Chanukah and half a century

As well as seeing wonderful performers, singing, laughing, talking and participating in a quirky, non-competitive quiz (everyone was a winner), guests learnt about many aspects of the Jewish Socialists’ Group and its long history of campaigning  for justice, equality and peace, which they may not have known about.

David Rosenberg spoke movingly about comrades we have lost who gave so much to the group and helped develop our political ideas and inspired our activism over the last five decades. You can read about them here.

We asked people to support the Israeli/Palestinian Green Olive Collective in their collaboration with a women-led Palestinian farmers’ co-operative in Burin, in the occupied West Bank. Erez Bleicher made a moving video appeal describing how they are working together to plant new olive trees to replace those deliberately burnt and destroyed by settlers. (You can read his speech below)

We collected a grand total of £816, which we will be sending to them.

You can find out more about Green Olive – who offer tours and regular online webinars – and also donate to support their work on their website at https://greenolivetours.com

Speech from Erez Bleicher on behalf of Green Olive Collective

Hello everyone! My name is Erez Bleicher and I’m the Advocacy and Membership Director of the Green Olive Collective, an advocacy, information, and tour guiding center committed to a democratic future and an end to the ongoing displacement of Palestinians. We provide communities around the world with insight into the apartheid policies of the occupation and the resources to engage in meaningful advocacy in solidarity with Palestinians through a variety of platforms that allow people to learn about the lived reality of occupation, engage in advocacy in the places they live, and ground that advocacy in direct relationships with Palestinians living under occupation.

Over the last year we have developed a growing relationship with the Burin Land and Farming Cooperative, a women-led agricultural collective and farmers cooperative in the Nablus District.

We are honoured to partner with them now during the olive planting season for our recently launched Sowing Solidarity Campaign to counter the JNF by planting Palestinian olive trees instead of settler forests. The Jewish National Fund is best known around the world for its forestation, tree planting, and environmental conservation efforts. This ethical image stands in contrast to the central role it plays in the ongoing dispossession of Palestinans on both sides of the Green Line, exemplified by the fact that more than two thirds of JNF-KKL forests are deliberately located on ruins of 87 Palestinian villages depopulated during the Nakba. 

The JNF is famous for its blue collection boxes and fundraising campaigns. As it continues to plant conifer forests on Palestinian land in the Galilee, Naqab, and West Bank, many thousands of Palestinian olive trees are at the same time being burned in arson attacks by settlers with soldiers standing by or accompanying the attackers. In the village of Burin alone, located between Huwara and Nablus in the northern West Bank, more than 2000 olive trees were burned in the past year.

As you know, the holiday of Chanukkah, coming up this Wednesday, centers around olive oil. In the Channukah narrative, when the Jews went to rededicate the Beit Hamikdash after fighting off an occupying military, only one small jar of pure olive oil remained with which to light the Menorah. Miraculously, this oil lasted for eight days, enabling the Jews to rededicate their sacred sites.

The olive tree is a sacred symbol in Palestinian life and a staple of Palestinian society, politics, culture, and economy. It represents the rootedness, steadfastness, and enduring resilience of the Palestinian people. Please listen now to the words of Shirrin Najjar, a member of the Burin Land and Farming Cooperative, as she speaks about the central importance of olive trees in the life of Burin. And please give all you can to replant as many olive trees as possible of the 2000 burned this past year. Every sapling counts, and I will be joining with other solidarity activists this January to plant the saplings with the farmers of Burin and rehabilitate the groves.

Sincere thanks to the Jewish Socialists’ Group for all you do and congratulations on 50 years of organizing. Yesher koach and hanukkah sameach. I’m excited to continue building transnational solidarity and organize with you in the coming year in support of Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.