NYC QAIA is co-sponsoring a presentation by members of the Interfaith Peace-Builders at Queens Pride House this Saturday (Feb. 8). Two members of Interfaith Peace-Builders (one of whom is a member of QAIA) will report back on their delegation tour to Israel/Palestine in May/June 2013. The Audre Lorde Project and Queens Pride House are also co-sponsoring the event, which is open to the public and will take place at Queens Pride House from 7-9 p.m. For a map of the neighborhood & Pride House in relation to the Roosevelt Ave. subway station, click on this link:
Showing posts with label action/events by NYC queers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label action/events by NYC queers. Show all posts
Video: QAIA w. Haneen Maikey + Saadia Toor on Islamophobia
11/23/13
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Please donate to Al Qaws' critical decolonizing work at their website.
Oct. 25 - QAIA with Haneen & Saadia: Queers, Islamophobia & Apartheid!
10/17/13
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NYC QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEIDhost
HANEEN MAIKEY
alQaws for Sexual & Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society
and Palestinian Queers for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
and
SAADIA TOOR
CUNY Associate Professor for Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work CUNY Associate Professor for Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, and NYC queer and Muslim activist
Moderated by Emmaia Gelman, NYC QAIA
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25th, 6:30-8:30pm@ the North Star Fund, 520 Eighth Ave, 22nd Floor (near W. 36th St.)
QAIA/Queens Pride House forum: June 4, 7pm!
6/1/13
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New York City Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (NYC QAIA) are pleased to co-sponsor a forum on Israel/Palestine at Queens Pride House on Tuesday, June 4 from 7-9 p.m. The event will feature a panel discussion with Sarah Schulman and Pauline Park.
A noted activist, Schulman is Distinguished Professor at the College of Staten Island (CSI) of the City University of New York (CUNY) and the author of 17 books, including ten novels, five nonfiction books, and two plays; her most recent book is "Israel/Palestine and the Queer International" (published by Duke University Press in November 2012).
Park, who led the campaign for the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002, was one of the delegates who participated in the first US LGBTQ delegation tour of Palestine in January 2012, which Schulman helped organize.
Schulman and Park will explain why Israel/Palestine is an issue for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and will discuss the work they do to challenge the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The event is free and open to the public and is also being co-sponsored by Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel, Brooklyn For Peace, Brooklyn College Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace-NY, Jews Say No, the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA), QUEEROCRACY, Q-Wave, and Women in Black–Union Square.
Queens Pride House can be reached by subway to Roosevelt Ave. (EFMR) and 74th St./Broadway (#7). Please note that the site is a second-floor walk-up and is not wheelchair-accessible. For more info. about the event, e-mail Pauline Park (PPark@queenspridehouse.org) or call (718) 429-5309. For directions to Queens Pride House, see this map:
Now at our community center!!! March 11: QAIA's Schulman reading
2/21/13
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Sarah Schulman reading from her new book
Israel/Palestine and the Queer International
Mon. March 11 @ 7pm
NYC LGBT Community Center (208 West 13th St.
Free & open to the public!
---------
Free & open to the public!
---------
Queers Against Israeli
Apartheid (NYC-QAIA)
is proud to welcome Sarah Schulman with a reading from her new book, Israel/Palestine
and the Queer International as NYC launches Israel Apartheid Week.
This event is
a huge victory for free speech and queer organizing, and we hope you’ll come
celebrate it with us! Beginning in March 2011, the NYC LGBT Center banned any
discussion of Palestine, in response to pressure from wealthy supporters of
Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies.
In February
2013, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) applied to the NYC LGBT Community
Center for space for this reading. But in response to that denial and the two
years history of censorship at the Center, the LGBT community mobilized in
outrage, and overturned the ban!
From Palestinian
Queers for BDS:
‘As Palestinian queers, our
struggle is not only against social injustice and our rights as a queer
minority in Palestinian society, but rather, our main struggle is one against
Israel’s colonization, occupation and apartheid; a system that has oppressed us
for the past 63 years… In the last years Israel has been leading an
international campaign that tries to present Israel as the “only democracy” and
the “gay haven” in the Middle East, while ironically portraying Palestinians,
who suffer every single day from Israel’s state racism and terrorism, as
barbaric and homophobic.’ (pqbds.com)
The petition! End the ban.
2/17/13
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On Valentine's Day, the LGBT Center's refusal to provide space for QAIA's reading with Sarah Schulman spawned a Change.org petition. Within a few days, it had over 1,000 signatures and was on fire across queer email lists and Facebook. Some signers were outraged about the imposition of lock-step support for Israel, some were outraged about lock-step support for any state, and some were outraged about the suppression of queer speech and organizing in our community spaces.
As the petition vented the bottled-up rage and disgust of the queer community, the Center (along with a group of electeds who re-rang the "we totally love Israel no matter what it does!" bell) rescinded the ban.
Here's the petition text, created by Tom Leger:
---------------------
(This post is backdated to maintain a historical timeline on the QAIA blog. Posted on 3/1/13.)
Read more »
As the petition vented the bottled-up rage and disgust of the queer community, the Center (along with a group of electeds who re-rang the "we totally love Israel no matter what it does!" bell) rescinded the ban.
Here's the petition text, created by Tom Leger:
---------------------
In 2011, the LGBT Center of New York City began to ban certain LGBT groups and events that discussed ideas that the Executive Director, Glennda Testone, and the Board of Directors, deemed to be controversial. Initially this ban was meant to affect only a group called Siegebusters, a group of LGBT people working on activism related to Palestine, but the effects of this ban have mushroomed over the past two years.
Banning some LGBT people from the Center based on their beliefs, interests or conversations puts into danger the legitimacy all LGBT people at the NYC LGBT Center. Since the ban in 2011, many groups have left the Center, especially groups that are comprised chiefly of queer people of color, because this shift in policy indicated to many people that the LGBT Center was no longer a safe or welcoming place for them.
On February 13, 2013, Gay City News reported that Sarah Schulman, one of America's most prolific out lesbian authors, was barred from appearing at an event at the LGBT Center of New York City because the content of the book she was to read from, ISRAEL/PALESTINE AND THE QUEER INTERNATIONAL (Duke University Press), was objectionable and violated the policy of censorship put into place under Executive Director Glennda Testone.
The hosting organization, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid–NYC, is currently working to provide a back-up venue for the event.
QAIA Blog: http://queersagainstisraeliapartheid.blogspot.com/Gay City News Article: http://gaycitynews.com/lgbt-center-bars-sarah-schulman-reading/
Sarah Schulman is a distinguished professor of the City of New York, author of 18 books, co-founder of the ACT UP Oral History Project, co-producer of the ACT UP documentary UNITED IN ANGER, co-founder of the Lesbian Avengers and co-founder of the MIX Experimental Film Festival. In her long career, she has been awarded the Kessler Prize for Sustained Contribution in LGBT Studies, a Stonewall Award for Contributions Improving the Lives of Lesbians and Gays in the United States, a Fullbright for Judaic studies, and many other awards. She was arrested five times protesting the ban on gay groups in the St. Patrick's Day Parade. In short, there are few other living activists who are more deserving of space at the LGBT Center of New York City. That the LGBT Center of New York City has become an organization hostile to an activist and scholar with the credibility of Ms. Schulman is a clear indication that no LGBT person can feel safe expressing their personal political beliefs without fear of being ostracized by this LGBT organization.
Clearly, the current "space rental policy" constitutes a dangerous form of censorship. Additionally, it is unethical and inappropriate for an organization meant to serve all LGBT people of the City of New York to exclude those LGBT people with whom the leadership disagrees.
The leadership of the LGBT Center of New York City must immediately reverse any and all policies which ban LGBT people from meeting at the LGBT center because of their political beliefs. This petition appeals to Glennda Testone, Executive Director, and to Brian C. Offutt, the Board President, who are responsible for not just an important organization but for the future of LGBT culture and activism in New York City, which was not built on, and can not be successful under a climate of censorship and fear.
To:
Glennda Testone, Executive, Director The LGBT Center of New York City
Glennda Testone, Executive, Director The LGBT Center of New York City
End censorship of Sarah Schulman and open your doors to all queer people.
The leadership of the LGBT Center of New York City must immediately reverse any and all policies which ban LGBT people from meeting at the LGBT center because of their political beliefs.
The leadership of the LGBT Center of New York City must immediately reverse any and all policies which ban LGBT people from meeting at the LGBT center because of their political beliefs.
Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your name]
(This post is backdated to maintain a historical timeline on the QAIA blog. Posted on 3/1/13.)
Gay City News: LGBT Center Bars Sarah Schulman Reading
2/14/13
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'A leading queer community author was barred from an appearance at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center apparently because the book she was to discuss deals with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.'
'“We requested space for me to do a presentation of my new book ‘Israel/ Palestine and the Queer International,’ which has gotten a good review in the Lambda Literary Review,” wrote Sarah Schulman in a February 11 email. “It is amazing to me that after all my work in the community, I could be refused a platform to present a queer book.”'
Labels:
action/events by NYC queers,
actions by QAIA,
media
Comic biteback: There's a checkpoint around this Center!
2/12/13
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Check out Ethan Heitner's really beautiful exposition of Tara and Ana's throwdown at "Occupy the Center!" The full 8 panel comic is posted on mondoweiss.net today.
Read more »
Labels:
action/events by NYC queers,
actions by QAIA,
art,
documents
Honduran queer event organizers call out LGBT Center's racism
QAIA was just forwarded this letter from NYC queer organizers working in support of Honduran queers. Go, sisters!
The Center's claim that it's "open" break down as the community excluded gets broader and broader. The Center has flatly ignored critiques about its racism, refusing to be accountable to its community, or to present any response at all. This event (on 2/12) will be held instead at the Venezuelan Consulate -- click on the image for details.
------------
Dear Ms. Testone:
This Tuesday, February 12, Pepe Palacios, a leader of the LGBT community in Honduras, will be in New York City to speak as part of a national tour organized by the Honduras Solidarity Network. He will report on the brutal repression against the LGBT community by the illegal coup government, and also about the heroic resistance of the Honduran people. We hope that Pepe's appearance here will raise awareness of the struggle in Honduras for democratic rights and against the U.S.-backed coup regime. We especially hope to win supporters for that struggle among the LGBT community here.
The LGBT Center would have been a natural home for this event. However, during the planning process, we heard about the Center's history for the past two years of denying meeting space to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and other groups that support the Palestinian people in their struggle against occupation. We were disappointed to learn that the Center, which for so long had been a welcoming locus for the diverse LGBT community, now bars certain parts of the community. This ban on pro-Palestinian groups and individuals amounts to a racist affront to the Palestinian, Arab and in fact all communities of color.
In the light of this terrible, shameful policy on your part, we could not in good conscience hold our event in the Center. And so a representative of the Honduran LGBT community will speak not at the purported center of New York's LGBT community, but rather is being welcomed at the Venezuelan Consulate.
We wanted you to know this, to know that as a consequence of your reactionary ban against QAIA and its chilling effect on LGBT communities of color, New Yorkers will go elsewhere to hear the words of a brave, heroic Honduran gay leader. We expect to have a great, stirring, well-attended meeting. But not on 13th Street. Not while those who support our Palestinian sisters and brothers are barred from your premises.
This Tuesday, February 12, Pepe Palacios, a leader of the LGBT community in Honduras, will be in New York City to speak as part of a national tour organized by the Honduras Solidarity Network. He will report on the brutal repression against the LGBT community by the illegal coup government, and also about the heroic resistance of the Honduran people. We hope that Pepe's appearance here will raise awareness of the struggle in Honduras for democratic rights and against the U.S.-backed coup regime. We especially hope to win supporters for that struggle among the LGBT community here.
The LGBT Center would have been a natural home for this event. However, during the planning process, we heard about the Center's history for the past two years of denying meeting space to Queers Against Israeli Apartheid and other groups that support the Palestinian people in their struggle against occupation. We were disappointed to learn that the Center, which for so long had been a welcoming locus for the diverse LGBT community, now bars certain parts of the community. This ban on pro-Palestinian groups and individuals amounts to a racist affront to the Palestinian, Arab and in fact all communities of color.
In the light of this terrible, shameful policy on your part, we could not in good conscience hold our event in the Center. And so a representative of the Honduran LGBT community will speak not at the purported center of New York's LGBT community, but rather is being welcomed at the Venezuelan Consulate.
We wanted you to know this, to know that as a consequence of your reactionary ban against QAIA and its chilling effect on LGBT communities of color, New Yorkers will go elsewhere to hear the words of a brave, heroic Honduran gay leader. We expect to have a great, stirring, well-attended meeting. But not on 13th Street. Not while those who support our Palestinian sisters and brothers are barred from your premises.
Teresa Gutierrez
Teresa Gutierrez
International Action Center
Teresa Gutierrez
International Action Center
Lucy Pagoada-Quesada
Lucy Pagoada-Quesada
Honduras/USA Resistencia
Lucy Pagoada-Quesada
Honduras/USA Resistencia
"The Times, They Are A-changing": On QAIA & the Dyke March
6/28/12
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A small group of us from "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" marched in the Dykemarch on Saturday June 23, and in the Pridemarch on Sunday. We carried signs against the LGBT Center’s censorship of ANY programs or groups critical of Israel, and we carried signs protesting Israel’s "pinkwashing" (advertising Israel as a supposed haven for Gay people while suppressing the fact that it is a hell for Palestinians, whether Gay or straight.)
I was amazed by the response. On Saturday an adorable young person ran up to us, thanked us, bought one of our T-shirts, took a sign, and carried it throughout the march. Apparently he took it home with him, because he showed up on Sunday carrying the same "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" sign. We sold out on QAIA tee-shirts. I sold out on "Occupy Wall Street, Not Palestine" buttons. People on the sidelines applauded us and thanked us. On Sunday we were a slightly larger group, and carried our banner, again to warmth, applause and enthusiasm. Even those people on the sidelines who were carrying Israeli flags were polite in their opposition. Some held thumbs down; one said I love you as gays, but I disagree with your politics." No vitriol. No rage. And much appreciation. (A young woman rushed over and kissed me as I scooted down the home stretch.) When we passed the various announcer’s stations, they announced our group.
As someone who became a teenager in the 1950's, when both gayness and opposition to Israeli policies were invisible; when many of us thought that we were "the only ones", it was a very moving experience. For many years I was a closetted lesbian. For 30 years I have demonstrated as a Jew against Israeli policies in an atmosphere of virulent hostility and hatred. But this Pride weekend was different: The times they are a-changing.
- Sherry Gorelick
QAIA @ PRIDE: March with us! (Meet-up details now posted.)
6/20/12
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We are seriously everywhere. You can march with QAIA five times this weekend!
Fri 6/22 - Trans Day of Action - 3-7pm @ Washington Sq. Park - QAIA has wholeheartedly endorsed this event, and a few of us will be there, but no contingent. It's at Washington Square Park, but we also heard there's a march down Christopher Street?
Fri 6/22 - Queer Ball - 6:30pm starting @ Washington Sq. Park - anti-corporate ki-ki from the end of the Trans march to the start of the Drag march, at Tompkins Square Park.
Fri 6/22 - Drag March - 7pm @ Tompkins Sq. Park - QueersAIA will be there! Look for us with signs, t-shirts and all the drama. Introduce yourselves!
Sat 6/23 - Dyke March - 4:30 @ Bryant Park, see details below.
Sun 6/24 - Manhattan/NYC/Corporate Pride - 11:30am at 39th St/6th Ave, see details below.
DYKE MARCH: QAIA will be at the Dyke March this Saturday 6/23! We'll meet at the Bryant Park fountain (south side) at 4:30 to stencil t-shirts, and then bio-boys/non-dykes will split off to cheer their sisters from the sidelines.
MANHATTAN PRIDE: Hope you can take the stand of "no pride in occupation" by joining our contingent for at least some of the march on Sunday. We're in Section 4 which lines up between 5th and 6th, near 6th on W 39th St. We have various politicians supporters leading the section, first for Kristen Gillibrand, followed by Nadler. We're it appears at the end of the section (order # 27), behind Act Up (#26) which is behind the AXIOS Eastern Orthodox LGBT Christians. Rest assured, Coca-Cola is in the lead Section. Line up at 11:30am. Pride steps off at noon.
Read more »
Fri 6/22 - Trans Day of Action - 3-7pm @ Washington Sq. Park - QAIA has wholeheartedly endorsed this event, and a few of us will be there, but no contingent. It's at Washington Square Park, but we also heard there's a march down Christopher Street?
Fri 6/22 - Queer Ball - 6:30pm starting @ Washington Sq. Park - anti-corporate ki-ki from the end of the Trans march to the start of the Drag march, at Tompkins Square Park.
Fri 6/22 - Drag March - 7pm @ Tompkins Sq. Park - QueersAIA will be there! Look for us with signs, t-shirts and all the drama. Introduce yourselves!
Sat 6/23 - Dyke March - 4:30 @ Bryant Park, see details below.
Sun 6/24 - Manhattan/NYC/Corporate Pride - 11:30am at 39th St/6th Ave, see details below.
DYKE MARCH: QAIA will be at the Dyke March this Saturday 6/23! We'll meet at the Bryant Park fountain (south side) at 4:30 to stencil t-shirts, and then bio-boys/non-dykes will split off to cheer their sisters from the sidelines.
MANHATTAN PRIDE: Hope you can take the stand of "no pride in occupation" by joining our contingent for at least some of the march on Sunday. We're in Section 4 which lines up between 5th and 6th, near 6th on W 39th St. We have various politicians supporters leading the section, first for Kristen Gillibrand, followed by Nadler. We're it appears at the end of the section (order # 27), behind Act Up (#26) which is behind the AXIOS Eastern Orthodox LGBT Christians. Rest assured, Coca-Cola is in the lead Section. Line up at 11:30am. Pride steps off at noon.
Wed 6/20: SIT-IN MEETING for pride planning, t-shirt-making & sign-sparkling.
6/14/12
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Occupy the Center! Join Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (NYC) for our sign-making, Pride-planning SIT-IN at the LGBT Community Center this Wednesday night.
Read more »
NYC LGBT Community Center
208 W. 13th St. – Lobby!
Wed., June 20
6:30 PM
Bring a (very) light-colored t-shirt to get the QAIA stencil.
--------------------------
--------------------------
Ok queers – it’s time to Occupy the Center again! Until the Center takes a clear stand against anti-Arab hate – until the outrageous ban on pro-Palestinian queer organizing is rescinded – until the Center re-embraces its role as an activist hub for the conscientious queer community – we have to continue our occupation of the Center.
Since summer 2011, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid-NYC has been holding many of our regular meetings in the lobby of the Center. We don’t prefer it – we’d rather have a room! But Center management is entrenched in their right-wing, racist position of censorship and pinkwashing – so we’re forced to hold meetings in public, in the foyer of the building which is OUR LGBT community Center!
So join us, this coming Wed. evening at 6:30 for sign-making, t-shirt stenciling and planning, organizing for our QAIA-NYC contingent in the Manhattan Pride parade coming up on the 24th. See you Wednesday!
Join QAIA for Pride month events and actions.
6/7/12
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QAIA @ Brooklyn Pride! Saturday, June 9, 7:30pm
Palestine solidarity queers will stand alongside the Pride March route (instead of marching this year.)
Meet at 14th St., bet. 5th and 6th Aves.
-Subway: F,G,R to 4th Ave. and 9th St.-
(ISO, which will be part of the sideline Palestine contingent, is hosting a fundraiser/party starting at 6pm in the same location at 274 14th St.)
QAIA @ Manhattan Pride! Sunday, June 24 - Check back here for details.
QAIA will march as a contingent in NYC Pride.
To be kept updated, help with signs etc., email us at noprideinoccupation@gmail.com or join the low-traffic listerve.
QAIA meetings & actions for Pride season.
QAIA is finalizing plans this week -- we'll have at least one action in the days before Pride, and will be meeting to make signs, t-shirts, and more. Check back here and join our email list for updates! Email noprideinoccupation+subscribe@googlegroups.com to join.
Read more »
Palestine solidarity queers will stand alongside the Pride March route (instead of marching this year.)
Meet at 14th St., bet. 5th and 6th Aves.
-Subway: F,G,R to 4th Ave. and 9th St.-
(ISO, which will be part of the sideline Palestine contingent, is hosting a fundraiser/party starting at 6pm in the same location at 274 14th St.)
QAIA @ Manhattan Pride! Sunday, June 24 - Check back here for details.
QAIA will march as a contingent in NYC Pride.
To be kept updated, help with signs etc., email us at noprideinoccupation@gmail.com or join the low-traffic listerve.
QAIA meetings & actions for Pride season.
QAIA is finalizing plans this week -- we'll have at least one action in the days before Pride, and will be meeting to make signs, t-shirts, and more. Check back here and join our email list for updates! Email noprideinoccupation+subscribe@googlegroups.com to join.
At NYC Israel parade, QAIA challenges "gay rights" diversion from apartheid laws
6/3/12
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For immediate release
Date: June 3, 2010
"QUEERS AGAINST ISRAELI APARTHEID" PROTEST AT NYC ISRAEL PARADE
Protesters denounce Israeli government plan to use pro-gay messages to divert attention from apartheid laws; challenge Quinn to oppose anti-Muslim discrimination at LGBT Center
New York - LGBT activists protested at New York City's "Celebrate Israel" parade today, objecting to Israel's apartheid laws denying Palestinian human rights and its use of gay rights messaging to portray Israel as open and democratic. Signs reading "Support Palestinian Queers" and "Israel: Stop Pinkwashing Apartheid" dotted the sidelines of the Fifth Avenue parade. Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) organized the protest.
"Israel is trying to repair its horrible human rights profile by painting itself as a gay mecca," said Brad Taylor of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. "But having some gay clubs in Tel Aviv doesn't make Israel a democracy. Israel builds separate roads for Jews and Arabs, separate schools, separate neighborhoods. Your rights to work, travel, marry, etc. -- they all depend on whether or not you're Palestinian. It's apartheid, whether you're gay or straight."
The protesters also planned to challenge NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn as she marched in the parade, calling on her to take action to stop Muslim-baiting at NYC's LGBT Community Center and in NYC's Gay Pride parade. The community center ejected and banned groups meeting in support of Palestinian LGBT organizations last year, at the demand of pro-Israel individuals. Shortly afterward, pro-Israel marchers in NYC's 2011 Gay Pride parade beset and assaulted a Palestine human rights contingent.
"Speaker Quinn is constantly telling us how important Israel is to her. But she hasn't uttered a word about the Arab-baiting and Muslim-baiting that pro-Israel groups are fomenting in the LGBTQ community -- her own backyard. The LGBT community is in an uproar about this discrimination, and she's giving it the all-clear," said Leslie Cagan of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.
For more information: queersagainstisraeliapartheid.blogspot.com
###
Sunday, June 3: PROTEST Salute To Israel parade with QAIA
5/31/12
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This Sunday, June 3rd, QAIA will be present with our anti-occupation and anti-pinkwashing signs at a location along the Celebrate Israel Parade!
NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn is marching in the Salute to Israel parade. She's fresh from weighing in against the Park Slope Food Co-op even voting on whether to consider boycotting Israeli goods -- but has refused to meet with QAIA about how the LGBT Center has become a tool for anti-Palestinian bias and anti-Arab discrimination in NYC.
PROTEST THIS SUNDAY, June 3,
70th St. and Fifth Ave.
10:45am.
(The parade kicks off at 11am.)
If you can, please let QAIA know you're coming:
Thanks!
Jewish QAIA does CBST
5/28/12
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QAIA members handed the letter to folks on their way into the service. The only person who shoved it back at us came back later for a clean copy. Rabbi Kleinbaum came out to make sure we knew we were welcome inside. After Aharoni's glib talk about how to recruit Israel supporters, it was clear that many congregants were not buying it. So, another nice Friday evening in Manhattan.
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May 25, 2012
Dear LGBTQ Jews…
Shabbat shalom! Here’s a resource list for those of us who
object to Israel’s human rights violations, and who refuse to bear that burden
on our souls.
As LGBTQ Jews of conscience, we stand for the human rights
of all people, everywhere. As Jews, we accept our particular responsibility to
challenge Israel – to refuse to let Israel speak for us when it builds
Jews-only neighborhoods, roads and schools. To refuse the demonization of
Palestinians who resist the violent domination of their lives by Israeli
settlers and soldiers. To refuse to be told that, as Jews, we should be loyal
to the Israeli government, rather than human beings and principles.
We don’t just stand for those things – we stand up. When the Israeli government uses “the Jewish people”
as cover for its crimes, there’s no room to be neutral. Jews of conscience have
to act. When Israel uses gay
rights to pinkwash its gross failure to be a democracy, LGBTQ Jews especially
must undo that damage.
We (like queers of conscience in Israel and worldwide) are
especially compelled by Palestinian LGBTQ groups’ call, which points out that
queer liberation can’t be built under apartheid laws that deny all Palestinians human and civil rights. To begin
Palestinian queer liberation, they say, help us end the occupation. And for our
liberation, too.
With love,
Leslie Cagan & Emmaia Gelman
on behalf of the Jewish members of Queers Against Israeli
Apartheid NYC
Resources for LGBTQ Jews of conscience:
Queers Against Israeli Apartheid - NYC
queersagainstisraeliapartheid.blogspot.com
Jews Say No
Young, Jewish & Proud
Jewish Voice for Peace
israelilaundry.org // jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Jews Against Islamophobia
jewsagainstislamophobia.org
Palestinian LGBTQ websites:
Al Qaws for Sexual & Gender
Diversity in Palestinian Society - alqaws.org
Aswat – Palestinian Gay Women -
aswatgroup.org
Palestinian Queers for BDS -
pqbds.org
Labels:
action/events by NYC queers,
actions by QAIA,
CBST,
NYC-QAIA
"Debate for the Sake of Heaven: A Community Talk with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum"
5/13/12
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Rabbi Kleinbaum is recently back from the 1st LGBTQ Delegation to Palestine. Congregation Beth Simchat Torah has been led by pretty politically conservative members even though its congregants aren't all so conservative. This talk is "balanced" by a talk on 5/25 by Ido Aharoni, Israel's Consul General in NYC...
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Read more »
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| A Community Talk with Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum |
|
Tuesday, 5/15, 7pm, CBST, 57 Bethune Street
Perhaps no issue today is more divisive in the GLBTQ community than the debate about Israel and Palestine. We are dealing with profound issues of religious, political, and moral importance. Can Israel be a Jewish and democratic state? What are we doing about the military occupation of 2,000,000 Palestinians? Does Israel have a partner in the Palestinians who want peace? Do the Palestinians have a partner in Israel who wants peace? We want CBST to be a GLBT/Queer and Jewish community in which these ideas are debated - vigorously and with respect. And may God be with us as we do.
|
Queering Solidarity: A Panel on Pinkwashing and LGBTQ Activism for Israel-Palestine
4/9/12
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"Queering Solidarity: A Panel on Pinkwashing and LGBTQ Activism for Israel-Palestine"
with Columbia Law School Professor Katherine Franke and Harvard PhD Candidate Sa’ed Adel Atshan
April 10th, 8:00pm @ Barnard College
Sponsored by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine
Details: http://www.facebook.com/events/297903396946120/
Read more »
with Columbia Law School Professor Katherine Franke and Harvard PhD Candidate Sa’ed Adel Atshan
April 10th, 8:00pm @ Barnard College
Sponsored by Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine
Details: http://www.facebook.com/events/297903396946120/
Labels:
action/events by NYC queers,
pinkwashing
Reportback from the First US LGBTQ Delegation to Palestine
4/7/12
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Creating Solidarities: A Conversation with Members of the First US LGBTQ Delegation to Palestine
April 11th, 2012
7:30 p.m. @ Brecht Forum, 451 West Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 242-4201
In January 2012, several prominent LGBTQ activists/scholars/cultural workers from the United States traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories as part of the first delegation of its kind. This panel, comprised of six of the delegates, will focus on: the experiences of the delegates; critical analyses of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and its intersections with gender equality and the queer struggle for liberation; and developing and maintaining transnational solidarities.
Katherine Franke is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, and Director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. She is also on the Executive Committee of Columbia’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender and works closely with the Center for Palestine Studies. She is among the nation's leading scholars working at the intersections of feminist, queer, and critical race theory. In addition to her scholarly research she writes regularly for a more popular audience in the Gender & Sexuality Law Blog and is on the Board of Directors of the Center for Constitutional Rights. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011 to write a book on the curious role of the right to marry in larger civil rights struggles, comparing African Americans in the immediate post Civil War period with same-sex couples today.
Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz is the principal of intersections/intersecciones consulting. She is a community organizer, capacity builder, writer and speaker who has worked across movements for social and economic justice for twenty years. Her writings can be found in an anthology entitled Colonize This! Young Women of Color and Feminism, through an online writing project entitled Busting Binaries which she co-author with Ana Maurine Lara and on the Bilerico Project Blog. For five years she served as the Director of Capacity Building for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Prior to her work with the Task Force, she was an organizer and capacity builder for the National Organization for Women, Mid-West Regional Organizer for Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Pension Plan Organizer for the National Organizers Alliance and Interim Director for the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health.
Timothy Patrick McCarthy is a lecturer on History and Literature and on Public Policy at Harvard University, where he is also Core Faculty and Director of the Sexuality, Gender, and Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. A historian of social movements, media culture, and the American radical tradition, Dr. McCarthy has published three books: The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Tradition (New Press, 2003); Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism (New Press, 2006); and Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century of American Radicalism (New Press, 2010). His fourth book, The Indispensable Zinn: The Essential Writings of the People’s Historian, will be published in April by the New Press. Dr. McCarthy is a frequent media commentator, appearing on NPR, BBC, Air America, Bloomberg Radio, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!, and Big Think, and his writings have appeared in The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, Boston Globe, and The Nation.
Darnell L. Moore is the Director of Educational Initiatives at the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI). He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University, part-time lecturer in the Women and Gender Studies Department at Rutgers University, and a Fellow of the Global Justice Institute. He was appointed by Mayor Cory Booker as the inaugural Chair of Newark’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Concerns. He is the co-coordinator of the Queer Newark Oral History Project facilitated by Rutgers-Newark.
Pauline Park (paulinepark.com) is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) (nyagra.com), a statewide transgender advocacy organization that she co-founded in 1998, and president of the board of directors of Queens Pride House (queenspridehouse.org), which she co-founded in 1997. Park also co-founded Iban/Queer Koreans of New York in 1997 and served as its coordinator from 1997 to 1999. Park led the campaign for passage of the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002 and she served on the working group that helped to draft guidelines — adopted by the Commission on Human Rights in December 2004 — for implementation of the new statute. Park negotiated inclusion of gender identity and expression in the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA), a safe schools law enacted by the New York state legislature in 2010, and the first fully transgender-inclusive legislation enacted by that body. In 2005, Park became the first openly transgendered grand marshal of the New York City Pride March. She was the subject of “Envisioning Justice: The Journey of a Transgendered Woman,” a 32-minute documentary about her life and work by documentarian Larry Tung that premiered at the New York LGBT Film Festival (NewFest) in 2008.
Jasbir Puar is Associate Professor of Women's & Gender Studies at Rutgers University. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, globalization; postcolonial and diaspora studies; South Asian cultural studies; and theories of assemblage and affect. She is the author of Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Duke University Press 2007), which won the 2007 Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. Professor Puar has also authored numerous articles that appear in Gender, Place, and Culture, Social Text, Radical History Review, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Feminist Legal Studies. Most recently she edited, with Julie Livingston, a special issue of Social Text on "Interspecies" (Spring 2011). Professor Puar is also a contributor to the Guardian and The Huffington Post, as well as Bully Bloggers (bullybloggers.com) and Oh! Industry (ohindustry.com).
http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12192&reset=1
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April 11th, 2012
7:30 p.m. @ Brecht Forum, 451 West Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 242-4201
In January 2012, several prominent LGBTQ activists/scholars/cultural workers from the United States traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories as part of the first delegation of its kind. This panel, comprised of six of the delegates, will focus on: the experiences of the delegates; critical analyses of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and its intersections with gender equality and the queer struggle for liberation; and developing and maintaining transnational solidarities.
Katherine Franke is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law, and Director of the Center for Gender & Sexuality Law at Columbia Law School. She is also on the Executive Committee of Columbia’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender and works closely with the Center for Palestine Studies. She is among the nation's leading scholars working at the intersections of feminist, queer, and critical race theory. In addition to her scholarly research she writes regularly for a more popular audience in the Gender & Sexuality Law Blog and is on the Board of Directors of the Center for Constitutional Rights. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2011 to write a book on the curious role of the right to marry in larger civil rights struggles, comparing African Americans in the immediate post Civil War period with same-sex couples today.
Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz is the principal of intersections/intersecciones consulting. She is a community organizer, capacity builder, writer and speaker who has worked across movements for social and economic justice for twenty years. Her writings can be found in an anthology entitled Colonize This! Young Women of Color and Feminism, through an online writing project entitled Busting Binaries which she co-author with Ana Maurine Lara and on the Bilerico Project Blog. For five years she served as the Director of Capacity Building for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Prior to her work with the Task Force, she was an organizer and capacity builder for the National Organization for Women, Mid-West Regional Organizer for Parents Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, Pension Plan Organizer for the National Organizers Alliance and Interim Director for the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health.
Timothy Patrick McCarthy is a lecturer on History and Literature and on Public Policy at Harvard University, where he is also Core Faculty and Director of the Sexuality, Gender, and Human Rights Program at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. A historian of social movements, media culture, and the American radical tradition, Dr. McCarthy has published three books: The Radical Reader: A Documentary History of the American Radical Tradition (New Press, 2003); Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism (New Press, 2006); and Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century of American Radicalism (New Press, 2010). His fourth book, The Indispensable Zinn: The Essential Writings of the People’s Historian, will be published in April by the New Press. Dr. McCarthy is a frequent media commentator, appearing on NPR, BBC, Air America, Bloomberg Radio, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!, and Big Think, and his writings have appeared in The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, Boston Globe, and The Nation.
Darnell L. Moore is the Director of Educational Initiatives at the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI). He is also a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University, part-time lecturer in the Women and Gender Studies Department at Rutgers University, and a Fellow of the Global Justice Institute. He was appointed by Mayor Cory Booker as the inaugural Chair of Newark’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Concerns. He is the co-coordinator of the Queer Newark Oral History Project facilitated by Rutgers-Newark.
Pauline Park (paulinepark.com) is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy (NYAGRA) (nyagra.com), a statewide transgender advocacy organization that she co-founded in 1998, and president of the board of directors of Queens Pride House (queenspridehouse.org), which she co-founded in 1997. Park also co-founded Iban/Queer Koreans of New York in 1997 and served as its coordinator from 1997 to 1999. Park led the campaign for passage of the transgender rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002 and she served on the working group that helped to draft guidelines — adopted by the Commission on Human Rights in December 2004 — for implementation of the new statute. Park negotiated inclusion of gender identity and expression in the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA), a safe schools law enacted by the New York state legislature in 2010, and the first fully transgender-inclusive legislation enacted by that body. In 2005, Park became the first openly transgendered grand marshal of the New York City Pride March. She was the subject of “Envisioning Justice: The Journey of a Transgendered Woman,” a 32-minute documentary about her life and work by documentarian Larry Tung that premiered at the New York LGBT Film Festival (NewFest) in 2008.
Jasbir Puar is Associate Professor of Women's & Gender Studies at Rutgers University. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, globalization; postcolonial and diaspora studies; South Asian cultural studies; and theories of assemblage and affect. She is the author of Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Duke University Press 2007), which won the 2007 Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. Professor Puar has also authored numerous articles that appear in Gender, Place, and Culture, Social Text, Radical History Review, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Feminist Legal Studies. Most recently she edited, with Julie Livingston, a special issue of Social Text on "Interspecies" (Spring 2011). Professor Puar is also a contributor to the Guardian and The Huffington Post, as well as Bully Bloggers (bullybloggers.com) and Oh! Industry (ohindustry.com).
http://brechtforum.org/civicrm/event/info?id=12192&reset=1
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