Israel that some of us know like the backs of our hands used to look like. This is a vitally important and creative way to help insure that this history stays a part of the conversation – the colonization of Palestinian land did not start with sieges or with settlements, but with the vision for a Jewish majority state that initially drove them out in 1948. And talking about, staying rooted in this history, and in the ongoing fact that ethnic cleansing is not a Jewish value - for me, this is one big part of what anti-Zionism is about.
