Rosh Chodesh Shevat
[Originally posted on Instagram]
Welcoming in the month of Shevat, which holds the holiday Tu Bishvat, as we watch Israel destroy human life and land in Palestine is deeply painful. It should also be motivating - motivating us to fight back every day. Shevat is the month of the trees, the month of awakening, the month of honoring the land. Instead, Israel destroys it. Violating core Jewish values about preserving the Earth. As they always have.
From destroying sacred olive trees, planting non-native tree species on top of Palestinian land, to flooding soil with saltwater and making it uninhabitable, to dropping bombs and white phosphorus that poison the air and land and water, to turning off electricity and causing sewage plants to stop functioning - sending sewage into our oceans, and countless other atrocities. It must end.
This Shevat, in honor of the trees, in honor of the life this Earth produces, we MUST stand against genocide. Against ecocide. We must demand not only a ceasefire but an end to the occupation, an end to Israel’s reign of terror and violence, and a free Palestine for all Palestinians to live in and return to. Decolonization has never been a metaphor.
It is sickening to watch Israel weaponize sacred Jewish values and traditions and teachings. It is because of my Judaism that I love the Earth, that I love to lay in the soil and look up at the trees, that I love to use the ocean as mikvah, that I love to sit in rivers in the forest. Judaism taught me reverence for the natural world. I will not let zionists destroy it.
Jewish teaching would never call for destruction of human life, destruction of the land. Let us return the land to Palestinians who have always been caring stewards. This Shevat, and on Tu Bishvat, I beg of you to awaken if you have not yet. I beg of you to fight for Palestine. I beg of you to fight for the olive trees.
