Author: Ben Lorber

• Jewish Alternatives to Zionism: A Partial History

  (This article was published on the Jewish Voice for Peace blog, in conjunction with their organizational statement on Zionism.) For over a century, Jews around the world have maintained a robust…

• Speak (or stutter) your truth, like Moses- a Dvar Torah

  In this week’s Torah portion, G-d tells Moses it is his destiny to go down to Egypt to free the Israelites, but Moses is afraid. Moses says to G-d, why…

• Lessons on Anti-Semitism From Growing up in Rural America

  by Benjamin Balthaser Originally published on Jewschool, November 19, 2016 The electoral college victory of Donald Trump sent the progressive Jewish community reeling, not least because of his campaign’s naked…

• Attacking Antisemitism

  Originally published in Jacobin The massacre of eleven Jews at Etz Chaim (Tree of Life) Synagogue in Pittsburgh by white-supremacist Robert Bowers last Saturday sent shock waves through the American public, the…

• The Trauma of the Jew of Conscience

  (originally published in Jewschool) The Jew of conscience is in pain. We are in pain when we are told by family, friends, peers and Jewish communal leaders that we are…

  

• Onkelos vs Empire: a parable of revolutionary Judaism

  The Talmud tells a remarkable tale of the conversion to Judaism of a prominent Roman general named Onkelos, and the futile attempts by the outraged Roman Emperor Hadrian to dissuade…

• Zionism is not ‘not Judaism’

  ‘Zionism is not Judaism!’ We hear this every day from Palestine solidarity activists, Jewish and non-Jewish. Usually it is said with good intentions, a way to designate Zionism, as a…

• Interview- Rescuing Jewish culture from Zionism

  (originally published in Socialist Worker) [Ben Lorber is the campus coordinator for Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). He talked with Jonah ben Avraham about the declining support for Israel and Zionism among Jewish…

• I’m A Jew And A Member Of JVP. Israel Just Banned Me.

  (Originally published in the Jewish Daily Forward) In 2011, I visited the land of Israel on a trip for American Jews, organized by an orthodox yeshiva- kind of like Birthright,…