Never Again for Anyone
Never Again for Anyone
A Permanent Ceasefire on people, place, and all else which makes home
The following short essay reflects on a recent march and rally in Los Angeles (one of many like it all over the world due to the humanitarian crisis faced by the Palestinian people in Gaza).
Maybe it’s uncommon near the end of the year to write about another tear in the fabric of our society, or about another fracture between an already polarized country mired in racial and class inequality, especially since people typically spend the year’s last few months on family time, if not on taking stock of what’s still left instead of what’s missing.
But this year is not typical. This year, on Thanksgiving day, the Macy’s Thanskgiving parade in New York was interrupted by protestors who called for an end to Israel’s bombing of the people of Gaza, which by then was in its 47th consecutive day. One member of the Washpee Wampanoag tribe stood atop a parade float and raised a Palestinian flag, while other protestors raised a banner noting that what happened to Indigenous people in the Americas “was genocide then,” just as what’s happening to the people of Palestine is “genocide now.”
Eight days prior, at a rally and march in Hollywood, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors herself noted that “what we are witnessing right now is NOT NORMAL.”
Indeed, on the same day as Macy’s parade, the United Nations observed that since October 7th Israel’s bombing campaign had destroyed at least 45% of Gaza’s housing units and severed at least 1.7 million Gazans from their homes.
If the same were to take place in the city of Los Angeles, it would mean more than 670,000 homes razed to the ground, or nearly three times more than earthquakes destroyed in Turkey and Syria this past February. Were L.A. divided between north and south, as Israel’s military has done in Gaza to bomb the north, not only would all of the Hollywood Hills and San Fernando Valley be smoking piles of rubble, but homes from Laurel Canyon to Bel Air and Brentwood would also be cratered; landmarks from the Griffith Observatory to the UCLA campus and Getty Center would be relics of the past, while some 1.8 million people throughout these areas would be left with no shelter shortly before the winter season.
More recently, the World Health Organization also stated that the Gazan population is now at risk of famine and even more death by disease than from bombing due to a complete collapse of infrastructure. People across the world are enraged at both the Israeli and U.S. governments for this, and all the more so given the latter’s funding for Israel’s military with U.S. tax dollars since 1949. What differs about this moment, however, is that people are no longer calling out just the U.S. government’s role in unfettered violence against defenseless people, but also the logic of American institutions in the 21st century committed to it as the status quo. This includes Hollywood, or the entertainment world, where most recently, critics of Israel’s occupation and destruction of Palestinian land have been promptly labeled as anti-semitic and fired from their roles.
This clash between politics and increasingly more people’s personal and professional lives is what made the Ceasefire rally and march in Hollywood earlier this month not only provocative, but radical and refreshing. The event was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which was founded by UC Berkeley undergrads more than two decades ago and is now a national organization hosting nearly thirty different chapters across the U.S.
Despite the rainy afternoon, between 1,000 to 1,500 people, mostly clad in Black per the recommendation of JVP, made their way to De Longpre Park near Sunset boulevard, where the protest began. A little after 2:30 PM, one of the organizers made a rallying opening statement and Tongva land acknowledgement, and then led the crowd in chants, including spirited cries for a “Ceasefire now!” and “Not in Our Name!” Afterwards, a rabbi was brought up to say a prayer for the event, followed by a range of speakers.
Hedab Tarifi, of the Islamic Center of Southern California, was among the speakers. Tarifi noted that she was born in Gaza, and that over her lifetime, more than a hundred of her family members had been killed by Israel’s occupation of Palestine; Tarifi also called out the latest bombing campaign’s use of white phosphorus in Gaza and Lebanon, which is banned internationally, as well as Israel’s attacks on civilians and journalists, churches, hospitals, and even agricultural fields to prevent families from harvesting.
“I urge you to research it,” she also said, beckoning the crowd to continue showing support for a Palestine free of state violence, apartheid, and mass killing, and to “Let Gaza live.”
Tarifi’s address was followed by Patrisse Cullors, who noted that her first march against state violence was during the U.S. Invasion of Iraq in 2003, since even then “An Iraqi child mattered to me just as much as a Black and Brown child here in Los Angeles.”
Michael Wolfe then addressed the crowd, noting about the prominent presence of Jews in Hollywood that, “Many of us and our [Jewish] ancestors came to this city and the entertainment industry because we were excluded elsewhere. These industries have long been sites of labor organizing, critiquing state violence and storytelling that speaks truth to power, in which Jewish creatives have often been central.”
“[But] Jewish people in entertainment have been blacklisted and muzzled for such expressions in the past. And we see this repression repeated against those who support Palestinians and oppose genocide and occupation today,” he continued.
Wolfe’s statements were galvanizing, though they shouldn’t be misinterpreted as an admission of the false trope that “Jews run Hollywood.” Rather, they were special because it’s a fact that the entertainment industry’s enduring connections to Jewish communities can be traced back to the days when European and American elites barred them from more reputable trades, inadvertently making room for Jewish creators to develop an art-form that still brings together poor and immigrant classes.
Wolfe went on to invite those picketing with SAG-AFTRA (the Actor's Union) and WGA (the Writers’ union) this past summer to “JOIN US!” in calling for a ceasefire. With Tarifi standing by his side, the show of both unity and clarity between Muslim and Jewish Americans demanding an end to state violence was something I’d not seen on the streets of Los Angeles in years, let alone in the tourist-driven Hollywood area, where consumption and entertainment, not calls for social justice, rule the day.
After about an hour of rallying at De Longpre Park, JVP led the crowd north up to Hollywood Boulevard. On reaching Highland Avenue, dozens of JVP organizers took a seat at the intersection, which by then had been cordoned off from car traffic by the LAPD.
There, as the sun set and rain continued to pour, more speakers were introduced to the crowd, most of whom did not have umbrellas in their hands. One of the speakers, Maya, with Students for Justice in Palestine, spoke to the crowd about the Israeli state’s treatment of non-European Jews upon their arrival to the state in 1948.
“I would like to recall that 70% of the Israeli population is Mizrahim (a term coined by Israel to denote Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent). When Mizrahim Jews arrived on boats, and on planes to the state, they were sprayed with DDT.”
“As soon as they had moved into the 1948 occupied territory, they were put in enclaves too, and they were referred to as an inferior group. When Ethiopian Jews arrived to the state of Israel [in the 2010s], they were sterilized.”
Maya’s words also emphasized the importance of shining a light on both Palestinian people’s experiences under occupation, as well as the suffering of Jewish communities forced to live in an apartheid state at the command of the Israeli government.
“The occupier also suffers with us. Remember that. These people are not soldiers by choice. They are forced to enlist! So why are we allowing for these governments to dictate how we live our lives?”
Maya’s fervent address was followed by Konstantine Anthony, the Mayor of Burbank. He struck a different chord with the crowd, but one just as resonant when he pointed out that “66%...or a super-majority of the American people support a ceasefire…That number jumps to 80% when you just poll registered Democrats, and last time I checked, our president was a Democrat…I don’t know why Joe Biden is not agreeing with 80% of his votes!”
The only elected official present at the march, Anthony also called attention to the fact that Adam Schiff, another registered Democrat and Hollywood’s local official at the House of Representatives, had failed to call for a ceasefire despite the wishes of many of his constituents. As a result, Anthony rescinded his endorsement of Schiff for California’s senate seat in 2024. It was another critical statement from the event that may have garnered little to no headlines nationally, but which reverberated fiercely through the intersection as onlookers rallied for the Mayor’s showing up and calling on his colleagues to do the same.
Anthony’s address was followed by Matt Lieb, an L.A. comic who admitted he is “not usually a protestor,” but who nonetheless informed the crowd he was “so proud to be marching with so many Jews and Gentiles of all ages, races, genders and nationalities…brave enough to demand an immediate ceasefire.”
In between a few quips that sparked comic relief for an audience in great need of it, Lieb was dead serious when declaring that “As someone in the entertainment industry…I am tired of the intimidation, the punishment, and the blacklisting of both Jews and Gentiles who have the guts to say what every major human rights organization has said: Israel is an apartheid state!”
“I know actors who have been dropped by their agents for this. I know agents who have been fired from their agency for this. And I know entire writers’ rooms who don’t dare speak up, and I do not blame them…but despite what these handful of Zionist bullies believe…I know for a fact that the vast majority of Jewish and Gentile writers, actors, producers crew and assistants in this town STAND WITH PALESTINE.”
Just this summer, when long-time East Hollywood and Dayton Heights resident Kiwi Burch and her family were honored for the compassion the Albright-Marshalls showed to their Japanese-American neighbors after the latter were labeled a threat and uprooted from their homes, it shone a light on how ideals about justice and even “freedom from tyranny” bore fruit not because of government—least of all one so addicted to war—but because of small, working-class communities like theirs.
As her neighbor, another long-time East Hollywood and Dayton Heights resident, Takashi Hoshizaki, noted about being visited by Kiwi’s relatives during his and his family’s uprooting, when they treated him to a home-cooked meal, including ice cream, it was an act of humanity he would “remember for the rest of his life.”
Similarly, for Palestinian and Jewish communities in Los Angeles, not to mention their allies, the out-pour of support in Hollywood for peace, justice, and even reconciliation may also be an act of humanity they’ll remember for the rest of their lives; perhaps for some it may even be one they’ll honor as faithfully as Areli honors her ancestors from Venice to Oaxaca every Dia de Muertos. If so, then despite the weight of so much loss and mourning most recently, this just may be how our communities yet again lead where governments leave us, extending offerings to each other despite divisions that would be wedged between us.
J.T.