No Pinkwashing the Israeli Military at OJMCHE!

No Pinkwashing the Israeli Military at OJMCHE!

Dear Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education,

We are writing to you about the National Coming Out Day speaking event sponsored by A Wider Bridge, featuring Captain Ofer Erez of Jerusalem Open House and formerly an officer of the IDF. As members of Portland's Jewish, Palestinian, LGBTQI+, and allied communities, neither Erez, A Wider Bridge, nor the IDF represent our interests or values.

A Wider Bridge presents itself as a big-tent and apolitical organization for queer and trans rights in Israel. In fact, their mission is simply to build support for Israel. They make no mention of defense of LGBTQI+ people's rights, or development of LGBTQI+ Jewish community. They claim to be inclusive, yet exclude Palestinian LGBTQI+ community and any Jew who questions Israeli policies. This is a classic example of pinkwashing--a cynical marketing tactic used by corporations and governments to promote themselves to a liberal audience. Pinkwashers brand themselves as queer friendly to deflect attention from their negative actions, actions which directly hurt people like us and fail to serve our needs. A Wider Bridge's purpose is to market the state of Israel as an LGBTQI+ friendly progressive democracy in order to deflect attention from its violations of human rights and international law, the military and political occupation of Palestine, the theft of land and natural resources, the displacement, physical violence, torture, and indefinite detention of Palestinian people. Persecution is not a Jewish value, and this is not who we are, as Oregonians, as Jews and allies, as queers, as the people who sign this letter, as human beings.

Captain Erez was instrumental in policy changes that created more transgender inclusion in the Israeli military. While we honor and celebrate increased safety and openness for queer and trans people everywhere, we cannot celebrate Erez or the IDF. The IDF surveils Palestinian LGBTQI+ people and threatens to out them unless they become informants. Queer and transgender Palestinians also deserve life, human, and civil rights. Rather than be given a platform to speak, Captain Erez should be given the defendant's chair in a trial. In his command role, was he individually responsible for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law?

We recognize A Wider Bridge's work as the cynical marketing campaign it is, and we encourage you to distance yourselves from them. Working with A Wider Bridge alienates the very LGBTQI+ communities this event purportes to serve, as many of the signatures on this letter show. In a time of increased antisemitism and racism, Holocaust education is more important than ever, as is an inclusive Jewish community. To further this, we need institutions we can trust, not programming from groups who use a veneer of support for marginalized groups to further their own objectives, much less objectives that oppress marginalized groups of any kind.

We applaud the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education in your efforts to include queer and trans Jews in your programming, and we challenge you to honor the memory of the Holocaust and your mission through programming that strengthens all those who struggle for liberation. Although this choice of speaker is misguided, we know supporting the struggle for liberation is at the core of Judaism, and we are preparing for your consideration a list of speakers and leaders who uphold this precious commandment.  Next National Coming Out Day, help us tell a story where coming out does not end with increased power for an occupation force, but instead inspires an ever broadening coalition to fulfill your mission statement. Together, we can resist indifference and discrimination and not only envision, but enact a just and inclusive world.

Signed: