Pro-Peace Group Attacked as ‘Filthy Jew Traitors’
We Don’t Agree: Jewish pro-peace protesters prepare to be arrested during civil disobedience action at the Conference of Presidents meeting. Image by martyna starosta
A Jewish group dedicated to promoting peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and which is deeply critical of Israeli policy, received an obscene, anti-Semitic voicemail on Saturday that attacked its members as “filthy Jew traitors.”
The 44-second voicemail left for LA Jews for Peace expresses hope that its members “all become victims [of] Palestinian and Islamic terrorism” and that “Hitler come back and stuff their ashes in gas ovens,” according to the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, which obtained and posted a copy of the recording. The caller, who appears from the message to be male, did not identify himself.
The message was discovered by LA Jews for Peace member Jordan Elgrably, whose aunt and grandfather were killed in the Holocaust. He told the Jewish Journal that he had not decided yet whether or not to contact legal authorities.
According to the organization’s mission statement, LA Jews for Peace is “a group of Jewish Americans and kindred spirits committed to a just peace in the Middle East” and that calls for “an end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, and equal rights for all citizens of Israel.” The group takes no position on the question of whether Israel and Palestine should divide into two states or combine into one single nation.
The message was left for the group one day after it held a protest outside the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles advocating for an end to Israeli bombing and urging a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
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