In Support of Palestinian Life
Jews on Ohlone Land (JOOL) joins people the world over in demanding an immediate end to the ongoing genocide and starvation of the Palestinian people, and destruction of the land and the infrastructure necessary to support Palestinian life, in both Gaza and in the West Bank. Nothing justifies this unconscionable violence and harm. It is a fundamental betrayal of our Jewish values and teachings. We join the global call for Palestinian Liberation, and an end to the genocide, apartheid and occupation. We call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, food aid, the release of all prisoners and hostages, an end to the unconditional supply of weapons and military aid from the U.S. to the State of Israel, and the immediate, unfettered delivery of the massive food aid, medical aid, and humanitarian assistance needed to save remaining lives in Gaza in the face of mass starvation. We encourage donations to be made to the Gaza Soup Kitchen and for people to sign the petition found on the Jews for Food Aid for People In Gaza page.
JOOL centers our work around two main goals: showing up to support the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and the Lisjan Nation’s expression of their sovereignty, and living in Lisjan Nation territory as whole, Jewish people in beloved community. As diasporic Jews, we are inspired by Jews around the world who re-imagine Jewish experience as being fully centered in the places where they live(d). For JOOL, that means being called into right relationship with Lisjan Nation land and people, and learning to live as good guests in the Bay Area. It means opening space for the land and Lisjan Nation people to shape us, our Jewish practice, and our identity here.
Even as our day to day work focuses on our home in Huchiun, the part of Lisjan Nation territory where we live, we are clear that we don’t want Jewish safety to be dependent on, entangled with, or benefiting from settler-colonial violence anywhere in the world, perhaps especially in Israel/Palestine where our Jewish kin are now perpetrating wildly disproportionate violence. We work in Huchiun for collective liberation, and that ripples from the Bay Area to Palestine/Israel and beyond.
Palestinian solidarity has been part of many JOOL member’s ongoing political organizing and an implicit aspect of our work, yet we have not issued a public statement in print or online. Why now?
As an all volunteer, grassroots activist project with a horizontal decision making process, JOOL tends to move slowly. We have spent the last year plus building internal consensus in support of Palestinian liberation. In April 2025, members of JOOL leadership met with Sogorea Te’ leadership as part of our ongoing relationship-building and accountability commitment. We discussed our solidarity with Palestinian liberation movements, JOOL’s position within the Bay Area political landscape, and Jewish relationships to Israel/Palestine within JOOL. The JOOL members left the meeting wanting to make our support of Palestinian liberation visible, in deeper alignment with Sogorea Te' and our own integrity, and accepting how this public stance may impact our ability to organize within the broader Jewish community around local Indigenous solidarity.
We will continue grappling with how we relate to Palestine/Israel, and discerning what is ours to do on the way to collective liberation. And we reaffirm our commitment to organizing, educating, and activating Jewish people living in Huchiun into solidarity with Lisjan Nation people, in partnership with Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, as a local expression of Jewish repair for the harms of settler-colonialism and nationalism—and as a step toward building right relationships with the people and places wherever we live.