Little serious post I’ve wanted to make: Here is my Pesach Haggadah (book you read over Passover) that I’ll be using for years to come, and I wanted to give a brief overview of the movement.
The Israeli Black Panthers were a protest and civil disobedience movement in Israel of second generation Jewish migrants from the North African and Middle Eastern region. They were influenced by the Black Panthers of the same name and held anti-Zionist roots from high school and university students, protesting the rebuilding of Jerusalem that would displace them.
They protested inadequate housing for their community and being an other in the mechanics of Jerusalem apartheid, especially when their neighbourhood (Musrara) they were moved to, to displace Palestinians and provide their own refuge, was tarnished by war in 1949 (the Nakba). As with many stories of black resistance, it was from whilst being a neighbourhood of mines, crime, and revived by its own residents with the Arab contexts and cultures of both Israelis and Palestinians despite active border conflict and mines. It is now the centre for arts and culture in Jerusalem.
Folding in to the unification of Jerusalem in the Six Day War of 1967, residents didn't give much reprieve, as they were treated with suspicion for cohabitating with Palestinians that stayed despite thorough expulsion. Soon after, the demand for housing and wider settlement in Jerusalem from other major immigration waves from Eurasian countries were prefaced with their discrimination yet again.
They were denied protests in 1971, the Panthers passed out leaflets for popular demonstrations and protested despite the fact, with many jumping in as Musrara residents were terrified of yet again being othered in ongoing colonial activities as part of unification.
The Panthers move into politics was difficult and failed to garner wider support. As the protests rolled on, their platform of social justice and peace for Palestinians and many alumni are now in Hadash, the leftist non-Zionist party. There’s now, in the light of so much injustice and genocide of Palestinians in reaction to violence, more active conservation efforts to today that mention of active police infiltration and dismembering of the grassroots movement that led to the current Likud government successes. This book is one of such, with excerpts of their own Haggadot that was recovered.
Their movement wasn’t as successful as the original Black Panthers, but seeing the photos of all varieties of people standing up for black and brown Jews that then flowed into general demands for social justice and freedom always will mean a lot to me and what I still want to see in the world.
I hope Palestine can experience this freedom in earnest soon. 🇵🇸❤️