UConn Jewish Voice for Peace and UConn Jewish Collective host a screening of ‘Israelism’

Content warning: mentions of genocide, hate speech, racism, antisemitism and apartheid. 

The Dodd Center for Human Rights hosted a screening and panel discussion of the 2023 film “Israelism” directed by panelist Erin Axelman, on April 15.  

The event was organized by UConn’s chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish anti-Zionist activist organization and The UConn Jewish Collective, a cultural and religious club centering around Judaism and the Jewish diaspora and sponsored by the Undergraduate Student Government, the departments of Critical and Social Inquiry, Journalism and History. 
 
Treasurer of UConn Jewish Voice for Peace and UConn Jewish Collective Alison Powell welcomed the audience with a short introductory speech. They said that in the past 18 months Israel was and still is committing genocide on the Palestinian people of Gaza and the West Bank.  
 

“A growing number of Jewish people are disavowing Zionism,” Powell said. “In the midst of this genocide, a critical reexamination of the relationship between Jewish identity and Zionism is needed now more than ever.” 
 
The film begins with a lot of positive talk about joining the military, primarily the Israeli Defense Force — or IDF — paired with footage of pro-Israel festivities. 
 
The film displayed different perspectives of Israeli, pro-Israel, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian ideology and relations. There was a lot of friction within these communities. 
 
Through an interview, the film claims that the two main ways adults indoctrinate children to be pro-Israel is through advocacy of Israel in dialogue and joining the IDF to facilitate the occupation of the land. 
 
Student and faculty representatives of UConn Hillel, one of the foremost Jewish establishments on college campuses, then had interviews with the crew where they advocated for Israel. Later in the movie, a UConn representative said that they were glad the UConn community is “fairly apolitical.” 
 
There was then a conversation between the executive director of the Holy Land Trust Sami Awad and Baha, a Palestinian tour guide.  

“I was born to a family of victims of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” Baha said. He added that the ethnic cleansing, the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” was “traumatizing in almost every level.” 
 
Footage was shown of an Israeli man telling a Palestinian woman “If I’m not going to steal it, someone else is going to steal it” and then a kid being detained and choked by the IDF. Someone called the state of Israel a state of apartheid oppressing Palestinians in the film. 
 
In America, the University of California Berkeley had a divestment from military manufacturing bill that received a lot of backlash from pro-Israel students who felt marginalized and silenced. This was juxtaposed to Palestinians’ own continual marginalization, suppression and erasure.  

“The only way for Israelis to be safe is for Palestinians to not be safe,” Jewish activist and primary focus of the film Simone Zimmerman remembered being told in schooling. She was then called a “self-loathing Jew” for her pro-Palestine stance and told to kill herself by someone online. 
 
Despite the unabashed support for Israel and critics of Israel being called antisemitic as a way to silence them, the film pointed out that real antisemitism by people like neo-Nazis and white supremacists was rising. This dichotomy of supporting Israel but hating Jewish people was alarming to the analysts interviewed. 
 
The film ended with a speech by a rabbi affirming the group’s Jewishness while also supporting human rights for all and using their power to advocate for the oppressed. 
 
After a short reception, the panel began their discussion. Panelists include director of “Israelism” Erin Axelman, UConn professor of art and art history Michael Young, movement lawyer and Hartford Jewish Organizing Collective co-founder Sarah White and the other co-founder Sam Pudlin.  
 
Young began the panel by calling the state of Israel “chauvinistic ethnonationalism” and that he rejects genocide on the Holy Land. 
 
When asked about why they made the film, Axelman asked that audience member for the definition of apartheid and said, “I wish Israel was not an apartheid state.”   

Axelman then recommended reading left-wing historians because they talk about the occupation of Palestinian land like how modern American historians talk about the occupation of the Indigenous’ land and the atrocities they have faced. They also recommended reading early Zionist writers because they talked about colonization positively. 
 
To end, Axelman noted that the word “Zionism” could be triggering for both left and right-wing people, so it was only mentioned once in the film. 
 
“UConn, the undergraduate class, is 10% Jewish. There are Jewish organizations on campus, but they are all Zionist. There was no space for non-Zionists and anti-Zionists. I think it’s really important that there is a space for Jewish anti-Zionists and those who are critical of Zionism,” said Nathan Henault, the president of UConn Jewish Voice for Peace and UConn Jewish Collective. “It was very lonely before we put all of this together.”