Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jewish Voice for Peace sparks outrage after tweeting ‘L’chaim Intifada’

The Jewish pro-Palestinian group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) sparked controversy Tuesday after it tweeted out a poster with the phrase “L’chaim intifada” on it.

The tweet, which was quickly deleted, was in honor of the 33rd anniversary of the First Intifada, a Palestinian uprising which was defined by a series of mass protests and riots in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Intifada began on December 8, 1987, and ended nearly six years later with the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993.

Overall, 277 Israelis, including 175 civilians, and nearly 2,000 Palestinians, died as a result of the uprising.

It set the stage for the Second Intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005 and saw far more violence and attacks on civilians than the first. In five years, over 1,000 Israelis and more than 3,000 Palestinians died. The poster featured in the tweet was originally made by JVP in 2003, in the midst of the Second Intifada.

“Where there is oppression, may there thrive resistance” the poster reads before concluding “L’chaim Intifada” in Hebrew, Arabic and then English.

Many quickly questioned the decision to use the traditionally Jewish term for making a toast, meaning “to life,” for an event that resulted in so much death.

Others criticized the poster’s implicit comparison of the violent Palestinian uprising against Israel to the Jewish partisans who fought Nazi forces in occupied Poland.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

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.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at editorial@forward.com, subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.

Exit mobile version