Last Friday, 22 of March 2024, on the 167th day of the current genocide against Palestinians, Tzedek Collective led a second public sit-in of Diaspora Jews, Palestinians and allies to express solidarity with Palestine.
At the beginning of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, we paused and sat at Sydney Central Station, on Gadigal land, to say never again for anyone with chants, songs, and speeches. We lit candles and recited the Jewish mourning prayer of Kaddish for all the souls lost in this continuous genocide.
At this sit-in, we came together in solidarity, in the knowledge that our liberation must be collective and interconnected and that the safety and freedom of Jews and Palestinians are not at odds with each other in a zero-sum game, but rather are inextricably linked.
We denounce Australia’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza; we protest Israel’s weaponisation of Judaism and Jewish trauma; and we express that it is precisely our Jewish values of justice, liberation and solidarity that compel us to stand for the rights of Palestinians. We demand that the Australian government does not allow Israel’s impunity to continue, and calls for a permanent ceasefire, an end to the genocide, occupation, and apartheid.
Our collective is anti-colonial in its aims and frameworks, and we acknowledge both our diasporic roots and our specific context as settlers on unceded, sovereign First Nations lands of the Eora and Dharug nations. Tzedek Collective was formed in response to a growing need among Jews in so-called Australia for an anti-zionist space based on the principle of doikayt (hereness). We are committed to anticolonial and decolonial action for furthering Indigenous sovereignty, including Palestinian liberation. We follow the footsteps of our Jewish ancestors who knew the importance of solidarity between oppressed groups. We proudly carry on these Jewish traditions of dissent and resistance.
Image credit: Mitchell Moussa @mxm.photo