Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

Local Group Advancing Plan to Relocate Settlers
by Jason Nielsen
May 16th, 2003

A Cambridge-based group plans to launch a petition drive next week to garner support for a new policy to raise funds to relocate settlers from the West Bank and Gaza.

The Boston chapter of Jewish Alliance for Peace and Justice (Brit Tzedek v'Shalom) will begin to gather signatures on Tuesday (May 19) at Temple Sinai in Brookline to promulgate the use of funds to relocate Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza territories. The year-long campaign hopes to either influence the United States to urge Israel to distribute funds for relocation or for international bodies, such as the European Union, to raise the needed monies.

JAPJ's national organization sponsored newspaper ads last week that call for offering around $3 billion in cash incentives to 16,000 settler families - or nearly $190,000 per family- to move back inside the Green Line, as Israel's pre-1967 border is known.

Diane Balser, 59, who co-chairs the local chapter with Rafe Ezekiel, says the petition will push forward an issue that has long been an impediment to peace. She believes the campaign provides a unique solution to help alleviate some of the costs settlers would bear in relocating to Israel.

"We are taking on a crucial issue that hasn't been resolved and will need to be addressed in order to have a peace treaty," she said. "The polls show that a majority of U.S. Jews want a two-state solution. Most people understand that the settlements are not in Israel's best interest. This is an issue we can galvanize and act on."

The Boston chapter of JAPJ was founded last fall and has about 350 members. The goal of the national organization, which is based in Chicago, seeks a peaceful two-state solution. JAPJ seeks to end violence between Israelis and Palestinians and Israeli occupation while establishing a democratic, viable Palestinian state.

Beth Wasserman, 25, of Somerville sits on the local chapter's steering committee. She said she was looking for a Jewish group that was pro-Israel but critical of the government's current policy.

"You can be Jewish and be pro-Israel," she said, "but that doesn't mean you have to support all government policies. I identify as a Zionist and am uncomfortable in many settings in the Jewish community because I am afraid that people think that a pro-Israel rally means pro-Israel government."

Unlike other pro-Israel groups, Wasserman explained that Brit Tzedek focuses only on one issue and does it by building a membership base to lobby U.S. legislators.

Trudy Kontoff, 70, a volunteer from Boston, agreed that JAPJ's sole function is to be a political voice for a moderate approach to a just solution. She believes the group stands closely aligned with the beliefs of the New Israel Fund.

"We want to maintain a middles mainstream voice responsive to the issues and concerns of American Jewry," she said. "We hope to become a major voice politically in the halls of congress in the current administration."

Pamela Berger, 63, a volunteer from Cambridge, believes the organization and its campaign reiterates what she had heard Israelis who are opposed to the occupation urge the Jewish community in the United States to do.

"Peace activists from Israel are telling us that Israel is (not only) putting itself in a terrible morale position in (front of) the rest of the world, but also putting its survival in jeopardy - its economy is going to heck, the middle class is leaving, investors do want to invest, tourism is doing bad," Berger said. "It can't go on like this."

For her, Balser said JAPJ combines a commitment to the issue of peace in Israel as well as trying to work with both religious and secular Jews. She was previously involved with Israel-related activities with the Workmen's Circle and her congregation Temple Beth Zion in Brookline.