It’s been a busy time for Bay Area IJAN this fall. In September/October we celebrated IJAN’s first anniversary with some successful action and reflection. An action took place at a Trader Joe’s store on September 27 in Oakland, calling on the store to deshelve their Israeli products. About 25 of us went into the store, and talked and gave out information to shoppers and workers, calling attention to the Israeli goods in the store. We took over the front of the store for a good while and spoke out making our case as Jewish people why we supported a boycott of Israeli goods. We presented a letter to the store manager asking the store to join the international boycott campaign. Bay IJAN also had a first anniversary tachlich event and dinner to reflect on the past year and renew our commitment to working on Palestine liberation.

IJAN was involved in planning with others and taking part in a quickly pulled together and very effective action to protest former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaking October 22 at the World Affairs Council of San Francisco as part of a US tour. A Bay IJAN member disrupted Olmert’s speech and got arrested with 21 other people shouting every time he spoke in the meeting, while a number of us protested outside the hotel with about 250 people furious that a war criminal had been invited to speak. A good Associated Press article on the protests was published in two Bay Area newspapers.

There was a benefit event the following day for three groups one of which was IJAN, with the release of a new “Celebrate People’s History” poster honoring Jewish involvement in anti-colonial struggles. The poster highlights Matzpen, the first anti-Zionist organization in Israel which included Palestinians and Jews. See poster below and at this link. http://www.justseeds.org/celebrate_peoples_history/02matzpen.html

Matzpen CPH Poster Released

{image_1}

A new Celebrate People's History poster has just come out: Matzpen by Joshua Kahn Russell and Dan Berger.

Bay IJAN is evaluating our next steps in local organizing as we move into our second year.