Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territories — April 2, 2025
A statement by the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) Pacific Region, and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC) condemning the April 1 protest outside the JCC fails to mention a crucial fact: the protestors themselves were Jewish.
Jewish residents of Vancouver organized and led this demonstration to oppose the presence of Israeli Consul General Idit Shamir, a representative of a government currently facing trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Consul’s visits have been hosted by the Jewish Federation, whose offices are in the JCC.
Contrary to the statement, this was not an attack on the Jewish community, nor an act of intimidation, but a principled stand against Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Protestors, including descendants of Holocaust survivors, staged a peaceful “die-in” outside the JCC to highlight Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians. They reject Israel’s use of Jewish identity and historical trauma to justify ethnic cleansing, displacement, and mass violence. These Jews of conscience make it clear: “Israel does not act in our name.”
The failure to acknowledge that this was a Jewish-led protest is both deliberately misleading and harmful. By erasing Jewish voices that oppose Israel’s actions, the organizations who released this statement falsely equates protest against Zionism with antisemitism, obfuscating the definition of real antisemitism and erasing the diversity within Jewish communities.
Furthermore, the claim that this protest amounts to collective punishment is deeply ironic and troubling, given that Israel is actively carrying out the most extreme form of collective punishment against the people of Gaza. Israel’s deliberate destruction of homes, hospitals, and infrastructure, the forced displacement of nearly all Gazans, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war exemplify true collective punishment — the mass targeting of an entire population. To condemn a peaceful protest while ignoring Israel’s real and devastating collective punishment exposes a profound moral inconsistency.
We reject any attempt to silence Jewish opposition to Israel’s genocide. Protest is not a threat — it is a moral imperative. We call on community leaders, elected officials, and the public to recognize that Jewish voices for Palestinian liberation exist and will not be erased. We demand a true and permanent ceasefire, an immediate end to Israel’s siege on Gaza, a two-way arms embargo, and an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. Only through justice and accountability can there be a future of genuine safety and freedom for all.
Video: https://www.instagram.com/p/DH6mUaDyLuj
