JAWS statement On the High Holy Days

As we observe the Jewish new year, may we all direct our energy—and material resources—towards resisting the ongoing genocide, invasion, and terror carried out by the Zionist entity and Amerikan empire in Palestine, Lebanon, and across SWANA. We cannot imagine a “sweet new year” without putting an end to the the Zionist occupation and the suffering it inflicts, in which we are complicit. We stand in continued solidarity with the Axis of Resistance and all victims of “Israeli”-Amerikan terror, from Tehran to Dahiyeh to Gaza.

The High Holidays are often a period of heightened settler violence towards Palestinians. Last year, thousands of settlers broke into Al-Aqsa Mosque. This year, several Jewish groups have announced their intention to occupy the Al-Aqsa Mosque for the entirety of the High Holidays.

May apples and honey remind us of the U.S.-led, Western-backed, Zionist-enforced starvation of the Palestinian people.

May the blasts of the shofar remind us of the blasts of Israeli bombs that have killed thousands and displaced millions of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.

On Yom Kippur, while willfully fasting as a means of repentance, may we think about the Palestinians forced to starve at our hand, who have been starving and malnourished ever since the occupation began.

We condemn the Jewish community’s complicity in Zionist settler-colonialism and the genocide of Palestinians—from the synagogue-hosted sales of stolen land to the normalizing, liberal Zionist institutions that claim to mourn Palestinian deaths but refuse to support the fight for Palestinian life—and we recognize our responsibility to fight against Zionist institutions.