Episode 12: Jewish activism from the US-Mexico border to Palestine.

CODEPINK's Ariel Gold and Teri Mattson discuss Jewish activism from the US-Mexico border to Palestine.

How do people become activists and  human rights defenders? Our first guest is Carolyn Karcher, editor of Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism, discusses that an increasing number of Jews are learning the truth behind Zionist ideology, which has degraded the Jewish religion. The ethics of Judaism are based on pursuing justice, love thy neighbors and repair the world. Yet, none of these are followed by Israelis to Palestinians.  Recognizing that Israel is committing war crimes under the facade of Jewish identity, Jews are grappling with this and renouncing Zionism. In her book, Carolyn collects stories to change hearts and minds, starting with Rabbis explaining Zionism's harmful beliefs and to reconstruct Judaism by going back to ethical principles. Next, Carolyn takes us through the imperialistic and nationalistic history of Zionism starting before WWII. Does Israel represent Jewishness?Visitors to Israel don’t see behind the apartheid wall. Ariel and Carolyn discuss the transformative experience of visiting Hebron, the epicenter of the occupation. Israel blatantly attempts to blind the realities of what is truly happening in Palestine. They turned a religion that was built on loving thy neighbor into a religion of hate

Our second guest, Abby Stein, author of Becoming Eve. She discusses the similarities between Auschwitz and the current actions taken by ICE at the Southern Border. These similarities launched the Never Again movement, which points out society’s short term memory and to look at world atrocities through the lens that legal governments could persuade an entire society that millions of people are the source of their problems, by convincing them that we can get rid of them and everything will be great. Never Again asks us to remember that this did not happen that long ago in Germany.