Justice & Fairness - What has Driven Me

My father said to me, more than once, “Because we as Jews have over time suffered so much, it is up too us to fight injustice wherever we see it.” I’ve always identified with people who have been targeted for racism, homophobia, poverty, immigration status, as well as gender. Anyone who is other.

As I got older, my thinking became more developed. And I began to have experiences that led me to becoming who I am. It started in high school, when I became a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). I was privileged to go to high school with Stokely Carmichael, the legendary civil rights activist and Chairman of the SNCC. He was a senior and I was a sophomore. He was charismatic and affected anyone that came in contact with him.

When I was 15, I went on my first demonstration - it was a picket line in front of Woolworths on 34th Street, in support of the lunch counter sit-ins in the south. We were called “reds” and “commies.” It was a beginning of a lifetime of protesting and of protesting and questioning the status quo. I became involved in the anti-war movement, reproductive rights and the feminist movements. In 1973 I joined a Marxist/Leninist study group, which was run by former members of the Communist Party. Ironically, it was where I met Bonnie, another Eyewitness Palestine alumnae. Here, I learned about the Marxist analysis of class. history and economics. I went to China during the end of the Cultural Revolution and at that time was impressed with the Chinese form of communism and by the way that they spoke about the national minorities. 

Sometime in my teenage years, I read Leon Uris’ Exodus and was deeply affected by it. I had no understanding about the Nakba and the dispossession of Palestinians from their homes and land. I flirted very briefly with Zionism and living on a kibbutz. It didn’t last long and I never went to Israel. I guess a socialist world view was much more to my sense of justice. 

Justice and fairness have always been at the heart of what has driven me. 

Recently, I’ve been deeply involved with the immigration movement and work at a legal clinic once a week. The people I meet with and their struggles for a safe place to live connects me strongly to the struggle for Palestinian rights.