Wednesday, January 10, 2007

 

ADL Finding Our Voice Conference


This should be a lot of fun for the whole family...
From Liane Baskin - LBaskin@adl.org :



We hope you will be able to attend Finding Our Voice: The Conference for
Progressives Constructively Addressing Anti-Semitism, organized by a
coalition of organizations and volunteer activists (email me for a list of co-sponsors). It will take place on Sunday, January 28, 2007, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.,
at the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, 1835 Ellis Street (at Scott
Street) in San Francisco. We first conceived of this conference in late
2005. As you know, Northern California, and the Bay Area in particular, is
well-known for its progressive politics and appreciation of diversity. With
increasing frequency, however, we at the ADL hear from politically active
and progressive Jews feeling alienated from their traditional allies in
social justice and civil rights movements. Much of the anti-Jewish sentiment
they tell us they encounter is wrapped up in debates over Israel-Palestine -
especially within the anti-Iraq war movement, and in the calls for boycotts,
divestment, and sanctions - and the use of classical anti-Jewish rhetoric
and imagery in the criticism of Israel. In addition, we have noted the
tendency among some to misleadingly identify Jews as a universally white,
privileged and oppressive class worthy of opprobrium. It is as though many
Jews are being forced to choose among their core identities and values:
Jewish, progressive, concern for social justice and universal human rights,
etc.

The central mission of the Finding Our Voice Conference is three part:
1)To educate politically active and progressive Jews and allies about the
roots, nature, and extent of the new anti-Semitism and its interplay with
traditional anti-Semitism;
2)To mobilize and empower participants to counter this phenomenon; and
3)To galvanize a broad-based coalition of organizations and leaders to join
together in continuing to recognize, expose, and resist this trend toward
anti-Semitism.

"Finding Our Voice" will enable progressive Jews to constructively address
the increasingly pervasive problem of the "new anti-Semitism," or
anti-Semitism from the extreme left. The day will be comprised of
educational workshops and skills sessions on issues ranging from Jewish
self-esteem to anti-Semitism in the labor movement. The keynote speaker for
the conference is the renowned English lawyer and writer Anthony Julius.
Julius is a highly-regarded English writer and lawyer who has gained
world-wide prominence for challenging all forms of anti-Semitism. In 2000 he
successfully defended Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt against spurious
libel charges brought by the Holocaust denier David Irving.





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