Dear Friend,
As a supporter of Ameinu, we wanted to update you on emergency actions we are taking to counter threats to the United States, Israel and the American Jewish community in the wake of the election of Donald Trump and the growing dominance of forces in Israel that are hostile to a two-state sol
ution and Israel’s democratic character. The work we are undertaking in the year ahead depends on you…so we hope you will renew your membership for 2017 today.
While we are responding to challenges at home and those faced by our Israeli social justice movement partners, Ameinu’s focus is on Donald Trump’s election and its empowerment of dangerous elements in the Israeli Right who threaten Israel’s future as a secure, Jewish and democratic state. This is the essential calling of Ameinu — the American Progressive Zionist movement.
Ameinu is committed to this struggle by:
- Rallying our community against the nomination of David Friedman — President Trump’s extremist choice for Ambassador to Israel. Friedman represents a devastating departure from decades of bipartisan consensus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the empowerment of reactionary forms of Zionism. Due to our close ties with liberals and progressives across America, Ameinu has organized hundreds of Rabbis and community members to oppose Friedman. We also have taken a key leadership role in organizing scholars of the Holocaust to counter this nomination.
- Opposing narrow visions of what it means to be pro-Israel. Based on our vision we have opposed the Jewish Home Party’s declaration that Trump’s win ends the era of the Palestinian State, the blatant racism of the governing coalition when it delegitimized the voting rights of Israeli Arab citizens, and particularly the travesty of the recently enacted “regularization law,” or “land-grab law”, which legalizes theft of land from Palestinians. To be pro-Israel is to struggle against racism, annexation and the end of the two-state solution.
- Challenging the Zionist Organization of America and other groups here at home when they discredit Zionism in the eyes of Americans, both Jewish and non-Jewish alike, as a violent, reactionary, anti-democratic movement. Ameinu will never allow the Zionist Right — notwithstanding the millions spent by Sheldon Adelson — to risk Israel’s future and undermine the strength of our movement by cozying up to the Trump Administration and the defenders of an unjust, insecure and unsustainable status quo — or worse — in Israel.
We hope you will join Ameinu in rejecting the “new normal” of racism, xenophobia and hate in Israel and the United States.
Ameinu’s strength lies in its grassroots activists and membership. When Ameinu fights for a progressive Israel and liberal Zionist values, we represent our thousands of members who stand w
ith us. And one of them is you!
Please join Ameinu by sending a check to the address below, or click here to conveniently join online. Ameinu Membership Levels are Under 30 for $36, Individual for $50, Couple for $80 and Sustaining for $150. Please consider the Sustaining Level to further our ability to make a difference, or even join Shomrei Tzedek (Guardians of Justice), our monthly giving program.
Together, we can stay prepared, engaged and activated to respond to threats, at home or abroad, throughout the years of the Trump presidency and to ensure that the vision of Israeli Right, and their American friends, is defeated.
There is great strength in numbers! Join us during such challenging times.
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