The activist collective Jewish Women Watching has made a name for itself by theatrically exposing what members see as the narrow-minded priorities of the mainstream American Jewish community. The organization is celebrating Sukkot by sending out hundreds of politically pointed postcards designed as sukkah decorations.
The postcards juxtapose issues that, according to JWW, the community has deemed kosher (“fighting antisemitism”), and those it has labeled treyf (“fighting racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia.”) The most provocative postcard contrasts the attitude toward “confronting human rights abuses against Darfurians” and “confronting human rights abuses against Palestinians.”
The aim of the postcards is not to discourage “kosher” social action but to encourage the “treyf” variety.
“The Jewish community is engaged in some really important social action work, and we want to make it clear that we appreciate that,” said a JWW member who goes by the nom de guerre Reb Beruriah (the group keeps its membership anonymous). “But we also want to make the point that the analysis is not complete. Why is the Jewish community focusing on some issues and not others?
Postcards were sent to a long list of both friends and political foes, including high-profile Jewish leaders
JWW has one more activity planned for the harvest holiday. Group members will appear at a Sukkot party hosted by the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. Despite their anonymity, you’ll recognize them: They’ll be the ones wearing owl costumes. The rest is a surprise.
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First you talk about Neturei Karta and now this. How small does a Jewish group have to be written about in the Backward?
Does the Forward have nothing better to do than to pander to any Jewish group regardless of how foolish? Liberalism and moral relativism have rendered groups like the JWW moral idiots. These self hating Jewish groups make me sick.
I think there is a lot of good in what JWW is doing. We do need to shake things up in our ossified and repressive American Jewish community. I'm tired of Abe Foxman or Malcolm Honlein deciding what constitutes an authentic Jewish community. Also it doesn't help for some posters here to invalidate the JWW ladies as "Communists." Leave it to certain ultramontaigne elements in the American kehilla to resort to McCarthyite tactics against people they don't agree with.
Anyone who can equate Sudan's treatment of Darfurians with Israel's treatment of the Palestmian Arabs is inane, The Darfurians have not done anything to the Sudanese.The Palestinian Arabs' aim, loudly proclaimed in the charters of both Hamas and Fatah, is to destroy Israel. At every opportunity they try to attack Israelis with suicide/homicide bombers, and do attack with lethal rockets.Meanwhile Israel provides them with electricity, food and water.
As a longtime Jewish lesbian feminist and activist, I think JWW must live on another planet.
Another self-hating, phony, anti-Israel, Communist phony Jewish group. So What else is new?