If the occupation is going to end with the help of North American Jews, it will be owing to the growing force of millennials who stand up not only for their own rights, but the rights of others.<\/p>\n
One of these individuals has taken to social media via a series of parody videos to get her message across. As Avi Does the Holy Land<\/em> prepares to launch its second video-log season, I\u2019ve been thinking about its creator, Calgary-raised Aviva Zimmerman. When I was first alerted to \u201cAvi\u2019s\u201d Facebook page, I admit I was fooled. \u201cArab workers literally BUILDING the Tel Aviv boardwalk. And they call us a racist country?!! #TelAviv #coexistence,\u201d she wrote. I nearly shot back in anger to the mutual friend who had acquainted us, before taking a closer look. Satire is supposed to cut close to the bone, and that\u2019s certainly what Avi Does the Holy Land<\/em> does.<\/p>\n In the v-log\u2019s first season, \u201cAvi,\u201d a sexed-up Canadian Jew who \u201cwent on a Birthright trip and fell in love with Israel,\u201d skewers Israeli treatment of liberal Zionist critics, Israel\u2019s shoddy treatment of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers, Tel Aviv\u2019s party scene as counterterrorism policy and Israeli LGBTQ policy as used in the government\u2019s PR campaigns. A successful Indiegogo campaign for season 2 has now expanded to raising funds for a live show.<\/p>\n \u201cAvi\u201d is one type of millennial Jew \u2013 though, of course, a larger-than-life version. The differences in opinion and action among millennials regarding Israel, however, are real, ranging from those trying to burnish Israel\u2019s image abroad via an uncritical look at the country to those trying to tarnish every image of the country. But there is a healthy cadre of young Jews deploying a sense of solidarity with their own, as well as with the oppressed.<\/p>\n Some young Jews are gravitating to Open Hillel, to encourage a more pluralistic discourse about Israel on North American campuses, or to the Centre for Jewish Nonviolence, which takes young Jews to the West Bank for projects in solidarity with Palestinians resisting settler encroachment. At the University of British Columbia, there\u2019s the Progressive Jewish Alliance, which bills itself as \u201ca group of progressive Jews committed to creating a new, vibrant, independent Jewish space.\u201d<\/p>\n And there\u2019s IfNotNow, whose anti-occupation mission has expanded into resisting the many moves of Trump\u2019s administration. IfNotNow declares on its website, \u201cJust as Moses was commanded to return to Egypt and fight for the liberation of his people, we, too, feel called to take responsibility for the future of our community. We know the liberation of our Jewish community is bound up in the liberation of all people, particularly those in Israel and Palestine.\u201d Recently, IfNotNow created a hashtag called #ResistAIPAC. \u201cWhen the Trump Administration Goes to AIPAC, the Jewish resistance will be there to meet them,\u201d the site says.<\/p>\n With the message of Passover soon upon us again, we might best consider how to raise children whose connection to Israel can be transformed into one pushing for rights and freedom for all.<\/p>\n Mira Sucharov<\/strong> is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for <\/em>Canadian Jewish News and contributes to <\/em>Haaretz and the <\/em>Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If the occupation is going to end with the help of North American Jews, it will be owing to the growing force of millennials who stand up not only for their own rights, but the rights of others. 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