OPEN EMAIL TO OAKLAND "ANTI-SEMITISM" CONFERENCE! - by Joseph Anderson

< From: Joseph Anderson >
< Sent: Wednesday, August 18, 2004 5:50 PM >
< To: [recipient list deleted] >
< Subject: RE: FW: RE: Fw: OAKLAND "ANTI-SEMITISM" CONFERENCE! >

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<< From: [deleted] >>
<< To: [deleted] >>
<< Subject: RE: FW: RE: Fw: Oakland conference >>
<< Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 19:36:01 -0700 >>

<< Isn't it interesting that Cobb's fundraiser and most hardcore absurd and rude promoter also reposted this to our list . . . (Leslie Bonett - lesbian Jewish Cobb supporter). >>

<< - [name deleted] >>


From: "Leslie Bonett" <lesliebe@g...>
Date: Fri Aug 13, 2004 11:41 am
Subject: Oakland Anti-Semitism Conference Aug 21-23

Hi Everyone,

For the past few years I have been personally and politically grappling with and also studying anti-Semitism on the Left.

< Uh-huh... >

Finally, there is an entire conference devoted to it. I will be attending: Oakland Aug 21-23. The below article gives a nice summary of it. The website gives all the details:

http://www.facingachallenge.com
Jerry Gerash, LA Green Party

< Will the Green Party become Zionist-occupied territory too? >


"A Progressive Scholars' and Activists' Conference on Anti-Semitism and The Left", Oakland, Aug. 21-23, 2004

"Leftist Jews and their friends to take on anti-Semitism"
(from "J", the Jewish newsweekly of No. Calif.)
by alexandra j. wall, staff writer

Concerned with what she considers a prevalence of unchallenged anti-Semitism on the left, a local acivist is doing something about it.

< Uh-huh... >

After years of working on a doctoral dissertation on the same subject, Judy Andreas has now organized Facing a Challenge Within: A Progressive Scholars and Activists Conference on Anti-Semitism and the Left, a three-day conference Aug. 21-23 in Oakland.

< "A *progressive* Zionist"!? >

< Isn't that a contradiction in terms? >

Andreas, a Richmond resident who is not Jewish, said that when she has tried to address anti-Semitism in progressive communities, she has often received angry responses.

< Of course, she doesn't say *WHO* and she doesn't give *ANY* specific instances or documentation. >

I'm simply applying the same principles of caring toward an oppressed community, she said, adding that it was as if having compassion for Jews in the same way one would for other minority groups was forbidden.

< That's because Jews are *NOT* an "oppressed" minority group in the United States. >

< As an African American I can say this as a matter of fact, while still opposing incidents of real anti-Semitism, which do exists, and exposing real anti-Semites, which I have done. >

< To say that Jews are oppressed in America is anywhere from an insult to a joke to those traditional minorities of color in America who really are oppressed. >

< There are no Jewish underclass ghettos in strewn across the country in every American city and town with a significant Jewish population; there are no innumerable federal, state, and county prisons filled with Jews; Jewish children are not relegated to the worst schools; brutal white cops don't beat or kill Jews on a weekly, if not daily, basis in America; no Jews have been dragged to their deaths behind rural pick-up trucks or chased to their deaths in white ethnic neighborhoods; Successive American presidents didn't run for office playing 'the anti-Semite card' whenever they wanted to garner a boost in the polls: they don't even dare insinuate false blame for the nation's numerous financial scandals on the Jews. >

< As the African American writer James Baldwin said: >

< "One does not wish , in short, to be told by an American Jew that his suffering is as great as the American Negro's suffering. It isn't, and one knows that it isn't from the very tone in which he assures you that it is." And for Jews as a group to dishonestly say that they are oppressed in America creates resentment in the Black community. >

< Furthermore, as Baldwin wrote: >

< "It is true that many Jews use, shamelessly, the slaughter of the 6,000,000 by the Third Reich as proof that they cannot be bigots -- or in the hope of not being held responsible for their bigotry." >

< In fact, as Jewish-American scholar on Zionism & Israel -- and anti-Zionist -- Lenni Brenner points out, Jewish-Americans, especially, are -- AS A GROUP -- the world's most educated, most politically powerful, most affluent minority in the history of the world! >


I had chosen my dissertation topic a few years ago, and I was working toward starting it,

< Gee, I bet that her doctoral advisor and committee really gave her a hard time on *that* dissertation! >

and then 9/11 happened, she said.

Andreas was gratified to see so many attempts to reach out to the Muslim and Arab communities after the terrorist attacks, but she saw no such efforts extended toward Jews, even though she knew that there was an increase of threats on Jews and Jewish institutions both here and in Europe.

< Gee!: could it be because *NO ONE* was either blaming and/or even physcially attacking all the Jews for 9/11!? Could it be because *NO ONE* was telling Jews to report to the INS -- hoodwinking them -- like German Jews once had to report to the Gestapo or other German authorities!? >

< California criminal-justice statistics show that hate crimes against *ALL* ethnic groups in one of the largest, populationwise, states in the U.S. has steadily, over the years, been going *DOWN* -- except for Arabs, Muslims, and S & SW Asians, which has seen a sharp increase since 9/11. >

< But, according to Laurie Zolith, then Jewish Studies Director at SFSU, the Bay Area is on the verge of another Jewish Holocaust! So, those California hate crime statistics must be wrong! >

She wanted to do something more immediate than writing a dissertation that maybe a handful of people would eventually read.

< Maybe she should have done a paper on "*Zionism* on the Left"! >

I wanted to do something to create change right now, she said.

< I smell a big ZIONIST, PRO-ISRAEL PR campaign!! >

The conference, slated for the Oakland Marriott, will feature speakers from both from the Jewish and non-Jewish progressive communities, and Andreas expects up to 300 people to attend. Non-Jewish workshop leaders include people of African-American,

< If they do -- include African Americans -- I will be there -- if only outside -- to give them a stern reminder about white-supremacy (whether Christian or Jewish) and racist European settler-colonialism in the non-European world. >

Arab, Muslim,

< Arab and Muslim Uncle Toms? >

< Will Fuoad Ajami be there? >

Latino and East Asian descent. There will also be a panel of Jews from Arab countries.

Much of the conference will be based upon unlearning racism, as developed by Ricky Sherover-Marcuse, a Berkeley Jewish activist who died in 1988.

< So he taught unlearning Zionism!? >

The theory behind Sherover-Marcuse's workshops was that there are deep-seated historical prejudices against groups that are passed on subconsciously from generation to generation, and it's our responsibility to deal with how they have become embedded in ourselves, said Andreas.

< When the Nation of Islam once said that whites were genetically/psychically, inveterate and intergenerationally racist, white institutions -- both Christian and Jewish -- called the NOI "a hate organization" and, indeed, called its leaders insane "Black anti-white racist hatemongers". >


Andreas said that many activists feel frustrated in that one can either be a progressive activist or care about Jewish concerns, but not both, or that one cannot care about Jews specifically Israeli Jews if one supports the Palestinian cause.

< What garbage! >

People are looking for a place where they don't have to pick, where they can have compassion and caring toward everyone, she said.

< More garbage. And it sounds like Michael Lerner garbage too! >

Plus some recognize that everyone is strengthened by including Jews in coalition-building, she added.

< Yeah: *anti-racist*, *anti-Zionist* Jews. >

While Andreas has sought out support from the more mainstream Jewish organizations and has received it, she said she deliberately did not ask for their leaders to give workshops.

< Yeah, I'm sure they had *nothing* to do with it. >

People on the left see them as part of the polarization, and the conference is designed to stay in a more neutral place, she explained.


< *NEUTRAL*!? IT'S A *ZIONIST* MEDIA PR CONFERENCE! >


However, one workshop will attempt to address the divide between Jewish activists and mainstream Jewish organizations.

Many of the workshops are designed specifically for Jews or non-Jews, such as Anti-Semitism and Jewish Shame and Defensiveness for Jews only, and How to be an Ally to Jews for non-Jews.

< Yeah: how to sell Zionism and apartheid Israel. >

Others are broader in their scope, such as The Neo-Conservative Phenomenon, and Secular Christian Cultural Dominance.

Andreas emphasized that while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will certainly play a major role in the conference, no solutions or statements will be made regarding it.


< 'NO KIDDING'!! >


To register for the conference, or for more information, visit http://www.facingachallenge.com, or call Andreas at (510) 595-4634.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California


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From: Joseph Anderson
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2004 5:11 PM
To: [recipient list deleted]
Subject: RE: Fw: Oakland conference

FEEL FREE TO FORWARD:

From: [senders deleted for confidentiality]
To: [recipient list deleted]
Subject: Fw: Oakland conference
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 14:17:29 -0700

Hi, Last night I received a phone call from somebody who [deleted]. He is flying up from LA where he lives for the weekend to attend this conference. It sounds interesting. Are any of you interested? I might go to some of the sessions but I am spending part of Sunday [identifying text deleted]. [identifying text deleted] Love, [name deleted]


Hi [deleted],

I plan to attend, if it doesn't cost the averge person (a nonacademc or nonpresenter) too much to get into it. Sadly, from the program I heard on the second hour of Bensky's Sunday show, I expect this to be a big PR propaganda conference designed to deflect/mute criticism of Zionism/Israel from the left.

One conference organizer woman on Bensky's show said that she saw a "progressive/leftist" at the int'l Durbin conference on *racism* wearing a button that said "Hitler didn't kill enough Jews"! And Bensky -- although he said that he had moral misgivings about an ethnically-defined state (even Bensky, I guess, is not *all* bad) -- didn't even challenge her propaganda lie. No progressive/leftist would ever wear a button like that. So, if that's a sign of what the conference is going to be like...

I've noted that, ironically, it's hardcore *Zionist Jews* who tell anti-Zionist Jews and even vocal 'liberal Zionist' critics of Israel: "Hitler killed the wrong Jews!" Is that gross *Jewish* anti-Semitic hate speech!? When Dennis Bernstein gets his car window smashed by hardcore Zionist Jews, is *that* anti-Semitic hate crime!? What about when MECA [Middle East Children's Alliance] gets vandalized by hardcore Zionists? What about when Jewish moral critics of Israel (anti-Zionists and 'liberal Zionists') are given death threats by other Jews!? Is that "anti-Semitism"? Even some Israeli immigrants -- quitters of Israel and Zionism -- to the U.S. are intimidated by Jewish-American Zionists.

And then there's the whole issue of *HOW* a *Zionist* -- one who believes in an ethnically-defined state -- a Jewish (vs. a Christian) white-supremacist -- by *definition* racist -- can be complaining about and organizing a three-day conference on "anti-Semitism"! Isn't that like, back then, pro-apartheid Afrikaners organizing a three-day PR conference on anti-white racism? Isn't this like other European-originated, ideological colonialists or *other* white-supremacists organizing a PR conference on anti-white racism!? Maybe the U.S. govt can organize a three-day PR conference in Iraq on "anti-Americanism", as the U.S. is trying to take over, dominate, colonize, and sell off the Iraqi people's country, assets, and resources.

So, if this is what the conference organizers do as Zionist media propaganda -- and otherwise mix half-truths with lies, while exploiting the true great historical suffering of the Jewish people (exploiting the great historical suffering of their *own* people!) in *Europe* -- then there should be a large demonstration protest [of *moral* Jews, so the media and the conference organizers don't call non-Jewish human rights demonstrators "anti-Semitic"] outside in front -- every day.

Yes, I plan to be there. Maybe we should call for and assemble an organized protest presence with banners, signs, speakers, literature, book sales, and everything.

(Conference schedule: http://www.facingachallenge.com/schedual.htm )


Take care,

Joseph


P.S. Maybe someone can sell Alexander Cockburn's book, "The Politics of Anti-Semitism", there, in addition to other compelling books.


----- Original Message -----
From: [deleted]
To: [deleted]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2004 9:38 PM
Subject: Oakland conference

<conference schedule -- snip>