The JVL Education Group invites you to our next seminar:

 Jewish Not Zionist – Standing for Palestinian Human Rights

 Sunday 30 March at 18.00

Please register here. Details of the webinar below.

 If you are not a JVL member please consider joining as a full or solidarity member and, in the meantime, enter the code MG1 then you will receive a copy of the registration email once completed. The Zoom link will be sent out two days before the event.

Marilyn Garson, from Aotearoa New Zealand, is an observant Jew.  She worked in Cambodia and Afghanistan before spending four years in Gaza. Her time there included the 2014 bombardment of the Strip—the most deadly and devastating attack prior to October 2023. On her return, her attempts to tell the story of the community of Gaza were met with hostility in her synagogue, where she was a full participant. This experience is shared by many of JVL’s observant members.  

Eventually, with a fellow congregant Marilyn set up Alternative Jewish Voices to preserve Jewish pluralism, and to stand alongside Palestinian and Māori people in their struggles for liberation and justice. 

She has now written about her experiences, which have great resonance for those of us in the UK standing for justice in Palestine, where the Chief Rabbi says there is nothing to separate Judaism and Zionism.  The situation is similar in most countries and now we have Steve Bannon telling the world that pro Palestinian Jews are “the enemy inside the wire”!

To order the book in time for the talk, click here… Jewish not Zionist – Kay Green 

In her review of this book, Hilary Wainwright (co-founder of Red Pepper) wrote: “Marilyn Garson’s powerful and accessible book is of immense political importance. Not only is it essential reading for Jews and non-Jews alike, but its message of Jewish support for the human rights of Palestinians needs to be spread far and wide as an antidote to the falsehoods of the dominant media.” 

Marilyn will join us in conversation with JVL Co-Chair Leah Levane (who wrote the Introduction to the UK edition of the book. 

You may be interested to read this review of the book: Jewish not Zionist: a review of a timely book | Jewish Voice for Labour or Marilyn’s own statement of her reason for writing now.