Puerto Rican Jewish poet & activist Aurora Levins Morales speaks on solidarity & the history of antisemitism
From her poem "Red Sea":
...We cannot cross until we carry each other,
all of us refugees, all of us prophets.
No more taking turns on history's wheel,
trying to collect old debts no-one can pay.
The sea will not open that way.
This time that country
is what we promise each other,
our rage pressed cheek to cheek
until tears flood the space between,
until there are no enemies left,
because this time no one will be left to drown
and all of us must be chosen.
This time it's all of us or none.
I was deeply moved by an article on Levins Morales' website in which she examines modern-day Israel through a zoomed-out lens of millennia of antisemitism:
‘Long before that state was founded out of the ashes of genocide and at the expense of a colonized Arab people, Jews were the shock absorbers of Europe's class societies, "Middle Agents" drafted into being the local representatives of distant and definitely Christian ruling classes who alternately exploited and persecuted them while squeezing the life blood out of Europe's peasants and workers.'
People are often confused by anti-Semitism. They see many US Jews accumulating wealth, moving up, gaining positions of influence, and they say, "What oppression?"...
The whole point of anti-Semitism has been to create a vulnerable buffer group that can be bribed with some privileges into managing the exploitation of others, and then, when social pressure builds, be blamed and scapegoated, distracting those at the bottom from the crimes of those at the top. Peasants who go on pogrom against their Jewish neighbors won't make it to the nobleman's palace to burn him out and seize the fields. This was the role of Jews in Europe. This has been the role of Jews in the United States, and this is the role of Jews in the Middle East…’
Levins Morales explains those “buffer” roles in detail, describes how Latin@s are often put in these roles as well, and then brings up an author who said of Israelis, “given all they’ve endured, they should know better.” She responds to this with this insight:
‘Trauma doesn't make people into better human beings. Most of the time, trauma just makes people terrified and easier to manipulate. It makes starving Irish tenants fleeing a devastating famine willing to own slaves or homestead Native American land or police the ghettos they used to live in. It makes the formerly kidnapped and enslaved willing to set up shop in Liberia and hold their African kin in contempt. It makes the survivors of Hitler's Final Solution be willing to become harsh colonial masters, agents of US oil greed and militarism, to bulldoze the villages of Palestinians to make Jewish settlements, torture and kill those who resist, and still insist they are the victims here. People who have faced destruction don't necessarily know better.’
While naming that trauma doesn’t make people “better,” just leaves them terrified and grasping at any sense of security they can, Levins Morales is also sure to note how Jews have always been “disproportionately present in movements for social justice wherever [they] have landed.” To her, fighting antisemitism means supporting Jewish integrity, the Jewish commitment to justice and compassion.
Furthermore, solidarity with the people of Israel and Palestine alike depends on our clear stand against antisemitism in our own communities, because, she says,
'The central justification for Israeli militarism and the subjugation of Palestinians is the belief that Jews are alone in the world, that no-one will fight for us, that the next time Jews are blamed and attacked, most of the world's people will stand by and watch.'
Only through all of us standing up to antisemitism and standing side by side with our Jewish neighbors, she says, can Jews feel secure enough to “abandon the middle agent role and get the backs of other peoples, knowing that they also have ours."
It is this vision of interdependence and mutual aid that Levins Morales brings into her poem “Red Sea," which imagines the kind of liberation when Moses parted the Red Sea happening today — but only if we support one another.
[Text ID: “It shall pass, I keep hoping. It shall pass, I keep saying. Sometimes I mean it. Sometimes I don’t. And as Gaza keeps gasping for life, we struggle for it to pass, we have no choice but to fight back and to tell her stories. For Palestine.”]
“Gaza’s night is dark apart from the glow of rockets, quiet apart from the sound of the bombs, terrifying apart from the comfort of prayer, black apart from the light of the martyrs. Good night, Gaza.”
after finding out that the poetry foundation/POETRY magazine pulled a piece that discussed anti-zionism because they "don't want to pick a side" during the current genocide, i decided to put together a list of online outlets who are explicitly in solidarity with palestine where you can read (english-language) poetry, including, except where otherwise stated, by palestinian poets!
my criteria for this is not simply that they have published palestinian poets or pro-palestine statements in the past; i only chose outlets that, since october 7, 2023, have done one of the following:
published a solidarity statement against israeli occupation & genocide
signed onto the open letter for writers against the war on gaza and/or the open letter boycotting the poetry foundation
published content that is explicitly pro-palestine or anti-zionist, including poetry that explicitly deals with israeli occupation & genocide
shared posts that are pro-palestine on their social media accounts
fyi this is undoubtedly a very small sample. also some of these sites primarily feature nonfiction or short stories, but they do all publish poetry.
outlets that focus entirely on palestinian or SWANA (southwest asia and north africa) literature
we are not numbers, a palestinian youth-led project to write about palestinian lives
arab lit, a magazine for arabic literature in translation that is run by a crowd-funded collective
sumuo, an arab magazine, platform, and community (they appear to have a forthcoming palestine special print issue edited by leena aboutaleb and zaina alsous)
mizna, a platform for contemporary SWANA (southwest asian & north africa) lit, film, and art
the markaz review, a literary arts publication and cultural institution that curates content and programs on the greater middle east and communities in diaspora
online magazines who have published special issues of all palestinian writers (and all of them publish palestinian poets in their regular issues too)
fiyah literary magazine in december 2021, edited by nadia shammas and summer farah (if you have $6 usd to spare, proceeds from the e-book go to medical aid for palestinians)
strange horizons in march 2021, edited by rasha abdulhadi
the baffler in june 2021, curated by poet/translators fady joudah & lena khalaf tuffaha
the markaz review has two palestine-specific issues, on gaza and on palestinians in israel, currently free to download
literary hub featured palestinian poets in 2018 for the anniversary of the 1948 nakba
adi magazine, who have shifted their current (october 2023) issue to be all palestinian writers
outlets that generally seem to be pro-palestine/publish pro-palestine pieces and palestinian poetry
protean magazine (here's their solidarity statement)
poetry online (offering no-fee submissions to palestinian writers)
sundog lit (offering no-fee submissions to palestinian writers through december 1, 2023)
guernica magazine (here's a twitter thread of palestinian poetry they've published) guernica ended up publishing a zionist piece so fuck them too
split this rock (here's their solidarity statement)
the margins by the asian-american writers' workshop
the offing magazine
rusted radishes
voicemail poems
jewish currents
the drift magazine
asymptote
the poetry project
ctrl + v journal
the funambulist magazine
n+1 magazine (signed onto the open letter and they have many pro-palestine articles, but i'm not sure if they have published palestinian poets specifically)
hammer & hope (signed onto the letter but they are a new magazine only on their second issue and don't appear to have published any palestinian poets yet)
on twitter, a viral thread started where people around the world shared their translations of “If I must die”, the last work of Dr Refaat Alareer also known as "the voice of Gaza". A beloved poet, teacher and life-long activist for Palestine, he was recently assassinated along with members of his extended family by a targeted Israeli air strike. His loss leaves a hole in the heart of palestinians all over the world.
Below the cut, I’ll be posting the translations of his poem, with links to the original posts. Unfortunately, tumblr limits posts to a maximum of 30 images. I will update when I can.