Support Independent Jewish Voice’s 2024 Fall Fundraiser today.
A letter from our National Coordinator, Corey Balsam:
To our community,
I don’t know about you, but after almost a year of Israeli genocide in Gaza, I’m utterly exhausted and heartbroken. The daily images of Palestinians being murdered, the endless attempts at silencing and defaming our movement, our government’s despicable complicity.
We can’t let this go on.
As we approach the anniversary of October 7th, a year since the start of Israel’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in Gaza, IJV is hoping to raise $100,000 to step up our collective fight against this genocide.
Can you donate now to help us meet this moment?
Independent Jewish Voices is among a growing constellation of organizations in Canada and around the world working to do everything in our power to stop Israel’s crimes against humanity.
One of our roles as an anti-Zionist Jewish organization in the movement is to make it clear that groups like CIJA, B’nai Brith, and Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center do not speak for Canadian Jews as a whole. Despite what they claim, there is nothing Jewish about supporting genocide, apartheid, and occupation. Anti-Zionist Jews play a major role in the Palestine solidarity movement, drawing on our people’s proud social justice tradition.
In many ways, IJV and our Jewish movement partners are today’s true guardians of the Jewish social justice tradition and the post-Holocaust ethos of “Never Again”. For us, Never Again has always meant Never Again for Anyone–not only for us Jews.
Much to the chagrin of the Israel-aligned institutional Jewish community, we’re growing dramatically. On October 6th, we had 13 chapters. Today we have 24 nationwide, and our membership has nearly doubled in size. We have gone through unprecedented growth as an organization, and we know this is only the beginning. But to sustain this growth, we need our community’s help.
This summer we received news of what is perhaps our biggest victory ever: the Canada Revenue Agency’s decision to revoke the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund of Canada. We had been fighting for this for nearly 15 years through our #StopJNFCanada campaign, which played a crucial part in the CRA’s decision. This victory strikes right at the heart of Zionist settler-colonialism and is already having ripple effects both here in Canada and around the world.
The JNF decision shows that the tide is turning, and that now is the time to put even more pressure on the government to take action against organizations complicit in Israeli war crimes. We recently launched a joint campaign calling on the Canadian government to take action against registered charities that support extremist settlers and the Israeli military. This campaign has gotten global attention, and it’s just the beginning, so stay tuned for more on this and adjacent work in the coming weeks.
We’ve also had some super important legal victories related to the campus encampment movement–which many of our members took part in–including significant precedents on freedom of expression.
In addition, we have had important wins via the #CeasefireNow and #ArmsEmbargoNow coalitions we belong to, anti-racist antisemitism trainings we’ve delivered, our extensive media appearances, deepened relations with politicians, and dozens upon dozens of powerful protests and direct actions.
There’s still so much more we can and must do to help end this genocide. But we can’t do it without our community.
We’re hoping to reach our $100,000 goal by the end of the Jewish High Holidays, on October 24, to fuel our collective work through 5785.
The one year anniversary of Israel’s ongoing genocide lies within the 10 Days of Awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a time when Jews around the world are called upon to repent for our collective transgressions and commit to doing better.
As we head into the Jewish New Year, there’s nothing we at IJV are more committed to than an end to the genocide and a pursuit–at long last–of true justice.
That’s why we’re asking for your support now, to start the year 5785 off on the right foot-so that we can continue to grow our movement and do everything we can to help step up our fight against this genocide.
If Zionist organizations can mobilize financial resources at this time (and we know they can, en masse), then so can we.
Please donate to IJV during our 2024 Fall Fundraising Drive between today and October 24. Any amount counts, and if you are able to stretch your giving this year to help us meet the moment, all the better.
Can we count on your solidarity?
Thanks so much for your support. We’re in this together.
In solidarity,
Corey
National Coordinator, IJV
