Unsettled Podcast 1/14/19 Unsettled Podcast 1/14/19

The Great March (Gaza, ep. 1)

American and Israeli politicians, religious leaders, and dignitaries met in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018 to mark the United States moving its embassy there. While they celebrated with songs about peace, thousands of Palestinians assembled at the fence that separates Israel from the Gaza Strip for the Great March of Return. This mass demonstration was originally planned to last six weeks, but has continued to this day. How did it all begin, and who are the protestors that continue to risk their lives to participate?

In the first episode of Gaza, a series from Unsettled, we hear about the Great March of Return from one of its organizers and two young participants.

This episode was edited and produced by Ilana Levinson, with help from Asaf Calderon and Sophie Edelhart. Music from Blue Dot Sessions. Unsettled theme music by Nat Rosenzweig. Artwork for our Gaza series by Marguerite Dabaie.

Photo credit: Issam Adwan

Isam Hammad is an engineer, graduate from Waterford Institute of Technology, wishing to see the world living in peace and free from hatred and wars. My dream is to return back to Sarafand, the little town we were displaced from by the act of war in 1948.

Ahmed Alnaouq, 24, graduated from Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, with a bachelor's degree in English literature. Born in the middle Gaza community of Deir Albalah, he says his dream is to advance the cause of Palestinian human rights and to expose the “human face” of the Israeli occupation. He serves as project manager for the Gaza team of We Are Not Numbers. He also is a freelance journalist and writer for a number of international media outlets.

Zahra Shaikhah is studying English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and is in her senior year. Unlike many students, Zahra actually likes researching English literature and wants to eventually become a university professor. When she is not studying, reading and writing are her passions in life. Zahra uses reading to "heal my soul" and writing as a way of fighting back. Philosophy, psychology and fiction are her reading interests. She also likes going to the beach; it's her main refuge in Gaza. Finally, having a cup of coffee with a friend and a deep conversation make her the happiest creature on the planet!

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Tareq Baconi is the International Crisis Group’s Analyst for Israel/Palestine and Economics of Conflict. His book, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, was published by Stanford University Press in 2018. His writing has appeared in Arabic in Al-Ghad and Al-Quds al-Arabi, and in English in The New York Review Daily, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, The Nation, The Daily Star (Lebanon), and al-Jazeera. He has provided analysis for print and broadcast media, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, BBC, National Public Radio, and Democracy Now!

REFERENCES

Ahmed Abu Artema, “Time to March to Palestine.” Arabi21, January 10, 2018. (in Arabic)
Video: “Celebrating the Great March of Return.” The Electronic Intifada, May 7, 2018.
“Situation Report: occupied Palestinian Territory, Gaza.” World Health Organization, October 21-November 3, 2018.
Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford University Press, May 2018).
“Palestinian killed in 40th week of Gaza's Friday protests.” Al Jazeera, December 28, 2018.

transcript

ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to begin our ceremony.

ILANA LEVINSON: On May 14th 2018, American and Israeli politicians, religious leaders and dignitaries met in Jerusalem to bring into effect the unprecedented decision made by U.S. President Donald Trump the previous December.

DONALD TRUMP: The United States finally and officially recognized Jerusalem as the true capital of Israel. Today we follow through on this recognition and open our embassy in the historic and sacred land of Jerusalem.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: We have no better friends in the world. You stand for Israel and you stand for Jerusalem. Thank you.

SINGER: [singing] Peace will come upon us. Peace will come upon us. Peace will come upon us and everyone.

ILANA: While the Americans and the Israelis celebrated with songs about peace and shared their hopes for a brighter future, just fifty miles away…

[Sound: sirens, voices of protestors]

ILANA: Thousands of Gazans assembled at the fence that separates Israel from the Gaza Strip for what would turn into the bloodiest day of the Great March of Return.

And despite the risks, people from Gaza would continue to participate in the Great March, week after week, for months. Who are they? What are they hoping to accomplish? And what can we learn about life in Gaza from their demands?

I’m Ilana Levinson and you’re listening to "Gaza: a series from Unsettled.

[Music: Unsettled theme]

ILANA: This is the first of eight episodes in our series on Gaza. But before we dive into our story, I want to give you a little bit more information about why we’re doing this series.

Last spring, our team at Unsettled watched as thousands of Gazans took part in the Great March of Return. And we realized: only one episode of Unsettled is about life in Gaza. That’s in part because Gaza and the people who live there are hard to access. It’s close to impossible for ordinary Gazans to get in or out of the Gaza Strip. And - until recently - Gaza was getting less than five hours of electricity a day. So it’s not easy to have a Skype call with someone living there.

But there’s something else.

Gaza is a really hard conversation to have within the Jewish community. In my experience, emotions run high and people respond viscerally. For instance, if you bring up the blockade, you'll be accused of not caring about the Israelis in the south who live in fear of Hamas rockets. And If you as far as acknowledge the existence of refugees who wish to return, you'll be told that you seek the end of Israel.

These conversations get so heated because the stakes feel so high. But the stakes are even higher for the people of Gaza.

The Gaza Strip has a population of nearly 2 million people living in just 139 square miles. It's governed by Hamas, which is locked in a seemingly never-ending cycle of violence with Israel. The UN counts 70% of the population as refugees from cities and towns within Israel. And many have hopes of returning to those places - an aspiration that a lot of Israelis see as an existential threat. And though Israel officially pulled out all of its military and settlements from Gaza in 2005, it still controls everything that goes in and out of the Gaza Strip - leaving it economically strangled.

These issues are complicated - and it doesn't help that young Jews aren't likely to learn about them from their schools, families, or communities. Mainstream news outlets aren’t much help either - they tend to speak about Gaza only in terms of buzzwords and body counts. And that makes it hard to engage.

But this year, it’s been impossible to look away.

In the spring of 2018, thousands of Gazan protesters came to the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from Israel for the Great March of Return. The protests were originally planned to last six weeks. Instead, they’ve continued until today.

After the first few Fridays of the Great March of Return, I heard a lot of people trying to paint the protesters as violent militants by pointing to the few who threw rocks and burned tires. But the vast majority of the Gazans at the Great Return March were there peacefully demonstrating for their rights. And in this episode, we’ll talk to two of them.

But first, a few notes about why we chose to start our series with the Great March of Return. One, because the protests have captivated an international audience. But beyond that - when you look at the demonstrations for what they are, and not with the intent to label protestors as either victims or aggressors, you find a window into Gazan culture, history, the conditions they’re protesting, and the barriers they face - both inside and outside of Gaza. We’ll jump in --with how it all got started.

ISAM HAMMAD: Why do I participate? [laughing] You know why I am laughing? I am one of the people who started the Great Return March on January 8th of January 2018. This is why I am laughing.

ILANA: We actually didn’t intend to talk to Isam Hammad about the Great March of Return. Our producer Asaf, was talking to him for the episode you’ll hear after this one, when he just so happened to mention he was one of the organizers of the March.

He said it all started with an article from the writer Ahmed Abu Artema. Isam had never heard of him before reading his article last January.

ISAM: But when he wrote in the magazine Arabi21 in his article that he is dreaming that all the Palestinians could march returning peacefully to their lands, I went and I searched for Ahmed Abu Artema, and then I got his contact, I spoke to him on Messenger, and I told him I want to meet you.

ILANA: Isam manages a medical equipment company in Gaza City. He’s also the founder of a political group in Gaza called National Appeal, which focuses on local issues, like infrastructure, waste and water. National Appeal was set to run candidates in the 2017 Palestinian local elections, but the elections fell through because of clashes between the rival factions. But Isam continues to dedicate much of his time to political activism. So when he heard the news about the United States moving its embassy to Jerusalem last December, he felt that it was an affront to the Palestinian people. For so long he’d heard the United States lecture Palestinians not to make unilateral moves - and now here they were, doing exactly that.

ISAM: I felt that we have to do something… we have to do something.

ILANA: After he contacted the author of the article, Ahmed Abu Artema, through Facebook Messenger, they made a plan to get together a couple days later. The first planning meeting for the Great March of Return was just a couple people sitting in one of the organizer’s homes. But as the group started to promote the idea, more and more people quickly came on board, and not just people in Gaza.

ISAM: So we had some guys from Turkey, some guys from Malaysia, some guys from London. We created something called the International Committee for the Great Return March. And then we started the meeting over Skype every few days in order to organize ourselves and this is how it started.

So we started talking to to everybody we could talk to. Me and Ahmed, we started visiting a nongovernmental organization to talk to the heads. We started to appear on TV.

ILANA: By the end of January, everyone in Gaza was talking about the Great March of Return. Isam even set up a Great March of Return radio program to reach Palestinians all over the world.

[Sound: Great March of Return radio]

ILANA: The International Committee for the Great March of Return was ready to take the idea to Palestinian political leaders. Thirteen Palestinian factions hold a joint weekly meeting in Gaza. So Isam and other Great March of Return organizers went, prepared with a press release.

ISAM: [paper shuffling] Yes, this is the first press release. We published many of it and we started approaching people. This is it.

ILANA: While we were talking, Isam found the press release on his office desk and held it up to the camera so I could see it. I’ll read you some of the English translation. Quote: “the refugees’ lands, villages and towns beckon their return; some of them were never inhabited since the Nakba. So why can’t they exercise their right when they still possess the deeds to their lands and keys to their homes?”

ISAM: We prepared this long before we published it because we were talking at that time with the Palestinian factions to take a decision whether they want to join or we will go ahead. So they were late giving us the answer so we published. We went ahead. [laughing] After we published the press release they immediately answered.

ILANA: All thirteen of the political factions at the meeting eventually backed the idea. So they set out to create a unified message for the Great March of Return through a set of principles.

ISAM: We have written in the principles that we want to remain in peaceful manner. That we will not shoot a bullet; we will not throw a stone; we will not fight with anybody. We will only walk with bare feet on the table towards our land. This is it. This is it. Peacefully, absolutely peacefully.

ILANA: And Isam worked to spread that message. He even went on TV hoping to reach the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.

ISAM: Telling him that there is no point of opposing this movement. There is no point. Palestinian people have decided to return back according to international resolutions. They are not doing something opposite to the law. They are not. They are doing something with the law so we want to cross.

ILANA: The international resolution Isam is talking about is UN Resolution 194, which says: “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.”

ISAM: The vision we had is that we are... we the Palestinians are armed with international resolutions. So if we try to be violent then the international community will criticize our violence. But we do not want to be violent. We just want to walk down cross. We want to go back to our land, to our homes, to our farms that we were uprooted from.

ILANA: Finally, on March 30, 2018, Isam set out in the morning to attend the first day of the Great March of Return.

ISAM: When I reached the the camp there at ten past ten, I didn't believe was what's happening. I thought there's nobody when I saw the scene. There was nobody in Gaza in his home. Everybody was in... in the camp. I didn't believe the numbers. People did not believe that somebody could make their dream to return back to their homes and lands that they were uprooted from become a reality.

So if everybody went to the marching camps to be there for that historical moment, I myself could not believe my eyes. Honest to God, I could not believe my eyes.

ILANA: Thirty thousand demonstrators came out to participate on the first day and many thousands more have come out to the weekly events that followed.

In the summer of 2018, we talked to two young members of the organization We Are Not Numbers to hear what the marches looked and felt like from their point of view. We Are Not Numbers tells stories of Palestinian youth from their own perspective.

AHMED ALNAOUQ: My name is Ahmed Alnaouq, I’m 24 years old, and I was raised up in Dir Al Baleh in the center of the Gaza Strip.

ILANA: Ahmed first went to the Great March on the second day, and he went back many times after.

ZAHRA SHAIKHAH: My name is Zahra Shaikhah. I am 21 years old. I live in the middle area in Gaza Strip, in a particular place called Al Bureij.

ILANA: Zahra went once, on April 6th. Zahra, like Ahmed, went to the march as a participant and to document the experience.

ZAHRA: So I was a little bit scared or afraid because it’s a new thing and couldn’t expect what could happen. This was my first time to go to a protest.

AHMED: When I heard about the idea, I didn’t get excited for it actually because I thought people would… this will never work. People will not protest for one month and a half. This is me being honest. When I went there and saw that amount of people, numerous amount of people, I was shocked. I was amazed like, all these people do not want hatred; they want peace, they want to coexist with Israel, they simply want to go back to their homes and lands, that’s it.

ILANA: If you’ve been following the news about the Great March of Return, you might not picture a joyous cultural celebration. The coverage around it has focused mainly on the violence and bloodshed. Zahra and Ahmed will talk about that, too, at the location they describe as “the front of the march.” But at the “back of the march,” far away from the fence and the Israeli snipers...

[Sound: singing “Al Yom”]

AHMED: You would go there and you would find like close to an Arab market. Lots of vendors, maybe restaurants who are on vans, you know. Where people buy things, eat things, enjoying. You would find like entire families: fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, even kids, infants, even very old men and old women. They were all gathering there buying ice cream.

ZAHRA: It was like a festival, literally a festival, because there were trolleys that selling sandwiches, drinks. The people, most of the people at the back, they were enjoying actually, they were laughing, talking, taking pictures.

[Sound: singing]

AHMED: There are some cultural events happening in the March of Return, like dancing dabke, folklore, and the people are starting to doing some creative things.

[Sound: clowns performing]

ILANA: Like a group of clowns in bright colored overalls, painted faces, and big floppy hats performing for children. There were also jugglers and acrobats putting on shows for the crowds.

But it wasn’t all fun and games at the back of the march. People were there protesting too.

[Sound: women chanting]

AHMED: But when I went closer to the fence, these gestures of life started to disappear a little.

[Sound: sirens and shouting]

ILANA: Before the march had even begun, the Israeli Defense Forces announced that its snipers had been ordered to shoot live fire at anyone who tried to breach the fence.

AHMED: The more I get close to the fence the more I saw ambulances, and camps for doctors, the sounds of bullets.

When I went close to the fence, I was like 300 meters away from the fence, and I would see other entire world, lots of people raging against the occupation, dozens of people throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers but they were like 1 meter away from the Israelis you could say. The Israeli soldiers hid behind like hills, only you could see their rifles and their helmets from behind the sand.

ILANA: Zahra also went close to the front, to document the march for We Are Not Numbers.

ZAHRA: There was a good distance between our spot and the front lines and the Israeli snipers. But it was close enough.

ILANA: She was with her closest friend Hanin. They were looking for a good place to shoot a video when the soldiers started firing in their direction.

ZAHRA: We were walking forward, getting closer to the fence and the burning tires. And then all of a sudden we saw a man running backwards. And couldn’t recognize at my mind that they are shooting, the snipers, the Israeli snipers they are shooting. Until I heard a voice. I heard someone saying, “run, girls.”

I didn’t, I didn’t actually look back to see if he was a real man or it’s an imaginary voice in my head. And I started running. Hanin was next to me. We had no escape, only but to run. And even running at that specific moment wasn’t assuming, wasn’t assuring that you’re going to live in the next moment.

ILANA: Once they did get to a safe place, Zahra noticed her friend Hanin was crying.

ZAHRA: I went, I held her, told her that we didn’t die. It’s OK, we are alive. After she settled in and got her balance back, I started laughing. It was a hysterical laugh, I couldn’t just control myself. I only laughed because - for god’s sake, what we… what just happened a few seconds ago?

After Hanin got her balance back and stopped crying, she asked me a question, she asked me, “Is my eyeliner OK? My eyeliner, is it OK?” So I was laughing and telling her, “For God’s sake! This is not the time for makeup.”

ILANA: Thankfully, Zahra and Hanin survived. But not everyone did.

AHMED: And the more you stay there the more you stay there, the more you see people getting shot, getting killed. And I never forget that kid - he was ten, twelve years old and he got a bullet in his belly and he died instantly. And even the people who are not throwing stones, some of them are eating ice cream and they get shot. For doing nothing.

ILANA: For Isam, as an organizer, seeing all the the violence from the very first day made him want to end the march right then and there.

ISAM: And then at eleven o'clock we started to have casualties. Eleven o'clock, only forty minutes. It was a Friday and then I went to a friend of mine, one of the factions, I think the People's Party. I asked them, “We have to stop it.” He said, “Why?”

I said, “In the in the first day, we wanted to send a message. I think the message has been received. We don't want people to die.” So at eleven o'clock I was calling to end this day to start the next day with a sit-ins. But unfortunately there was no way to control people at all.

ILANA: Isam couldn’t stop the protesters from getting close to the fence, so he tried his best to get a message to the Israeli snipers on the other side of it, through an Israeli television correspondent he believed was working with Israeli intelligence. She called him on May 12, and he said:

ISAM: “Please advise the intelligence to let the people cross. They will cross for a few hours and then they will return. Don't shoot at them. The worst is that they will sit in in one of their cities beside the fence for one day, for two days. And even if they stayed, let them feel that they have done something. Don't kill them.

ILANA: Since the first day of the march, at least 175 protesters have been killed, according to an Associated Press report from December 2018. Both Hamas and Israel have claimed a large portion of those killed by snipers were Hamas militants. But among the dead have been kids as young as 11, medics, and journalists.

Local Human Rights Watch director Omar Shakir told the AP that the protestors’ affiliation with a militant group doesn’t make a difference; what matters is that they were unarmed.

A staggering number of protesters have also been wounded at the march. In a November 2018 report, the World Health Organization counted over 24,000 injured. Doctors in Gaza have reported especially severe gunshot wounds; by December, 94 protesters had needed amputations.

AHMED: So many protesters at the March of Return were athletes. One of my friends was the best actually soccer player in the Gaza Strip and he was shot in both knees and he can never play soccer again - he lost his future. So many Palestinians from the protest are now are now without limbs because they only participate in this peaceful approach. And what’s their only fault? Because they were born on the other side of the fence.

ILANA: Ahmed remembers seeing an Israeli soldier high-five the person next to her after shooting one of the protesters. It made him wonder if the soldiers on the other side of the fence even saw him as human.

AHMED: We have feelings and we love, we cry, we die, and we have families that grieve for us when we get shot and when we are killed.

ILANA: Zahra and Ahmed are two of the many thousands of peaceful protestors who participated in the Great March of Return - the vast majority of whom were there singing songs, waving flags, and using other nonviolent efforts to send the message to the world that the people of Gaza demand their freedom.

That might come as a surprise to those who’ve only heard about those protestors who were throwing Molotov cocktails and flying burning kites over the fence. The Great March of Return has been characterized by so many as a violent Hamas-led effort to break into Israel in order to harm Israeli Jews.

And it’s not that Hamas has had no involvement in the Great March of Return.

TAREQ BACONI: Hamas understood the power of the Great March of Return.

ILANA: That’s Tareq Baconi, author of the new book Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance.

TAREQ: The Great March of Return was able to do what Hamas had believed only its rocket fire could, which was to negotiate with Israel and to pressure Israel and to bring Gaza back into the fold and the agenda of the international community. Civil society was able to do that through a popular resistance movement.

ILANA: You’re going to hear more from Tareq later in the series: about what Hamas is and how it came to govern the Gaza Strip. But for now, here’s what he said about Hamas’s role in the Great March of Return:

TAREQ: There were instances of people, particularly Hamas members, either using Molotov cocktails or trying to break into fences. But by and large - we're talking about thousands of people here. By and large, these were nonviolent movements that Israel used clearly violent means to try to suppress.

ILANA: Tareq is referring specifically to the six weeks that the Great March was originally planned for: from March 30 until May 15, when Palestinians mark the anniversary of the Nakba. And there was no rocket fire from the Gaza Strip during this six-week period. However, burning kites were sent over the fence, which caused forest fires in southern Israel, and rockets were fired starting on May 29. Still, thousands of protestors maintained nonviolence. How was that possible?

TAREQ: For me personally, this is the power of mass mobilization. This is the power of of peaceful peaceful resistance.

And the way that Hamas dealt with that was initially to come out as the party that was supporting the protests. So they would provide the infrastructure for the protest; they would bus people to the fence; they would provide entertainment at the fence; food; organize. So it became the fabric of the civil movement.

The irony is that Israel began calling it a Hamas movement before the protests had even begun. The protest was meant to begin on the first Friday of March 30, and Israel began the propaganda of calling this a Hamas movement on the Wednesday. So there was already an effort to conflate the two. And it was an effort that was very much put forward by the Israelis and which Hamas very much jumped on the bandwagon of. I think Hamas needed to maintain its legitimacy as the government or the movement that is in charge of securing Palestinian rights in the Gaza Strip so it very rapidly hijacked the movement.

ILANA: Here’s Isam again:

ISAM: We from the beginning have made a deal with Hamas not to be the main player. We want the people to do but we are living in poverty. Who is going to pay for the buses? Who is going to pay for the logistics? Who is going to move the people? To be quite honest. So we do understand: if if Hamas did not come to do this, they would have no Great Return March. This is the reality.

ILANA: Then, there were some non-militants who breached the fence for other reasons. Isam explained:

ISAM: Some of the people, believe it or not, want to go to the fence in order to die. We have seen things like this. I am honest. I have seen people who prepare their statements on Facebook and they prepare videos and they go there to end their lives, to die.

This is it. When you look at people in a prison and their home and let them live in absolute misery - no electricity, no pure water to drink, no jobs, no crossing points to leave - this is what you are left with.

ILANA: I asked Isam how he feels about the March, looking back.

ISAM: Look, I have mixed feelings. I will speak now with honest. I have mixed feelings. First of all, I’m very very proud that we have moved the Palestinian issue now and everybody is talking about. But the other thing also is that I feel very sorry for the people who have been injured in the Great Return March, and some of them have actually incurred permanent disability.

ILANA: Ahmed and Zahra, on the other hand, do not have mixed feelings, however difficult the experience was.

ZAHRA: Going to the march is a good thing. Even if you stayed at the back of the march, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you went. You had the courage to go there. It caused me a trauma. I couldn’t imagine like - the idea of running from the live bullets is scary in itself. But I’m not regretting going to the march. I mean, after going to the march I just sat with myself and started to think, what did I gain from going to the march? Did I really feel that it’s something good to go there? Did it add any good things to my personality? At that time I couldn’t figure out, but now I can say yes, I am a new person now. And running from the live bullets made me stronger and I think there will be no hardship destroying me in the future, because for God’s sake, I faced death.

AHMED: Yes, it’s worth it. I think it is. We have to get rid of our chains, or we do not deserve life actually. If you go through the whole history, you will see every time there are oppressors and oppressed people the oppressed people never agree to surrender. Look for example, at the Indian people, led by Gandhi. So many of them got killed. The Algerian people lost more than one million in their fight against the French occupation and the French colonization, but they never give up. They kept on fighting until they get their freedom. We might be at risk, we might lose our lives. But the next generation will live on. And the next generation might have a chance to live free.

[Sound: singing “Al Yom”]

ILANA: During the fall of 2018, violence escalated between Hamas and Israel, with Hamas rockets followed by Israeli air raids and an Israeli ground offensive. One Israeli civilian and five Palestinians died in November as a result.

To this day, nonviolent demonstrations are still happening at the fence in Gaza, and they are still violently suppressed by Israel. At the time of recording, the last Gazan protester who died was twenty six year old Karam Fayyad, on December 28.

[Music: “Sunset at Sandy Isle”]

ILANA: If you’re here, at the end of the episode, and you have more questions than answers - I’m with you. We'll be diving deeper into some of the topics raised in this episode throughout our series on Gaza. Next up, we'll hear again from Isam, this time in conversation with his father about what it mean to be a refugee in Gaza. Stay tuned.

ISAM HAMMAD: I used to listen to the old men of Sarafand and listen to the stories: how the life was, how beautiful the life was in Sarafand.

HILMI HAMMAD: It is impossible to forget your birthplace. Impossible.

[Music: Unsettled theme]

ILANA: This episode was produced and edited by me, Ilana Levinson, with help from Asaf Calderon and Sophie Edelhart. Fact checking by Asaf Calderon. Music in this episode from Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to Ali Abusheikh, Issam Adwan, and Rushdi Seraj.

Unsettled is produced by Emily Bell, Asaf Calderon, Max Freedman, Yoshi Fields, and me, Ilana Levinson.

Our theme music is by Nat Rosenzweig. Original art for our Gaza series by Marguerite Dabaie - check out her work at mdabaie.com.

Don’t forget to follow Unsettled on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and sign up for our e-mail newsletter - you'll find a subscription link on our website, unsettledpod.com. While you're there, consider supporting Unsettled with a one-time donation. You’ll also find links to more information about what you heard in this episode.

And of course - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, so you never miss an episode of Unsettled.

Unsettled Podcast 12/20/18 Unsettled Podcast 12/20/18

Trailer: Gaza, a series from Unsettled

In January, Unsettled is launching an eight-part series about the Gaza Strip. As Gaza has kept coming up in the news this year, you’ve probably had questions - and so have we.

Why did thousands of people risk so much to take part in the Great March of Return? Why does a majority of the population identify as refugees, even many who were born in Gaza? What do we miss when we refuse to try to understand Hamas on its own terms? And how are Gazans innovating in order to survive?

In January, Unsettled is launching a series about the Gaza Strip. As Gaza has kept coming up in the news this past year, you’ve probably had questions - and so have we.

Why did thousands of people risk so much to take part in the Great March of Return? Why does a majority of the population identify as refugees, even many who were born in Gaza? How are Gazans innovating in order to survive? How can art be used to upend conventional narratives about Gaza and its people?

These are just a few of the questions we'll try to address in Gaza, a series from Unsettled. Coming in January 2019. Subscribe to Unsettled wherever you get your podcasts.

Music from Blue Dot Sessions.

In January, Unsettled is launching a series about the Gaza Strip. As Gaza has kept coming up in the news this past year, you've probably had questions - and so have we. Why did thousands of people risk so much to take part in the Great March of Return?

Unsettled Podcast 10/15/18 Unsettled Podcast 10/15/18

Ita Segev

A few years ago, you would have found Ita Segev in the Israeli army, training to patrol the West Bank. Today, Ita is a transfeminine performance artist and anti-Zionist activist in New York City. In this episode, Ita tells her story: how gender and Zionism shaped her early years, and how excavating the truth about her home created space to understand and express her true self.

“I feel like in some ways, for the first time in my life, I’m standing on my own two feet. Because I know the truth about where I’m from.”

— Ita Segev

A few years ago, you would have found Ita Segev in the Israeli army, training to patrol the West Bank. Today, Ita is a transfeminine performance artist and anti-Zionist activist in New York City. In this episode, Ita tells her story: how gender and Zionism shaped her early years, and how learning the truth about Israel created space to understand and express her true self.

This episode was produced and edited by Yoshi Fields. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Additional music from Blue Dot Sessions.

Photo credit: Lia Clay / Cover photo credit: Niyoosha Ahmadi Khoo

Ita Segev makes performance, writes, performs/acts and does advocacy & community building work, mainly around the intersection of her transfeminine and anti-Zionist Israeli identities.

She is currently developing a show titled Knot in My Name as a Brooklyn Art Exchange artist in residence for 2018/2019 and is a BDS supporting artist council member at Jewish Voice for Peace.

You can read more about her sociopolitical context and personal story on Condé Nast’s Them magazine and connect on IG @itaqt for cute looks and upcoming shows.

REFERENCES

Ita Segev, "I Left Israel and Found My Trans, Anti-Zionist Self." Them, January 12, 2018.
Ita Segev, "Israel Makes the Hormones I Need, But I Support Palestinian Liberation." Them, May 18, 2018.
Orly Almi, "Captive Economy: The Pharmaceutical Industry and the Israeli Occupation." Who Profits, March 2012.

Unsettled Podcast 7/24/18 Unsettled Podcast 7/24/18

The Nation-State Law (with Amjad Iraqi)

On July 19, the Israeli Knesset passed the "Nation-State Bill" in a 62-55 vote. Many critics of the bill say that it undermines Israel's historic claim to be both Jewish and democratic in character. But does this new law actually change anything, or only make explicit the way things have been for decades? Is it possible for a state to be both affirmatively Jewish and treat its citizens equally?

Producer Ilana Levinson spoke to Amjad Iraqi, a Palestinian writer and policy adviser who was in the Knesset for the final debates before the Nation-State Bill was passed into law.

“The Nation-State Law is actually affirming a lot of the practices that were in place for decades. In many ways, it’s nothing particularly new, and the right wing is just making it more explicit. The center-left wants to keep it delicate enough so that you maintain that democratic image. For Palestinian citizens of Israel, these two debates are unacceptable. We’re not looking for an overt system that legitimizes our inequality, and we’re not looking for a delicate system either that still legitimizes our inequality.”

— Amjad Iraqi

Producer Ilana Levinson spoke to Amjad Iraqi, a Palestinian writer and policy adviser who was in the Knesset for the final debates before the Nation-State Bill was passed into law.

This episode of Unsettled was produced and edited by Ilana Levinson, with technical help from Asaf Calderon. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Amjad Iraqi is a writer for +972 Magazine, a policy member of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and was a projects and international advocacy coordinator at Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

REFERENCES

David M. Halbfinger and Isabel Kershner, "Israeli Law Declares the Country the ‘Nation-State of the Jewish People’" (New York Times, July 19, 2018)
Israel's Basic Laws
Yousef Jabareen, "Israel just dropped the pretense of equality for Palestinian citizens" (Los Angeles Times, July 20th 2018)
Daoud Kuttab, "Palestinians outraged at Jewish nation-state law" (Al-Monitor, July 20, 2018)

Preview image: James Emery, via Wikimedia Commons

Unsettled Podcast 6/13/18 Unsettled Podcast 6/13/18

Child Detention

On December 19, 2017 Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi was arrested after slapping an Israeli soldier on her family's property. She was taken from her home in the middle of the night, interrogated without an adult present, and eventually signed a plea deal and was sentenced to eight months in prison. Ahed Tamimi became a symbol of Palestinian resistance, but she is only one out of hundreds of Palestinian children who face Israel's military court system every year. In this episode of Unsettled, we wanted to find out — On what grounds are children arrested? What actually happens to a child once they’ve been arrested? How does child detention impact both individuals and communities in the West Bank?

We spoke to Ahed's father Bassem Tamimi, Palestinian student and activist Yazan Meqbil, and attorney Brad Parker of Defense for Children International-Palestine.

“If every time a child does something we detain them, we destroy their future, we make them basically dreamless young men. This is how Palestinian children who go through the system become.”

— Yazan Meqbil

We spoke to Ahed's father Bassem Tamimi, Palestinian student and activist Yazan Meqbil, and attorney Brad Parker of Defense for Children International-Palestine.

This episode of Unsettled was produced and edited by Emily Bell and Asaf Calderon. Music by Nat Rosenzweig and Monplaisir.

Bassem Tamimi is a Palestinian activist from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. Since 2009, Tamimi has been one of the leaders of protests in the village against the seizure of the local spring by a nearby settlement. Tamimi spent three years in administrative detention in the 1990s. While he was imprisoned twice between 2011 and 2013, Amnesty International labeled him a prisoner of conscience and wrote that he was "detained solely for his role in organizing peaceful protests against the encroachment onto Palestinian lands by Israeli settlers." Bassem is married to Nariman Tamimi and has four children, including 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi, who was arrested in December 2017 and currently serves an 8-month sentence.

Yazan Meqbil grew up in the West Bank town of Beit Ommar. Growing up, Meqbil became familiar with the ill-treatment of Palestinian children. In 2015, Meqbil joined the American Friends Service Committee and Defense for Children International-Palestine in filming the documentary Detaining Dreams. He has been on several speaking tours and engagements in the US since then advocating for the cause and raising awareness about Israel’s arrest, persecution, and mistreatment of an average of 700 Palestinian children every year. Meqbil is currently a rising senior studying Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Goshen College, in Goshen, Indiana.

Brad Parker is a staff attorney and international advocacy officer at Defense for Children International - Palestine. He specializes in issues of juvenile justice and grave violations against children during armed conflict, and leads DCIP’s legal advocacy efforts on Palestinian children’s rights. Parker regularly writes and speaks on the situation of Palestinian children, particularly issues involving detention, ill-treatment and torture of child detainees within the Israeli military detention system, and violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. He leads DCIP's US Program and is a co-leader of the No Way to Treat a Child campaign in the United States and Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Vermont and received his J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law.

RESOURCES

Preview image: Ofer Military Prison, Israel. Photo credit: Christopher Michel, Wikimedia Commons.

Unsettled Podcast 5/14/18 Unsettled Podcast 5/14/18

Nakba Day (with Ahmed Mansour)

Every year, when Israelis and many American Jews celebrate the creation of the state of Israel, Palestinians remember their people’s expulsion, or what they refer to as the "Nakba," the Arabic word for catastrophe. This year, on the 70th anniversary of both Israeli independence and the Nakba, the United States is moving its embassy to Jerusalem.

Our guest for this episode, Palestinian filmmaker Ahmed Mansour, calls this a "double Nakba and double catastrophe." Producer Ilana Levinson spoke with Ahmed about his childhood in a Gaza refugee camp, why the timing of the U.S. embassy move is so inflammatory, and how the Nakba continues to permeate Palestinian life.

“For the last three weeks, my Nakba was losing my best friends, covering the march with their press-marked vest. Every week, every day I have like personal Nakba, and this is the case with every Palestinian. With every Palestinian around the world, they have their own Nakba.”

— Ahmed Mansour

Ahmed Mansour’s film, "Brooklyn, Inshallah," follows the 2017 campaign of Khader El-Yateem, a Palestinian-American Lutheran pastor who became the first Arab-American to run for New York City Council. To learn more and to contribute to his fundraising campaign, click here.

This episode was produced by Ilana Levinson and Max Freedman, and edited by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Ahmed Mansour, a New York-based filmmaker, is a NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute - News and Documentary Program - graduate. Ahmed was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza Strip, Palestine. He worked as an organizer, translator and guide for international journalists covering the 2014 war. He made a series of short films highlighting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza Strip after three successive wars. He has also worked as a reporter for the Washington Report on the Middle East Affairs in Washington DC. Ahmed has received residencies and fellowships from Duke University and Story Wise Program.

RESOURCES

Trailer and fundraising campaign for "Brooklyn, Inshallah" (LaunchGood)
Eric Adams, "Why Only Israel Can Customize America's F-35 (At Least for Now)" (Wired, May 10, 2016).
Jonathan Cook, "Critics blast US shipment of fighter jets to Israel" (Al Jazeera, April 26, 2017).
Daniel Kurtzer, "How terrorism helped found Israel" (Washington Post, March 13, 2015).
Asaf Calderon, "What It's Like to Have a Jewish Terrorist in the Family" (Haaretz, May 3, 2017).

Unsettled Podcast 2/16/18 Unsettled Podcast 2/16/18

African Refugees in Israel

Israel has a complicated history with refugees. Many Jewish refugees found shelter in Israel after the Holocaust; many Palestinians, on the other hand, became refugees after the 1948 war. But in this episode, we talk about Israel’s other refugees, those you may not have known about: African refugees who come mostly from Sudan and Eritrea escaping oppressive regimes and persecution.

Mutasim Ali is a Sudanese refugee, one of 35,000 African refugees currently living in Israel -- but one of only 13 to have his refugee status recognized by the state. As of December 2017, all of the others are at risk of deportation. Israel has already started sending refugees to countries that offer them no status or security.

In this episode, Unsettled producer Asaf Calderon speaks to Mutasim and advocate Elliot Vaisrub Glassenberg about the unfolding crisis. Why did so many African refugees choose Israel? Why doesn't Israel want them? What does Israel's treatment of these refugees say about the state of the Zionist experiment? And what can Americans do to help?

“Israel is now turning 70, and for 70 years we’ve brought in millions of Jewish refugees from all over the world. And now, for the first time in 2000 years that we have some kind of Jewish sovereignty and we have a political body that is able to protect others, we have non-Jews seeking asylum in the Jewish state. If Israel sends off my Eritrean and Sudanese friends to Africa...if I haven’t done everything in my power as a human being and as a Jew to stop it, I don’t know if I’ll be able to live with myself, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to live in the state of Israel.”

— Elliot Vaisrub Glassenberg

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Asaf Calderon and edited by Ilana Levinson. Music by Nat Rosenzweig and Podington Bear.

Mutasim Ali is a law student at the College of Law & Business, Ramat Gan and former executive director at African Refugees Development Center (ARDC), a community-based organization to protect, assist, and empower African refugees and asylum-seekers to advocate on their behalf. He is an advocate for change and democracy in Sudan.

Elliot Vaisrub Glassenberg is an American-Canadian-Israeli Jewish educator-activist. Elliot is a senior educator at The Kibbutz Movement and BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change and the central shaliach (emissary) for Habonim Dror Olami in North America. Currently based in Chicago, Elliot leads activities and teaches throughout North America. Elliot is an activist for Jewish pluralism and inclusion, refugee rights, LGBTQ rights and human rights, and his educator-activist approach focuses on the application of Judaism for social change. Elliot is co-chair of Right Now: Advocates for Asylum Seekers in Israel, a blogger for The Times of Israel, and has published in Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Jewish Week, and elsewhere. A native of Chicago, Elliot earned a B.A. from McGill University, and an M.A. in Jewish Education and Jewish Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Elliot worked in the field of Jewish education in North America before making aliyah to Israel in 2011, where he served as Director of International Communication for BINA and became a leading activist for refugee rights in Israel.

REFERENCES

RIGHT NOW: Advocates for Asylum Seekers in Israel
"I am my father's son: Mutasim Ali at TEDxBGU" (2014)
"We want freedom - demonstration and voices of refugees, Tel Aviv, Israel" (2014)
Benny Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 1949-1956 (Clarendon Press, 1997).
Michael Bachner, "Netanyahu says Africans slated for deportation 'not refugees'" (Times of Israel, January 21, 2018).
Associated Press, "Rwanda, Uganda Deny Reaching a Deal with Israel to Accept Refugees" (Haaretz, January 5, 2018).
Xan Rice, "China and Russia 'sell jets to Sudan'" (The Times, November 17, 2004).
Ilan Lior, "Israel to Pay Rwanda $5,000 for Every Deported Asylum Seeker It Takes In" (Haaretz, November 20, 2017).

Unsettled Podcast 2/6/18 Unsettled Podcast 2/6/18

Episode 6 Preview (plus Campaign Update)

With your help, from online donations and our fundraising party, we made $3,233: more than a thousand dollars more than our goal! We’re humbled by your support, and more committed than ever to continuing this work and growing the audience for it.

We’ll be back next week with a full episode, about African asylum-seekers in Israel -- tens of thousands of whom are at risk of being deported. Here’s a preview of our interview with Sudanese refugee and activist Mutasim Ali.

(Photo credit: Gili Getz)

Unsettled Podcast 1/29/18 Unsettled Podcast 1/29/18

Listener Stories: Arielle Rivera Korman

Exciting news: if you’re in the New York City area, Unsettled is throwing a party -- this weekend! You can help support the podcast, and meet other Unsettled listeners, by joining us for #GetUnsettled this Saturday, February 3rd, at Starr Bar in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Tickets are just $5 in advance or at the door.

If you’re not in New York, there’s still time to help Unsettled grow by donating online. We’ve got just $500 left to reach our goal of $2,018 in the first month of 2018. Can you help us cross the finish line?

This week's listener story comes from Arielle Rivera Korman.

We’ll have Unsettled merch, including stickers and t-shirts, and there will be a raffle with amazing prizes: a signed copy of Dov Waxman’s book, Trouble in the Tribe; the new album by Dan Fishback’s band, Cheese on Bread; a ticket to see comedian John Mulaney; a juggling lesson from producer Emily Bell; and more!

This week's listener story comes from Arielle Rivera Korman.

Unsettled Podcast 1/22/18 Unsettled Podcast 1/22/18

Listener Stories: Rivka M.

We are so thankful and excited to announce that over the past two weeks, we have made it just over halfway to our fundraising goal! No matter the amount, each donation will help us continue the work.

If you've learned something new from listening to Unsettled, if your views have been challenged, if you want to hear more, or all of the above -- please visit gofundme.com/unsettledpodcast and donate $18, or whatever makes sense for you.

This week's featured story comes from our listener Rivka M.

We are so thankful and excited to announce that over the past two weeks, we have made it just over halfway to our fundraising goal! No matter the amount, each donation will help us continue this work.

This week's featured story comes from our listener Rivka M.

Unsettled Podcast 1/16/18 Unsettled Podcast 1/16/18

Listener Stories: Toby Irving

We're back with another listener story, part of our January fundraising campaign to support the future of Unsettled. In just the first week, we've raised over 700 dollars! Thanks to you, we're on our way to reaching our goal of $2018 in the first month of 2018.

In this episode, Unsettled listener Toby Irving explains what brings her to a critical conversation about Israel-Palestine.

We're back with another listener story, part of our January fundraising campaign to support the future of Unsettled.

In just the first week, we've raised over 700 dollars! Thanks to you, we're on our way to reaching our goal of $2018 in the first month of 2018.

In this episode, Unsettled listener Toby Irving explains what brings her to a critical conversation about Israel-Palestine. If you think it's important to create a space for this conversation, please visit our fundraising campaign and donate $18, or whatever you can.

Unsettled Podcast 1/8/18 Unsettled Podcast 1/8/18

Listener Stories: Becca Litt

We're launching our first-ever fundraising campaign for Unsettled!

Donate now to help us raise $2018 in the first month of 2018. These funds will support our operations and growth, including: keeping our website running, editing software, recording equipment, and access to a sound studio.

To accompany this campaign, each week in the month of January we’ll release a personal story submitted by one of our listeners. We asked you: Why are you here? How did you get engaged in this conversation and why is it important to you?

The first answer comes from Becca Litt.

We're launching our first-ever fundraising campaign for Unsettled!

The first answer comes from Becca Litt.

Unsettled Podcast 12/29/17 Unsettled Podcast 12/29/17

Bonus: Dan Fishback

This is a bonus episode featuring extra content from our December 4th episode on Cultural Resistance. Playwright and musician Dan Fishback explains the difference between boycott and censorship, why he uses the word "apartheid" to describe Israel-Palestine, and why he wants to start identifying as a "liberationist Jew."

“I believe in the liberation of the people of Palestine, and I believe in the liberation of the Jewish people. And those things are not just not mutually exclusive, they require each other.”

— Dan Fishback

This episode of Unsettled is hosted by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig. Recorded at The 'cast Sound Lab in Brooklyn, New York on November 6, 2017. Edited for length and clarity by Ilana Levinson.

Dan Fishback is a playwright, performer, musician, and director of the Helix Queer Performance Network. His musical “The Material World” was called one of the Top Ten Plays of 2012 by Time Out New York. His play “You Will Experience Silence” was called “sassier and more fun than 'Angels in America'” by the Village Voice. Also a performing songwriter, Fishback has released several albums and toured Europe and North America, both solo and with his band Cheese On Bread. Other theater works include “Waiting for Barbara” (New Museum, 2013), “thirtynothing” (Dixon Place, 2011) and “No Direction Homo” (P.S. 122, 2006).

As director of the Helix Queer Performance Network, Fishback curates and organizes a range of festivals, workshops and public events, including the annual series, “La MaMa’s Squirts.” Fishback has received grants for his theater work from the Franklin Furnace Fund (2010) and the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists (2007-2009). He has been a resident artist at Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania, the Hemispheric Institute at NYU, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, where he has developed all of his theater work since 2010. Fishback is a proud member of the Jewish Voice for Peace Artist Council. He is currently developing two new musicals, “Rubble Rubble” and “Water Signs,” and will release a new album by Cheese On Bread in 2018.

references

Letter calling on Lincoln Center to cancel Israeli government's "Brand Israel" theater performances (Adalah-NY, 2017).
"5 Myths About Israel Boycotts That Every Theater Lover Should Consider" (Dan Fishback, Forward, July 21, 2017).
Lincoln Center Festival page for To the End of the Land, presented July 24-27, 2017.
Lincoln Center Festival page for Yitzhak Rabin: Chronicle of an Assassination, presented July 9, 2017.
"PACBI Guidelines for the International Cultural Boycott of Israel" (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, July 16, 2014).
"Governor Cuomo Signs First-in-the-Nation Executive Order Directing Divestment of Public Funds Supporting BDS Campaign Against Israel" (Governor's Press Office, June 5, 2016).
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2002), which defines the word "apartheid" in Part II, Article 7 (page 5).

Unsettled Podcast 12/22/17 Unsettled Podcast 12/22/17

Jerusalem: Leena Dallasheh

This is the sixth installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

For this episode, Unsettled producer Emily Bell interviewed Leena Dallasheh, assistant professor of history at Humboldt State University. They spoke about what East Jerusalem is like for its Palestinian population and the stark differences between East and West Jerusalem.

“So if you want to really learn what Jerusalem is and what happens here, come here and go to both sides. Come here and talk to Palestinians.”

— Leena Dallasheh

This is the sixth installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

This episode was recorded on December 19, 2017 and edited by Ilana Levinson. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Note: At 4:30, Leena Dallasheh says synagogue when referring to the site at Mamilla Cemetery. She intended to say cemetery in this instance.

Leena Dallasheh is an assistant professor of history at Humboldt State University. She received her PhD in the joint History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies program at NYU. Her work focuses on the social and political history of Nazareth from 1940 to 1966, tracing how Palestinians who remained in Israel in 1948 negotiated their incorporation in the state, affirming their rights as citizens and their identity as Palestinian. She has published serval articles and book chapters, including “Troubled Waters: Governing Water and Struggling for Citizenship in Nazareth,” which appeared in IJMES 47 (2015). Before coming to NYU, she received a law degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Dallasheh is currently in Jerusalem for six months, working on her book manuscript, “Contested Citizenship: Nazareth’s Palestinians in the Transition from British Mandate to Israel.” The project is a communal biography of the Palestinian Arab city of Nazareth from 1940 to 1966, telling the story of this Palestinian community as it lived through the Nakba (the “Catastrophe”) of 1948. Through this, it presents a history of the early encounter between Palestinians who became citizens of Israel in 1948 and the Israeli state. The research during this period is supported by a fellowship from PARC-NEH/FPIRI.

Unsettled Podcast 12/14/17 Unsettled Podcast 12/14/17

Jerusalem: Rabbi Steven Wernick

This is the fifth installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision on December 6 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

For this episode, Unsettled producer Ilana Levinson spoke to Rabbi Steven Wernick, CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which serves and represents Conservative congregations across North America. On December 8, USCJ put out a statement applauding the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem.

“When nobody’s happy, you know you did the right thing. Especially if you’re a centrist.”

— Rabbi Steven Wernick

This is the fifth installment of a special miniseries responding to the U.S. President's decision on December 6 to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

This episode was recorded on December 12, 2017 and edited by Max Freedman. Original music by Nat Rosenzweig.

Rabbi Steven C. Wernick serves as the Chief Executive Officer of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), a community of kehillot - sacred communities - committed to a dynamic Judaism that is learned and passionate, authentic and pluralistic, joyful and accessible, egalitarian and traditional. Since joining USCJ in 2009, Rabbi Wernick has spearheaded a top-to-bottom transformation to allow the organization to meet the dramatically changing needs of 21st century congregations. He has shepherded the successful launch of several new initiatives for USCJ congregations, including Sulam Leadership, an integrated set of leadership development resources that includes programs for presidents, emerging leaders, current leaders and officers. Through partnerships with and grants from outside organizations, he has significantly expanded funding for USY, United Synagogue’s youth group, and has launched major new efforts to help kehillot reach out to young families and to people with disabilities. Rabbi Wernick was instrumental in the 2016 agreement to create a permanent space for pluralistic and egalitarian prayer at the Kotel (Western Wall), following five years of negotiations.

The son of a rabbi and a Jewish educator, Rabbi Wernick was actively involved in USY and Camp Ramah while growing up in a variety of cities across North America including Oakland, California and Winnipeg, Manitoba in central Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, University of Judaism and was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary. After ordination, he served as the Associate Rabbi of Temple Beth Sholom in Cherry Hill, NJ, and then as the senior rabbi at Adath Israel in suburban Philadelphia. As rabbi of Adath Israel, Rabbi Wernick took a synagogue that had been withering and, through his vision and energy, turned it into one of that region’s most vibrant. He still draws on his experiences at Adath Israel, as he works to grow USCJ for the next century.

In 2010 Rabbi Wernick was named one of Newsweek’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis in America and was on The Forward’s 50 List of Influential Jewish Leaders. He serves on the board of the Friends of the Arava Institute.

Rabbi Wernick is married and the father of three daughters.