Jewish Contributions to Humanity
SAM SIEGEL
#1 in a series
IfNotNow Detroit members hold a demonstration at Hillel Day School April 19.
Standing With Israel
IfNotNow Detroit offers a different view.
KERI GUTEN COHEN STORY DEVELOPMENT EDITOR
J
ust before the Holy Band concert
at Hillel Day School’s annual
Israel Independence Day celebra-
tion April 19, a group of about 15
people representing IfNotNow Detroit
came onto the school’s sidewalk,
unfurled a banner and began singing.
Security guards and police escort-
ed them off school property in Farm-
ington Hills; they remained on public
space on Middlebelt Road and left
soon after, according to a statement
from Steve Freedman, head of school.
“There was never any threat to
Hillel, and the matter was resolved in
a few minutes,” Freedman said.
The participants are aligned with
IfNotNow (INN), a North American
youth-led movement that seeks to
end American Jewish support for
what they call the occupation of
Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank
and East Jerusalem. They work in
a nonviolent manner that they say
embraces Jewish traditions and
attracts people from a broad spec-
trum of Judaism.
“We are young Jews who care
deeply about the Jewish community
that raised us,” a flyer from IfNotNow
Detroit states. “We want to continue
to participate in the Jewish organiza-
tions we love, but we can no longer be
silent as our community supports pro-
Israel-at-any-costs politics, ignoring
the Jewish values of b’tzelem Elohim
(all created in God’s image), Talmud
Torah (critical thinking) and tzedek
tzedek tirdof (pursuit of justice).”
Hayley Sakwa of Detroit is among
INN Detroit’s leadership. She esti-
mates there are 50 active volunteers,
mostly from Detroit and Ann Arbor.
INN has been around for about 1½
years. They meet often for Shabbat
dinners, and they plan demonstra-
tions once a quarter or so, Sakwa says.
They have demonstrated at
NEXTGen Detroit’s Israel-focused
Blue & White Night event last June.
And at Chanukah, they posted eight
things they’d like day schools and
summer camps to teach about Israel.
Sakwa says the April 19 protest at
Hillel Day School’s Independence Day
event was prompted by the loss of 34
Palestinian lives earlier that month by
Israeli forces during protests in Gaza
at the sealed fence separating Gaza
from Israel.
“We feel it’s a necessity to have a
Jewish voice in this moment con-
demning the occupation of the West
Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem on the
basis that Palestinians are experienc-
ing daily harassment and violence
from this occupation,” Sakwa said.
“As Jewish people grounded in
justice and empathy, we can’t stand
silent. We can love Israel and be criti-
cal. We can love our community and
be critical of our community.
“This is by far the hardest thing
I’ve ever done emotionally, but this is
important and real, and it feels deeply
authentic,” she said. “The community
is so afraid of an alternative view of
Israel. They are scared by us speaking
up. I love my community. I am not
trying to antagonize, but we are not
seeing the leadership we want to see
— and we want to participate.”
In his statement, Hillel’s Freedman
said, “What concerns me is that much
of the criticism levied against Israel
is often based on limited knowledge
or selective information. The chal-
lenges facing Israel are real, existential
in nature, and complex. Israel is not
above criticism in the community of
nations, but before we, as Jews, can
have critical conversations about
Israel, we need to be more knowledge-
able, and be explicit about Israel’s
right to exist and defend itself.
“Now, in Israel’s 70th year, it’s time
for each Jew to remember everything
that connects us, including love for
Israel. Then we can analyze its merits
and faults, such as we all have, while
our support is unwavering.” •
Two Jewish
Artists Who
Ignited Our
Imaginations.
CAMILLE PISSARRO (1830-1903).
b. St. Thomas, Danish West Indies. d. Paris, France
His works are worth millions, although he never was.
One of history’s most accomplished Impressionist paint-
ers, and an inspiration to the likes of Cézanne and van Gogh,
Camille Pissarro was born a French Jew of Portuguese de-
scent. Often impoverished—not rare for the “starving artist”
but particularly problematic considering he and his wife, Ju-
lie Vellay, had seven children—in 1874 Pissarro helped cre-
ate Impressionism’s first major public exposition (they called
themselves the “Independents” at the time), which featured
works by great artists including Monet, Degas and Renoir
and was widely derided
by art critics for portraying common, day-to-day
life. Over his lifetime he bestowed over 1,600
treasured paintings to private and museum col-
lections. And while, like many artists, he sold few
of his paintings while he was alive, some of his
works sell for millions of dollars today. His 1897
work, Le Boulevard de Montmarte, Matinée de
Printemps, sold for $32 million.
MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985).
b. Vitebsk, Russia. d. Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France
A secular artist whose Biblical art amazed.
Known for his wizardry with stained glass, Chagall
made windows for the United Nations headquarters,
Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, and the cathe-
drals in Reims and Metz—not to mention his painting
of part of the ceiling at the Paris Opera. He was a star
in both modernist and Jewish art, having grown up in a
heavily Jewish town within Russia’s Pale of Settlement,
and infusing much of his art with the imagery of his town
of Vitebsk—snow, small wooden houses, fiddlers, etc.
After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, as a celebrated artist Chagall was appointed
Vitebsk’s arts commissar, and created the Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art. He eventu-
ally moved to Moscow and became the stage designer for Sholem Aleichem, and later
to France, where he was commissioned to illustrate the
Torah, for which he traveled to Palestine, living there
for two months. He and his wife escaped Vichy France
in 1941, finding refuge in New York, where he lived for
seven years until returning to France. In the remaining
decades of Chagall’s life, he went from success to suc-
cess, commissioning major art projects, and solidifying
himself as a preeminent modernist and Jewish artist.
In 1973 the Marc Chagall National Museum of Biblical
Message in Nice, France was built, and to this day it
attracts visitors from all over the world.
Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel
jn
May 3 • 2018
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