As Israel starves Gaza, Chicago Jewish activists starve themselves to force leaders to take action

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Marc Steiner:

Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. It’s great to have you all with us. One of the most time honored traditions and struggles for a just world has been activists going on hunger strikes to end depression. On June the 16th, Jewish activists in Chicago—Ash Bohrer, Becca Lubow, Avey Rips, Seph Mozes, Audrey Gladson, and Benjamin Teller—members of Jewish Voices for Peace ,began a hunger strike to end the United States support for genocide and slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. And today we’re joined by two of those hunger strikers, Avey Rips and Ash Bohrer. Ash Bohrer was raised in a religious family. They were indoctrinated into supporting the Israeli military and considered joining. They’re now a scholar of peace studies at Notre Dame University and longtime activists for peace and justice. They have traveled to the West Bank over six times, who worked towards peace and justice alongside Palestinians.

They have family members living in Israel. Avey Rips is a graduate student in English at Northwestern, where they were arrested for protecting students from police last spring. The child of refugees who fled sectarian violence and Azerbaijan, their family has migrated five times in seven generations. Avey has had family members targeted by the Nazis and Stalins purges. This family history has inspired their commitment to Jewish diaspora and safety and freedom for all. And as you’ll begin this conversation, the Israeli blockade has stopped all food, fuel, and medical aid from entering Gaza for the last three months. Half a million Gazans are in a catastrophic situation of hunger, acute malnutrition and starvation. And over 1 million people are in an emergency hunger situation. And the entire population of 2.1 million people are facing a high levels of acute food insecurity, which means they’re experiencing the worst levels of hunger possible. So today we are joined by Ash Bohrer and Avey Rips two of the Jewish Voices for peace activists in Chicago on a hunger strike to end this genocide. So Ash and Avey, welcome. It’s good to have you here on the Marc Steiner show. Appreciate you taking the time with us today.

Ash Bohrer:

Thanks for having us.

Avey Rips:

Thanks so much.

Marc Steiner:

Well, I mean, when I heard what was going on, we knew we had to do something because you all are now putting your lives on the line. I mean literally by not eating. And I’m just really, let me just start with both of you. What brought you to this point that made you want to fast until this war was over and the slaughter of Goins was done? How did that begin for you all? Ash, you want to start?

Ash Bohrer:

Sure. Well, I mean, we’ve seen just unspeakable devastation in Gaza these last 20 months. And even after the kind of ceasefire that was signed, the death and the destruction did not end. I am seeing images every single day of human beings being forcibly starved to death and denied basic necessities like medical care and water. And these images are seared into my mind. These are things that I never thought I would see again in my lifetime, and I’m watching them every day on social media. And so for me, as a Jewish person who grew up in Jewish schools and synagogues and summer camps and all the rest in which the sanctity of human life is such a core Jewish value, it felt impossible for me to watch that and to not respond to this call, to not put my body as far as I can in between the people of Gaza and the US government, which is sending weapons and bombs and enforcing this horrifying starvation. And so for us, when we were a few months, about a month ago, several of our Palestinian partners really approached us in JVP and said that what they really needed for us was to amplify how brutal the starvation campaign of Gaza has been and how the meager attempts at letting some aid in have been fundamentally a sham done by us contractors who are murdering people, lining up for aid administered by an organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that has been roundly condemned by every organization of conscience in the world. And our Palestinian comrades are watching their family, their friends, their community members die every day either directly by shooting or in a slightly slower pace by starvation.

And they said, we need your voice to do something to intervene in this slightly slower slaughter. And so we took this idea back to back to the Chicago chapter, and it really seemed like in order to show and demand from our representatives that they take every available avenue, that they do everything in their power to stop this atrocity, that a hunger strike was a potential tactic. We’ve been in the streets, we’ve called a representatives, we’ve emailed them, we’ve had meetings with them, we’ve been arrested, we’ve shut down intersections. And the American people overall are quite united on the idea that the displacement, ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians is at atrocity. And the piece that is left now is for the United States government to stop enabling it. That’s sort of how I came to this tactic and why I’m continuing to not eat while Goins can’t eat.

Marc Steiner:

How about you, Avey? What would you like to add to that for yourself?

Avey Rips:

Yeah, Ash truly covered a lot of the bases. I mean, when we see the genocide and starvation use as a weapon of war, when we see it escalating rather than lessening, right? We are called to take on more escalated tactics. We’re called to do anything in our power and what we can. And on the one hand, this is an escalated tactic on it is putting our lives in danger, but it is nothing compared to what is happening to gams under full Israeli military blockade for over three months. So this felt like the right step for us to take as American Jews in solidarity with Gaza, with Palestine.

Marc Steiner:

I was thinking about you all on this hunger strike, and I remember years back I interviewed people in Northern Ireland who were on a hunger strike when they were battling the British. And I’d just like to see from you all the power of your act and why you think this symbolic act of solidarity with Palestinians going on an in depth and ness strike is important. What does it say to the rest of the world? And talk a bit about what you think the significance of this is and how far you can take it.

Avey Rips:

So I think that what the power behind this tactic is specifically that we are able to show our neighbors, our representatives, people all over the country and all over the world, how important the issue of Gaza and Palestine is for American Jews of conscience. And that there is no consensus in the Jewish community. There is no consensus in America that we should be arming Israel and that we should be slaughtering and starving gams. And we have inherited this tactic, as you said, from a long, long history, both Irish, Palestinian, black American. There’s a long history of hunger strikes. And while we are not currently incarcerated, it has been used as a tactic outside of the context of incarceration very much. For instance, Chicago has a very rich history of hunger strikes. We have the diet hunger strike that reopened a high school in 2015. We have the general Iron, iron strike, general iron hunger strike that prevented metal processing, polluting metal processing facility for being reopened on the southwest side. So we’re following in footsteps of people who have used this tactic to show their commitment and to raise the stakes for everyone. I think people who encounter this as a tactic are faced with the fact that there are people who are willing to go to this length and I think it calls on them to take a side if they haven’t yet or commit themselves more strongly to the side of justice and the side of righteous history.

Marc Steiner:

Ash?

Ash Bohrer:

Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything that Avey said, and then one of the things that I’ll add is that what is happening in Palestine right now is the result of simultaneously Zionism as a political ideology and American imperialism. And what unites Zionism and American imperialism is the idea that some lives, Jewish lives, American lives, white people’s lives are worth more than other people’s lives. And that’s part of the political backdrop that allows these atrocities to continue. And so by engaging in this tactic, I think we’re hoping to highlight and show how this differential valuation of human life is wrong. It’s morally bankrupt, and also it’s false that there are people who are valued by society who are taking real, measurable and risky action in order to highlight the total devastation of human life that’s happening in Palestine right now.

Marc Steiner:

I’m curious, how far will you take this? How far are you willing to take this?

Avey Rips:

We are willing to stay on hunger strike until either America stops arming Israel and Israel lifts the blockade on Gaza or until our bodies give out.

Marc Steiner:

So what you’re doing to stop the slaughter on Gaza to stop this insane war, to stop the oppression Palestinians is literally putting your lives on the line?

Ash Bohrer:

Yes, and I’ve spent a lot of time in Palestine. I have put my body in between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians before, and I am doing it now. Again, this feels like there is nothing in my life that I feel more clear about than that this is my moral and political and religious obligation.

Marc Steiner:

So I’m curious just personally, because I think people hear about people going in hunger strikes, been part of struggles as we’ve just talked about a moment ago across history and across the globe. What does it take for the two of you to do what you’re doing and how you made the decision to do this? I mean, this is not easy. It’s one thing to get in the street and say no, and even get into a physical battle with police or Zionists or whatever happens in the street. That’s one thing. But what you’re doing now is literally saying, I’m putting everything I have in life here to say, “No.” I mean, I’m really just to talk to people about what that meant and how you both came to that point and shall begin with you this time.

Ash Bohrer:

I mean, I think honestly, part of my, there’s sort of two parts of the motivation here. One is this deep moral political and religious conviction that I have about how necessary this is amidst the backdrop of just how brutal the devastation in Gaza is, and especially for me, given that the Israeli government continuously purports to be doing this in my name, can Cravenly mobilizing the discourse of antisemitism in order to tamp down any sort of critique of these heinous policies. And then on the other side, I’ll say quite candidly, part of the thing that brought me to this tactic is desperation. We have done all the other things. This was not the first thing that we chose to do. We

Tried to move through the other available channels to pressure the government to respond to the will of the people. And time and time again, I mean this administration, but also the previous one, this is not only a Trump problem, this is a horrible US imperialism consensus between both parties that have enabled this genocide and who have refused repeatedly to listen to the voices of Americans and Jews of conscience in stopping the genocide that is unfolding and in stopping actually materially sending the bombs, the guns that enabled this to happen. And so for me, if there was something easier that I thought would work, we would’ve tried that. We’ve already tried all of the things that we thought were less dangerous in order to achieve this necessary necessary goal. And so for me it’s sort of this combination of political conviction and desperation.

Marc Steiner:

What’s your take, Avey?

Avey Rips:

Yeah, similar to everything. I agree with everything Ash said. We’ve been doing a lot of things over the past few years and obviously many years before that as well. And 2 million people are being starved to death as a weapon of war with the explicit purpose of ethnic cleansing. And we see the most craven attitudes towards this of repopulating Gaza with Jewish sais of building resorts in the Gaza trip, just unimaginable heinous attitudes towards life. And when we have 16,000 dead children, it’s hard to figure out what you wouldn’t do to stop this. And once again, if this was not, Ash said this was not our first tactic, but if we need to call for justice in a million ways, then that’s what we need to do, that we need to simply figure out more and new ways to call for justice.

Ash Bohrer:

Yeah, I think this thing that Avey just said is like sometimes we’ve said apartheid occupation genocide so many times that we maybe are not really thinking about what this means. This means the slaughter of 2 million people. What wouldn’t you do to stop the slaughter of 2 million people? For me, that list is very small. I would do anything I really mean that I would do anything that I can to stop an actual literal genocide. I grew up in a family and at schools and synagogues that said, never again. Never again, never again. The lesson from the Holocaust is this should never ever happen again. And we know that part of the reason that that was able to happen is that people stood by and did nothing and said nothing as it happened. And my whole Jewish education was all about how that should never be us. We should never be people who see injustice unfold and say nothing and do nothing. And so here I am, the product of Jewish values and Jewish schools and Jewish summer camps and synagogues, and I feel like I really learned and internalized this lesson that in the face of atrocity, the lesson I have learned from my people is we cannot do nothing.

Marc Steiner:

I just want to explore something. This was not of my notes to think, but what you just said made me think of something. 50 years ago I wrote a poem called Growing Up Jewish. It was a 25 page poem. And in that poem I was asking a question of how can we become the mere image of those who have oppressed us for generations and in your fight to end the occupation? And you’re putting your lives literally on the line now because even young, strong people will have a, can only survive so long not eating. Where does you think your action takes you and where do you see, well let go to that first, but then when I want to talk about where you see the changes inside the Jewish world, people saying no to this, not in my name, but talk about, I mean where you see your hunger rate going. What effect do you think it could have? Do you think it can expand to other people following your example?

Avey Rips:

Yes. I think that first of all, hunger strikes are effective tactics. They often succeed at least some of their goals. And we are hopeful that the pressure we’re putting on our representatives, we are already seeing conversations in which we will hopefully start to be in the rooms that we’re asking to be in. And we have received such an outcry of support for this. There have been people from all over the country who have been messaging all of us and messaging the chapter and have been connecting to us and just want to know how they want to support. We are calling for solidarity fasts on this coming Sunday the 22nd, and then next Sunday the 29th, we have, this is slightly more local, but we have 22 events over the course of three weeks planned that are all about public education. We have teach-ins, we have vigils, we have conversations about divestment, we have conversations about Israeli bonds.

So we really see this as a rounded sort of approach to what this tactic could hold, right? So we’re playing the high game directly towards our representatives and we’re also playing the local game to our communities right here on the ground in Chicago as well as to, frankly, as you were saying to Jews who find themselves aghast at what is happening, at what are being done in our names, but maybe have yet for some reason not taken the step to denounce it, not taken the step to denounce sign as I’m not taking the step to denounce what’s happening in Gaza and hoping that this action motivates them, that they see that there are others like them who are determined to stop this and join us.

Ash Bohrer:

And I think we all feel really aligned that going on a hunger strike is not something that everyone can do, and it’s not something that we’re asking everyone to do, but we are hoping that this does is galvanize people into action in whatever way makes the most sense for you and your community. What does it mean to put this back on the top of your agenda and bring this to your school, your community organization, your synagogue, your church? It doesn’t have to be the same thing that we’re doing, but I think one of the things that we are hoping is that the hunger strike will remind people of how desperate things are in Gaza and how much we all have an obligation to do everything in our power, whatever that is in order to end it.

Marc Steiner:

A couple of things here in the time we have left, you talked about Sunday, which I did not know about till you raised it. So let’s talk about that. What are you expecting and asking people to do on Sunday in solidarity with your hunger strike and in solidarity with Palestinian people fighting for their survival? What are you asking people to do?

Ash Bohrer:

Yeah, so in solidarity with the people of Gaza, we are asking people who are medically physically able to do so to join us in a 24 hour fast on Sunday, June 22nd and Sunday June 29th. And to post about it on social media, to tag us, we’re at JVP Chicago, literally on every social media one could think about except the one owned by a fascist. And to think about how you can use this opportunity to be in community and to organize your people. So if that means you want to fast with your community in a location and do a fundraiser for the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance, for example, who are also raising money for over the course of this strike, or if you think that your greatest power is social media, making a post about the solidarity fast and about how children and women and men and others in Gaza have not had any consistent access to food for months and months and months on end, that is what we’re asking folks to do.

Marc Steiner:

When you talk about how this can kind of expand into a much more mass movement to stop the slaughter in Gaza and the way you describe it is very powerful, I think. I mean, if it spreads on Sunday, you’re asking the mouth of my head as you were talking about. It was, it’s like a yum kippur for peace, don’t eat, stop fast, say no to injustice, which I think is a very powerful moment. And what kind of response have you been getting for that around the country? Because JVP nationally, Avey must be supporting what you’re doing and are they moving nationally to make these actions take place?

Avey Rips:

Yes, definitely. We do have support from JBP National. They’ve been very generous and also very excited about that. We’ve taken this on. And I just wanted to really quickly say something that you mentioned like a Yo Kippur. There is a Jewish tradition of fasting in times of calamity and catastrophe and injustice. So a hunger strike is always a controversial tactic. There are always people who find it a little bit controversial, but there’s also good precedent, there’s also deep precedent in the Jewish community and in our history, in our shared history that this is something that we turn to when other means fail.

Marc Steiner:

I’m curious where you both think we all go from here. I mean here we have, you’re taking a very powerful, symbolic, meaningful action to say no to the genocide and slaughter it’s taking place in Gaza. We have a right wing government here in the United States that could care less. You have a neo-fascist government in Israel this moment, but talk about, I’d like to hear what you both think about where we go from here. I mean, we’re in a place of action and organizing and really trying to fight back this right wing power or fighting for something larger as you are doing here right now. So where do you all think we go from here? Where do you think the next steps are?

Ash Bohrer:

Well, in my day job, I’m a professor of peace studies, and so I study and teach how people have responded to fascist governments in the past and how they have successfully organized in order to overcome them. And one of the key lessons from this is people need to be standing up and standing in solidarity with each other that the only way that fascism can be overcome is if there is broad base mass movements that see how deeply interconnected the issues that we are facing actually are. Even when the powers that be try very much to divide and pit us against each other, that is their most successful and consistent tactic. And so for example, as I am watching the horrifying neo brown shirt abductions that ICE is doing of our undocumented community members, what I’m reminded of and why I think this is also connected to the struggle in Palestine is that ice agents and customs and border patrol agents and police departments and sheriffs all around the United States have trained with the Israeli military.

They go on these reciprocal trips, they share surveillance technology, they share crowd control techniques that Israeli weapons manufacturers and data surveillance companies tout on the international stage as battle tested because they have used them to do violence on Palestinians. And that’s a marketing tactic that the police and law enforcement here in the US think of as a good thing. And so there are these very material interconnections between standing up against the abduction of our neighbors and standing up against the genocide and Gaza. And that’s just one example of a hundred, all of these issues, right? The rising fascism, misogyny, transphobia, the lack of adequate healthcare and education and transit, the grotesque immigration policing that we’re seeing. All of these things are deeply connected. And the way that we fight fascism is by moving and mobilizing from those interconnections. So the place that you are and the issue that is the closest to you, seeing that issue as deeply intertwined with all of these other ones is our best bet. And that also means showing up to defend each other, showing up in solidarity and putting our bodies on the line for each other so that we can actually come together and overthrow and prevent further deterioration to fascism.

Marc Steiner:

It’s hard to go beyond that, I think. So do both of you before we have to go. Do you see in the work ahead of us, the hope that we can change it, the hope we can change the hearts and minds inside the Jewish world, the hope that we can change the political dynamic that is murdering thousands and thousands of Palestinians starving them to death. And talk a bit about where you see the struggle going and where you see the hope for change and where that lives.

Avey Rips:

Look, if we can’t change everyone’s mind all at once, then we need to change people’s minds one at a time. If this is just a drop, if this action will be just a drop in the bucket, then that’s fine. That bucket will be filled eventually full of drops, right? So I think that putting into, I always think about the Civil rights movement in America. I think about how long it took, I think about how long defeating Apartheid took

Marc Steiner:

Long time…

Avey Rips:

How long it took. So I really ground myself in that where I’m like, this is a long struggle. I dearly hope that I will one day see a free Palestine, and I’m also an educator. And frankly, if I don’t, I hope my students are the ones who then take up the mantle. So I think that first of all, perseverance, it’s going to take a lot more people taking action, taking a stand, doing what is right for them in their community, in their particular intersection of politics and their body and their position. And it’s also going to take a lot of solidarity. I think the way that we move forward is by continuously building communities with each other across racial, ethnic, religious class divides, and finding a way to fight this injustice as a whole, kind of as Ash was saying.

Marc Steiner:

So I’m curious as we close out, how do people support what you’re doing in your hunger strike to end the madness that’s happening in Palestine at the moment? How do people connect and how do people support what you’re doing?

Ash Bohrer:

Great. Yeah. So there are a few ways that people can support us, but most importantly, to do meaningful action to end the genocide in Gaza. That is what’s most important, not supporting us. So the first thing is that please call on all of your elected members of government to do everything in their power to stop arming Israel and to stop the starvation of Gaza. There is currently a bill in the house called the Block, the Bombs bill that would force the United States to comply with its own domestic laws and international law in not sending weapons to a power that is committing confirmed war crimes. Call your representative and see if thank them if they already are a co-sponsor on it, and ask them why not if they are not yet. We’re also raising money for the Middle East Children’s Alliance, which is an organization staffed and run by Goins.

We want to be fully resourced to meet the devastating need of Goins if and when we are able to lift the brutal blockade that is currently being imposed on Gaza. And then if you want to join in a solidarity fast, either Sunday, June 22nd or Sunday June 29th to raise awareness and galvanize your community, please do that. And then the last thing is, if you want to amplify the current hunger strike and the situation in Gaza, please follow us on social media. We’re at JVP Chicago on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Blue Sky, and send us updates about what you are doing in your community, like seeing people come together, come together and oppose the genocide and the starvation is really the thing that we need over here, and it’s the thing that we all need in order to birth the world that we want to live in one full of justice and liberation. So please do.

Marc Steiner:

Well, I just want to thank you both for putting your lives on the line. You literally are putting your health on the line in the madness that’s taking place in Gaza. And I think that that takes a huge amount of courage and people need to support your work and the work in a VP and what other people are doing to say, no, not in our name. No, we cannot allow this to happen. I really, as an old guy who’s been in the struggle for a long time, I’m really, it makes I light up inside watching the two of you and knowing that this generation is taking on this fight in a much larger way. So thank you both so much. I really mean that we’ve been talking here with Ash, Bre and Avi Rip AV rips, excuse me. And it’s great to have you both here, and we’ll stay in touch. I want to stay in touch with you all and see how this progresses, both of you, hunger strike and the struggle to change what’s going on. So thank you both so much for everything you do.

Avey Rips:

Thank you so much.

Marc Steiner:

And once again, let me thank Ash Barrera and AV rips for joining us today, and thank along with them, Becca Lebo, Seth Moses, Audrey Gladson, and Benjamin Teller for putting their lives on the line to end the slaughtering Gaza and for acting in solidarity with a long tradition of Jews standing up for human rights and for social and economic justice in this world. And I want to thank our colleague, Shane Burley for his article in these times, Chicago activists embark on an indefinite hunger strike over Gaza that brought this to our attention and to which we’ll be linking. And thanks to Cameron Grino for running the program today, our audio editor, Stephen Frank and producer Rosette sole for making it all work behind the scenes. And everyone here at the Real News for making this show possible. Please let me know what you thought about what you heard today and what you’d like us to cover. Just write to me at MS s@therealnews.com and I’ll get right back to you. Once again, thank you Ash, Bre, and Navy rips for joining us today and for putting your lives on the line. So for the crew here at The Real News, I’m Mark Steiner. Stay involved. Keep listening, and take care.