How Did IfNotNow Protestors Make It Into AIPAC Conference?
IfNotNow activists drop banners at AIPAC’s annual policy conference, March 26, 2017 Image by IfNotNow
By Nathan Guttman March 27, 2017
The plan to enter AIPAC’s policy conference was hatched months in advance. A dozen IfNotNow activists registered to participate in the conference, with a clear intent of staging a distraction that would draw attention to their protest against the pro-Israel lobby.
Of the dozen, only four got approved. The rest did not pas AIPAC’s screening, presumably based on social media posts, and were turned down without any explanation. IfNotNow raised funds to cover the nearly $600 tickets the remaining four purchased in order to attend the conference.
“We had a message to send – to ask the people there, ‘Whose side are you on?’” said Becca Bloch, one of the protestors who dropped banners from the convention center’s third floor reading “Reject AIPAC and the occupation” while reciting aphorisms from Rabbi Hillel.
IfNotNow members taking a selfie before dropping banners at AIPAC conference. From left: Gabe Kravitz
Daniel Michelson-Horowitz, Becca Kahn Bloch, Noah Westreich
Before launching their protest, members of the group roamed the halls, took a selfie in the conference cafeteria and stepped into breakout sessions.
Bloch, a 26-years old Stanford graduate student, said that while the protest plan panned out well, the reaction it received from AIPAC delegates was disappointing. “To hear thousands of Jews boo us, people I grew up with, people I know from synagogue, was scary and disheartening,” she told the Forward.
Once noticed, security guards and police officers rushed to the protesters and removed them from the building, to loud heckling from AIPAC delegates.
“People had their phones in one hand and the middle finger up in the other hand” described Noah Westreich, another protestor, the reaction he was met with when being escorted by police outside the conference center. “That’s the type of divide we wanted to expose,” said Westreich, 24, who works at a DC Reform synagogue and will start rabbinical school this summer. “In that sense, we were very effective.”
Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected]
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
