A Letter to Our Community About the Escalating Crisis in Israel/Palestine

We recognize the multitudes of complexity surrounding Israel/Palestine. We each have previously and continue to feel overwhelmed trying to understand the full history and context of this conflict and know that it can be intimidating, vulnerable, and fear inducing to speak up in such a polarized political climate.

Here’s what we do know:
As relational therapists trained to consider the systems we live in and engage with on individual, relationship, community and societal levels, we see time and time again how treating symptoms does not change root causes and instead works to uphold systems of oppression, keeping oppressed people oppressed.

As an American Jew and a Ukrainian-American Jew who fled religious persecution, our hearts are breaking right now from the horrific brutality of civilians and the many lives lost in Israel. We feel so much fear, rage, hurt, and immense amounts of grief. We have grown up knowing that so many people believe we should not exist., we have felt increasingly unsafe as antisemitism has increased drastically. We hold generations of trauma and collective pain in our bodies, our stories, and our history, and also in our unwavering love, joy, and resilience.

And as humans, we know first and foremost that life, safety, and freedom are sacred. A basic human right. Violence does not bring about peace—instead, more violence.

The weight of tremendous loss and intergenerational trauma is almost unbearable right now, and we are on the other side of the world. And still, we refuse to let this pain erode our humanity. We refuse to stand by and watch as more and more civilians, many of them children, will die. We refuse to have our Jewish grief and trauma, our Jewish history of unfathomable persecution and genocide, weaponized to justify the starvation and genocide of Palestinians. Vengeance is not the answer. Our liberation is bound together—both Israelis and Palestinians will not be safe and violence will continue to escalate while Palestinians remain oppressed. As @jewishvoiceforpeace says, “The only way forward is addressing the root causes of this violence: Israeli military occupation and apartheid, and ending U.S. complicity in this oppression.”

From If Not Now “Israeli leaders have ordered everyone in Northern Gaza, 1.1 million people to flee. This is impossible and would lay the groundwork for ethnic cleansing on a massive scale. All week, we’ve seen Israelis dehumanize Palestinians, cutting off supplies to electricity and calling them ‘human animals.’ We know where this will lead: ethnic cleansing and genocide.”

Please take action. Call your senators and congress representatives. Demand a ceasefire. Demand that US aid be withheld until Israel ends its occupation and that humanitarian aid be given access to Gaza immediately. Follow the work and join the actions of @ifnotnoworg, Jewish Voice for Peace, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Review and support the different organizations and media suggested in this So Informed post about “What You Can Do Beyond Reading the News About Gaza.” Watch this video about the Nakba and the realities of the occupation by world-renowned Trauma expert and Jewish person, Gabor Maté.

“Never Again” means never again for all of us.

In Solidarity,

Kaitlin & Paul Kindman

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