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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As we welcomethe Jewish new year, we look back at the year behind us to address ourcomplicity in the many injustices of our time by recommitting to our collectiveresponsibility for justice and humanity. In particular, we reflect on the commonplight and struggle of political prisoners and the many people across the worldwhose dignity is denied and liberty is threatened by mass incarceration andmilitary blockades.

We are inspiredin our struggle for justice by the sacrifice and courage of so many in the yearbehind us - the late Troy Anthony Davis, the Georgia prison strikers, Mumia AbuJamal, Ahmad Sa'adat, Leonard Peltier, the people of Gazaconfined to an open-air prison - and in front of us: the Palestinian prisonersand those jailed at Pelican Bay State Prison and other California prisons onhunger strike and carrying out civil disobedience in defense of the most basicof dignity and rights.

On September30, 2011, Palestinians across occupied Palestine - from the West Bank to theState of Israel to Gaza - put out a call for solidarity with Palestinianpolitical prisoners.  In response to this call, we Jews of conscience intend to startour fast of atonement a day early, on Friday, October 7, and take action todemand:

• An end to the isolation of Ahmad Sa'adat - General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine;
• A meeting of the demands of the civil disobedience and hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons;
• An end to the death penalty in the United States and all other places it remains a State practice
• A meeting of the demands of the hunger strike at California state prisons
• An end to the Israeli blockade on Gaza and unconditional and permanent opening of the Rafah crossing