Dear International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network...
Multiply and spread
December 30, 2008
Just to thank you for your email, and to say that I am glad to be on your list. IJAN is all the stronger for being Jewish, and god knows we need all the strength we can muster in the face of such sickening aggression.
All best wishes in your work. Wish there were more like you.
What’s in a name?
December 29, 2008
Your organization name contains what you are against. You might think about changing the name to suggest what you are for. Perhaps something like International Jewish Peace Network.
Good luck to you,
our comment:
Thank you for the suggestion. We had a looooong discussion about our name, and we might have one again sometimes (for the pain).
End the occpuation
December 18, 2008
: Rehovot, Israel
Although I consider myself a Zionist I've read your publication with great interest. Having the right for self-determination and the right for independence does not give us the right to hold millions of Palestinians in bondage for over 40 years (and the end of occupation is not yet seen). In my opinion Israel should accept without delay the Arab initiative for comprehensive peace with the Arab countries and the Palestinians in return forgiving up all the occupied territories and a just solution for the Arab refugees from the '48 &'67 wars as well as Arabs deported from the territories in the long years of occupation. I'll be happy to get more mail from you.
p.s. immigrated ''made alia'' with my parents from Germany at age 6 in 1937.
our comment:
We don't believe Zionism is compatible with all the things that you believe Israel should do. But the decency and openness of your letter commands our respect.
Know thy Spanish naming scheme
December 01, 2008
: California
I really really support your work and was happy to be referred to your site by a fellow member of the CEIA ballot measure group. I have one comment for anyone writing anything about the courageous stand of the new head of the UN General Assembly:
This is a little note on Latino surnames: Each person has two, his/her father's followed by his/her mother's - meaning that Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann received "d'Escoto" from his father and "Brockmann" from his mother. They use both surnames for formal occasions ("Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann;") when it's an informal one, they use the patrilinear - not the matrilinear - by itself. Therefore it would be "Fr. d'Escoto," or "Father Miguel d'Escoto," but never "Father Brockmann." (That would refer to his mother's brother if he were also a priest.)
our comment:
Thank you! We learn something every day.
Inspiring website
November 25, 2008
: U.K.
Dear IJAN,
..I would like to thank all of you for such an inspiring
website for a network, and initiative, that many of us have been
waiting to see manifest for years but never thought would actually see emerge
in reality! It is incredibly uplifting at a time when so little is.
Hitting the wrong note
November 24, 2008
: Amsterdam
Dear fellow jews, anti-Zionists,
No doubt in my mind the isolation and boycott of Gaza and the Gazans is a pernicious crime, first and foremost by Israel and the United States, and to a lesser degree by the EU and Egypt. No doubt it is another stage of ongoing colonial occupation, suppression and exploitation. So far, so good, we do not differ in that.
No doubt however in my mind as well, that the Israeli military/intelligence and political elite is very capable of doing evil by itself, and by selling this to the world as righteous self-defence. They do not need any historic example.
Therefore I consider it as untrue, misleading and wholly counterproductive to invoke the Nazi government in Warsaw as the evildoers guiding Israeli policies.
The comparison with Mordekhai Gebirtig should be made clear as you only do in the end, or left out.
Reading it people could think in first instance that we can expect another coming catastrophe for the Jews as a kind of punishment for the squeezing of Gaza and the Palestinians and their natural and societal
resources in general by Israel. That's not true of course, as you explain in the end. (If Mordechai Gebirtig, the Jewish artist and revolutionary, were alive today, he would be writing 'S'brent' for Gaza.)
It's indeed the Palestinians that pay, in the past, nowadays and in the foreseeable future.
Sincerely
our comment:
Appreciated the detailed criticism. We learn to edit on the job.
Your Charter Against zionism
November 14, 2008
: From Algier
Dear sir,
Let me congratulate you for your position against injustice, colonization, neo colonisation and zionism.
Human beings are proud to hear of positions like yours: it means that hope is still possible, that justice will overcome one day.
I am an Algerian artist and writer. I am reay to participate to any of your actions. I sent your charter to many of my friends.
BEST REGARDS
Looking for real estate advice
October 22, 2008
Hello,
I've searched through your manifesto but could not find an answer to the following question, perhaps you could help me: where should the Jews live? Where do you suggest their home should be?
our comment:
We have opinions about how Jews should live. That's hard enough. Each person can figure out where to live on their own.
You are Commended
October 14, 2008
You are to be commended for creating this new vehicle for organizing
opposition to Zionism. I have spent many years documenting the
situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The
oddest thing about the situation is that while Israel was created as a
means to prevent Jewish assimilation the policies of the state are in
fact a form of extreme assimilation with now bankrupt European cultural
models - racism, empirialism and colonialism. Go figure.
Shalom,
Selma rocks!
October 02, 2008
: Michigan
Selma James spoke very well at Wayne State University, in Detroit, last November! We are glad that she and others are forming IJAN.
Please send any letters you can, back to this e-mail address, in support of the Boycott-Israel campaign, at the University of Michigan.
Thanks again.
our comment:
We agree!
