Fiesta Shalom, in celebration of Israel’s 61 years of colonialism, will take place on Sunday at the restored Breed Street Shul in East Los Angeles. It promises to be a celebration of Jewish and Latino culture.
This event includes students from LAUSD, involved in LAUSD programs, such as the Roosevelt HS mariachis!!! (With all the insistence that UTLA members exercise “balance” when discussing the issue of Palestinian human rights, one has to ask: what balance is there when school children are encouraged to participate in a propagandistic event as part of a school sanctioned activity!!!!)
What follows are links for more information.
So far Quetzal has pulled out of the program, citing misinformation when it was first invited.
here is their letter:
http://www.artistsagainstapartheid.org/?tag=fiesta-shalom
But…..
Richard Montoya from Culture Clash (isn’t THAT ironic!) is master of ceremonies.
Self Help Graphics, Arte Calidad and Plaza de la Raza will be providing a workshop!!!!
Danza Floricanto will be performing
Contact info to encourage them to boycott:
::::::::
Arte Calidad Cultural Institute
519 S. Hewett St.
Los Angeles, Ca. 90013
(213) 617-0696
t.dominguez@artecalidad.org
To Contact Danza Floricanto/USA:
Please send email to:
floricanto@earthlink.net
Plaza de la Raza:
information@plazadelaraza.org
Self Help Graphics:
info@selfhelpgraphics.com
I could not find contact info for Culture Clash.
My letter:
I am very disappointed that you will be participating in the upcoming event “Fiesta Shalom” which celebrates Israeli “Independence” and is sponsored by the Israeli Consulate.
Israel is a colonial settler state, with an apartheid system of segregation, with specific privileges granted on the basis of religious/ethnic identity. Israeli brutality against the indigenous Palestinian population has been well documented.
Currently Palestinian cultural, community, educational and labor groups have called for a cultural boycott of Israel.
Joining in this celebration gives legitimacy to Israeli brutality and supremacy.
Already, Quetzal, who was originally scheduled to perform at this event, has pulled out.
http://www.artistsagainstapartheid.org/?tag=fiesta-shalom
As they state in the letter, improved relations between Jewish and Latino communities is a wonderful idea, but co-opting the Latino community in complicity with Israeli war crimes has little to do with improved community relations.
As a Jewish human rights activist, I encourage you to follow Quetzal’s example and withdraw from this event.
In solidarity,
Emma Rosenthal
the event leaflet:
As a left-leaning Zionist Jew, I find the points of view expressed in Cafe Intifada distressing and, in a way, pathetic. Is Israel above criticism? Of course not. Within Israel, there is a tremendously vibrant discussion, press, films, etc. etc, some of which is highly critical.
When these criticisms come from Jewish Israelis, there is an implicit assumption that they also love their country and would like to make it a better, fairer place. However, when the criticism comes from those who implicitly or explicitly convey that Israel has no legitimacy at all as a country, then the criticism will almost inevitably be rejected out of hand.
Must Israel be better than any other country, democracy or otherwise, for it to be recognized for anything other than oppression? Are the Arabs in France, for example, treated as equal citizens? Can a Jew live as an equal citizen in any Arab country?
Why is Jewish history relating to their suffering and to their attachment to the land of Israel so blatantly denied, with all evidence to the contrary derisively dismissed?
Why are the supposedly fair-minded critics of Israel, represented by this magazine, silent about the use of the worst of Nazi and pre-Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda, such as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
Why do Israeli Arabs reject the idea that in a final peace settlement, with two states, that they would rather remain in Israel, rather than make small adjustments to the borders that would allow them to join a Palestinian state?
Why, should the Jews alone be blamed for the displacement of Palestinians when both they and the surrounding Arab countries have have shown, through word and deed, that coexistence is not their goal?
Why isn’t there more recognition that a mainstream Islamic position states that land formerly within the realm of Islam may not return to non-Islamic control? How long will this continue to be a widely accepted belief? Until it changes, is the two state solution — with one of the states as a Jewish majority state — really possible?