Chicago IJAN put on a successful fundraising brunch featuring homemade anti-Zionist bagels. As we enjoyed the bagels, we read articles and discussed some of the developments of the Arab Spring. The brunch was a great opportunity to get together with some of our supporters and do collective education together. Additionally we were able to raise funds to support four members’ participation in the first ever IJAN organizing institute. Thank you so much to all of our supporters! {image_3}

Batsheva Dance company, on tour form Israel, scheduled three performances in February as part of their 2012 North American tour at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Bay area organizations and members of Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), Mondoweiss, Code Pink, Global Exchange and the Palestine Solidarity Network came out to protest Batsheva participating in the "Brand Israel" campaign. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers Batsheva "the best known global ambassador of Israeli culture." Protesters were supporting the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, which is part of the growing movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on apartheid Israel.

Also this month, protesters gathered outside Roosevelt University Auditorium Theater in Chicago to voice opposition to Batsheva's presence. In New York earlier this month, protesters 80 strong showed up to let Batsheva know they were not welcome at the Brooklyn Academy of Music because of their complicity with Israeli human right's violations. Demonstrations happening across the U.S. succeeds in letting supporters of Israeli sponsored cultural affairs know that the show will not go on unprotested. Though Batsheva is touring around the U.S., Palestinian artists are regularly banned from performing in their own homeland and are targets of violence, arrests and deportation.

A member of Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT) wrote an in depth article on Indybay.org about the San Francisco action protesting Batsheva.

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