Contributors

Hakham Esther Azar is an Arab rabbi and a social worker. She is the founder of Trauma Informed Rabbinics and is currently working on a series of books and teachings that explore the way that shame is used to uphold systems of domination.

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle Eastern History Emeritus at Stanford University. His books include Was the Red Flag Flying There? Marxist Politics and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in Egypt and Israel, 1948–1965 (1990); and Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (2016).

Lily Greenberg Call is an organizer, activist, public servant, and Jewish community leader. She served as a political appointee in the Biden-Harris administration and was the only Jewish appointee to publicly resign from the administration in protest of US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Sami Shalom Chetrit is a renowned Hebrew poet and writer of Moroccan Jewish origin. He is the author of Intra-Jewish Conflict in Israel: White Jews, Black Jews (2009); Ein Hadyda (Doll’s Eye, a novel, 2007), and Jews (2014, a selection of his poetry translated into English. He has also directed several documentary films, among them The Black Panthers (in Israel) Speak, with Eli Hamo. He teaches at Sapir College in the school of audio and visual arts, Sderot, Israel.

Adina Cohen earned her law degree in 2011 while already well into her longstanding career in employment benefits. As a Senior Compliance Analyst, she is committed to ensuring fairness, clarity, and accountability in workplace benefits programs. In addition to her professional work, she has always maintained a strong commitment to public service within her county and activist communities.

Ilise Benshushan Cohen is a Sephardic Jewish scholar-activist, long-time educator, advocate, writer, and mentor. She has a Ph.D. in social and cultural anthropology focused on Israeli Mizrahi-Jewish ethnography of state violence and its connection to Palestinian experiences. She founded and organized with the JVP Atlanta chapter, the JOCSM caucus, and currently serves on the FOTONNA advisory council and the board of the Laurice Khoury Foundation. Currently, she lives in Spain with her family, creating new educational initiatives, while remaining active in advocacy, Palestine solidarity, and bringing to life meaningful Jewish rituals.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, dean of the People’s Academy of International Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and of Jewish Voice for Peace. She writes and provides legal/political commentary for regional, national and international outlets about Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory and its current genocide. See http://majoriecohn.com/.

Rabbi Michael Davis has been clergy in the Chicago Jewish community for some 30 years. He was born in the United Kingdom and grew up in Israel as an Orthodox Jew. He received advanced Orthodox yeshiva training before moving first to the Conservative and then the Reform movement. He has worked as a seminary professor specializing in Hebrew language instruction, as a cantor, and as a rabbi, now serving unaffiliated Jews (not members of any synagogue) in the Chicago area.

Hasia R. Diner is the Paul and Sylvia Steinberg Professor Emerita of Jewish History at New York University. Her books include The Jews of the United States, 1654–2000 (2004) and We Remember with Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence After the Holocaust, 1945–1962 (2009).

Marjorie N. Feld is professor of history at Babson College. She is the author of Lillian Wald: A Biography (2008); Nations Divided: American Jews and the Struggle over Apartheid (2014); and The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism (2024). In fall 2025, she was a Fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Eliana Fishman lives, works, organizes, and prays in Washington, DC. She runs a Facebook group called “A Group for Zionists to Ask Questions, and for Jewish Non- and Anti-Zionists to Answer.”

Chris Godshall-Bennet is a civil rights attorney and partner in the law firm of Lee & Godshall-Bennett, founded in 2025 to meet the demands of the current crisis. A longtime activist, he became a lawyer after a decade in the Jewish Palestine Solidarity Movement to defend the rights and political power of progressive movements in the face of unprecedented repression. Chris has represented victims of police brutality, students facing retaliation for their political activism, prisoners denied basic care and dignity, employees fighting workplace discrimination, and non-citizens facing detention and deportation. Chris is the former Legal Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the nation’s largest Arab civil rights organization. His work has been featured in CNN, NPR, CBS, NBC, The Jerusalem Post, The Middle East Eye, and more. Chris received his B.A. in Political Science and Middle Eastern, South Asian, & African Studies from Columbia University and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Ariel Gold is the national co-director at Code Pink and coordinates its Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaigns. She holds a B.A. in policy analysis and management from Cornell University and a master’s in social work from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Noah Habeeb is the Immigration Clinic Director at the Ark at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah (CBST), which provides pro se legal assistance to immigrant New Yorkers. Noah previously was a 2017-2018 Urban Fellow in the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA). He has an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts UEP and a BA in International Relations and Spanish from Tufts University. He is a DOJ fully accredited representative, one of roughly 200 non-attorneys nationwide authorized to represent immigrants before USCIS, immigration courts, and the Board of Immigration Appeals.

Dr. Claris Harbon is Doctor of Civil Law (Yale Law School; McGill University; Tel Aviv University Law School); Associate Professor, International Law, Gender, Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco; Former Director, Hillary Clinton Center for Women’s Empowerment; and CEO and Founder of CLARISMA, Consulting Services.

Linda Hess is Emerita faculty in Stanford University’s Department of Religious Studies, where she taught for 21 years. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Bunting Fellowship, a Fulbright scholarship, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Linda is the author of The Bijak of Kabir (2002), Singing Emptiness: Kumar Gandharva Peforms the Poetry of Kabir (2009), Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and Performative Worlds in North India (2015), and Shining Darkness: Tales of Violence and Love (2026), a memoir in essays. Her major new translation of Kabir poetry is forthcoming from Harvard University Press.

Rabbi Linda Holtzman, a queer, antizionist, Reconstructionist rabbi, was one of the first women rabbis to preside over a synagogue. She now heads the Tikkun Olam Chavurah, a prayer group in Philadelphia that pursues social justice work as a community and teaches at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. She is part of the New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Rabbis for Ceasefire.

Yael Horowitz is a scholar-practitioner of Yiddish theatre and dance. She is a PhD student in the Theatre and Performance program at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her research focuses on friendship as a site of Yiddish cultural transmission both historically and today. She is a Yiddish dance leader, puppeteer, and director. Most recently she directed a full-length puppet show about Yosl Cutler and Zuni Maud and has been working on the People’s Puppet Parade since 2022.

Sim Kern is the best-selling author of Genocide Bad: Notes on Palestine, Jewish History, and Collective Liberation and The Free People’s Village. As a journalist, Sim has investigated petrochemical polluters and exposed wrongdoing in the state takeover of public schools in Houston, Texas, where Sim was a reading teacher for ten years. Sim is also a book influencer and an activist who has mobilized followers to raise over $600,000 in direct aid for families in Gaza.

Mira Klein holds a B.A. in government and environmental studies from Wesleyan University, from which she graduated in 2017. A Diasporic Jew living in Minneapolis, she has worked as a CREATE Initiative research associate for a University of Minnesota project combating “green gentrification.”

Sydney Levy (he/him), is a founding member of JSWANA Bay, a Bay Area antizionist collective of Jews originating from southwest Asia and North Africa (commonly known as the Middle East). Sydney sits on the advisory board of the Center for Jewish NonViolence (CJNV) and is also a long time Jewish Voice for Peace member. Sydney traveled with CJNV teams to engage in solidarity presence in the Occupied West Bank, with Palestinian sheep herders in Masafer Yatta (South of Hebron-el-Khalil) in 2024, and with Palestinian olive farmers in Burin (South of Nablus) in 2025. Born in Venezuela, Sydney became an accidental settler in Occupied East Jerusalem before moving to the United States. He currently resides in unceded Ohlone Territory (commonly referred to as Oakland, CA) together with his husband of 36 years.

Ben Lorber works as Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a social movement research and strategy center, where he focuses on white Christian nationalism and antisemitism. Lorber has been part of the American Jewish anti-Zionist movement for over a decade, and has written for The Nation, Jewish Currents, and other outlets. He is the co-author of Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (2024) and is working on a new book, Kingdom Now: Christian Zionism from the Puritans to MAGA with Broadleaf Books.

Shoshana Madmoni-Gerberis associate professor of communication and journalism at Suffolk University, Massachusetts. She is the author of Israeli Media and the Framing of Internal Conflict: The Yemenite Babies Affair (2009) and of “’Maybe We Did Them a Favor’: Reading the Yeminite Babies Affair Through an Intersectional Feminist Lens” (2027).

Carly Manes graduated from the University of Michigan in 2015 with a B.A. in public policy. Currently, she is a full-spectrum doula and the author of What’s an Abortion, Anyway?, a medically accurate, nonjudgmental, and gender inclusive resource for young folks about abortion care. She has been an active member of IfNotNow since 2016.

Ella-Gabriel Mason (formerly Moriah Ella Mason) is a choreographer, performer, teaching artist and bodyworker, most recently serving as a Lecturer in Dance at Swarthmore College. Their research has been presented at conferences by the Dance Studies Association, National Dance Education Organization, the Pennsylvania Dance Education Organization, the Collegium for African Diasporic Dance, and Dance/USA. They have chapters in the Bloomsbury anthology Sex On Stage: Performing the Body Politic, edited by Lynn Sally and Alison J. Carr and in the forthcoming Punctum anthology Gathering the Sparks: Jewish Arts & Somatics, edited by Nicole Bindler, Kristen Smiarowski, and Ben Spatz. Mason’s performance work has been presented in Pittsburgh at the New Hazlett Theater, Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, and Carnegie Stage; in NYC at WOW! Cafe Theater, BAAD!, and wild project; in Philadelphia at vox populi and the Cannonball Festival. Their work has been supported by grants from the Heinz Endowments, PA Council on the Arts, the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, and the Leeway Foundation. Mason holds an MFA in Dance from Temple University and a BA in Dance and International Development Policy from Sarah Lawrence College.

Jesse Mechanic is a writer and an artist based in New York’s Hudson Valley. His work has been published in Mother Jones, In These Times, Huff Post, Truthout, World Post, and other outlets. He is the author of the books, The Last Time We Spoke, and Don’t Be A F*#king Marshmallow.

Seth Morrison, a specialist in media and marketing, participated in AIPAC, the Jewish Federation, and the Jewish National Fund before joining JVP, where he is a leader in the Bay Area Chapter.

Eliza Moss-Horwitz is a social worker living in Brooklyn, NY. She is passionate about supporting young people and helping them find their voices and tell their stories. She is grateful to have learned from so many organizers who came before her in the fight for Palestinian liberation.

Hilton Obenzinger taught honors writing and American literature and cultural and social history at Stanford University. He is Associate Director Emeritus of Stanford’s Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project His books include the poetry and short story collection This Year and the Next I Will Never Be in Jerusalem (1980), which received the American Book Award; the cultural history American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania (1999); the autobiographical novel Busy Dying (2008); and the poetry collections Treyf Pesach (2017) and Witness 2017-2020 (2021). His most recent book, Old Fool, will soon be released.

Henri Picciotto served on the JVP Board of Directors from 2002 to 2009 and chaired it for much of that period. He retired from the classroom after 43 years as a math teacher. Henri authored many books and articles on math education, developed much curriculum, and now works as a consultant. His website is www.MathEducation.page. He is also a constructor of cryptic crosswords (see www.leftfieldcryptics.com).

Ned Rosch is a yoga teacher and a frequent presenter on issues related to Palestine-Israel. He has spent much of his career working with nonprofits.

Rabbi Brant Rosen is the founding rabbi of the anti-Zionist congregation Tzedek Chicago. He is a cofounder of Jewish Voice for Peace’s Rabbinical Council, and the author of Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to Palestinian Solidarity (2012).

Alice Rothchild is a physician, author, and filmmaker with a longstanding interest in human rights and social justice. She contributed to the groundbreaking book Our Bodies Ourselves (1971) and practiced ob-gyn for almost 40 years. Until her retirement she served as Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Harvard Medical School. Alice writes and lectures widely, blogs regularly, and is the author of several books on Israel/Palestine, three focused on health and human rights issues – including Condition Critican: Life and Death in Israel/Palestine (2016), and two award winning novels for children, Old Enough to Know (2023) and Finding Melody Sullivan (2023). Her memoir, Inspired and Outraged: The Making of a Feminist Physician (2024), was named a must-read for the month of November by ms magazine. She received Boston Magazine’s Best of Boston’s Women Doctors Award, was named in Feminists Who Changed America 1963-1975, had her portrait painted for Robert Shetterly’s Americans Who Tell the Truth, and was named a Peace Pioneer by the American Jewish Peace Archive. Alice is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace Health Advisory Council, on the management team for We Are Not Numbers, on the board of the Gaza Mental Health Foundation and Americans for Middle East Understanding. She was last in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza in August 2023.

Tali Ruskin, MSW, MPH, is the Manager of Fellow Engagement at Penn LDI (Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Prior to joining Penn LDI, she worked as the Intimate Partner Violence Specialist at the Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia, and as a Project Manager in the Division of Violence Prevention at the Boston Public Health Commission. She is active in the Philadelphia chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. She earned her Master’s in Social Work and in Public Health from Boston University.

Cathy Lisa Schneider is Professor Emerita of Politics, Governance and Economics in the School of International Service, American University. She is the author of Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York (Penn Press 2014, pbk 2017) and Shantytown Protest in Pinochet’s Chile (Temple University Press, 1995) and co-editor with Ernesto Castañeda of Collective Violence, Contentious Politics and Social Change: A Charles Tilly Reader (2017) and in Spanish Charles Tilly, Violencia colectiva, política contenciosa y cambio social (2022). She has also published numerous articles on democracy, dictatorship and resistance; comparative social movements; civil military relations and policing, political violence and racial discrimination. She is a member of the Genocide and Holocaust Scholars Network.

Ella Shohat is professor of cultural studies and of Middle Eastern studies at New York University. Her books include On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements: Selected Writings (2017); Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices (2006); Israeli Cinema: East/West and the Politics of Representation(1989). From a Jewish Baghdadi family, Shohat theorized the concept of the Arab-Jew and helped shape the critical field of Mizrahi studies.

Emily Siegel is a passionate organizer, educator, and community strategist. For over a decade, she led Eyewitness Palestine’s educational and delegation-based programming to Palestine, and now supports small social justice organizations through Fused Glass Community Strategies. Emily was recently elected as an at-large committeeperson to the DC Democratic State Committee, where she is working to reimagine a political party that stands firm on progressive principles and is fully accountable to the people.

Rebecca Subar coaches activists and nonprofit leaders at the intersection of conflict, power, and strategy. Subar co-founded the social change process design and facilitation collective Dragonfly Partners, and taught Peace and Conflict Studies at West Chester University for fourteen years. Subar is the author of When to Talk and When to Fight: The Strategic Choice Between Dialogue and Resistance (2021). They lived in a Jewish settlement in Gaza in 1982-83, and have been a committed member of JVP since 2004.

Kate Sugarman has spent her career as a family doctor in community clinics for the underserved. She is an active member of D4CC, Doctors for Camp Closure. She is on the steering committee of Medical Providers Network at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. She is an active member of Jewish Voice for Peace, DC Metro region.

Cecilie Surasky is the Communications Director at the Othering & Belonging Institute of the University of California, Berkeley. She brings two decades of movement-building strategy and communications experience to her position which she started in the spring of 2020. She worked most recently on a range of justice and equity issues including prison exoneree advocacy, LGBTQ health, Palestinian legal rights, and climate justice in indigenous communities. Before that, Cecilie spent 13 years building the largest progressive Jewish grassroots organization in the United States, Jewish Voice for Peace, where she designed and led high-impact communication and advocacy campaigns to leverage influencers and shift narratives with the aim of building grassroots support for policies that uphold the inalienable human rights of Palestinians. Cecilie has also been a columnist for an East Coast daily newspaper, host of one of the country’s first LGBTQ commercial talk radio programs, and a videomaker whose work has been shown at NY’s Museum of Modern Art and in festivals around the world.

Rebecca Vilkomerson is currently the Co-Director of Funding Freedom, organizing within philanthropy for Palestinian liberation. She was the Executive Director of Jewish Voice for Peace from 2009-2019. She is the co-author, with Rabbi Alissa Wise, of the book Solidarity is the Political Version of Love: Lessons from Jewish Anti-Zionist Organizing (Haymarket, 2024).

Jordan Wilson-Dalzell graduated from Pitzer College with a degree in creative writing. She is a queer disabled returned from exile Jewish performance poet, educator, and organizer living on Chochenyo Ohlone land. Her work can be found in Abramelin, Eskimpi, and Cadaverine magazines, as well as on BonesofFire.com.

Rachel Winsberg is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, Philadelphia. She graduated from Earlham College in 2014, where she majored in peace and global studies and economics. She is currently a clinical nurse at Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System.

Rabbi Alissa Wise is the Founding Director of Rabbis for Ceasefire, co-founder of the Jewish Diaspora Movement, and the co-author with Rebecca Vilkomerson of Solidarity is the Political Version of Love: Lessons from Jewish Anti-Zionist Organizing (Haymarket, 2024). She was formerly Deputy Director of Jewish Voice for Peace.

Charlie Wood is a lawyer specializing in privacy and date security matters and also maintains a robust immigration pro bono practice. He holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School.

Rabbi Cat Zavis has been rabbi of Beyt Tikkun since June 2023. An accomplished lawyer, spiritual social justice activist, and teacher of Prophetic Empathy and Revolutionary Love, Rabbi Cat has trained over 1,000 people in transformative leadership. She served as coeditor of Tikkun magazine and as executive director of the Network of Spiritual Progressives.