OAKLAND, Calif. — The Jan. 28 Militant Labor Forum here featured a speakout against recent attacks on protesters in El Cerrito who defend the right of Israel to exist as a refuge for Jews and a discussion on how to most effectively fight the rise in Jew-hatred.
Faith Meltzer described an attack Jan. 6 when she and others were holding a peaceful counterprotest at a demonstration against Israel that included supporters of Hamas. “Those who attacked had their faces covered. They surrounded us, putting their megaphones in our faces,” she said. “I was assaulted. Another woman was thrown to the street and bloodied. They wrestled the Israeli flag out of my hands. They burned our flags and stomped on them.”
Following the attack, Meltzer and others expressed their outrage at city council meetings in El Cerrito and nearby Albany. “We need to continue to speak out. We should never forget Oct. 7,” Meltzer said, referring to the massacre of 1,200 Israelis and the seizure of some 250 hostages by Hamas death squads. “Hateful actions begin with hateful words.”
Dorthea Dorenz, who joined Meltzer at the protest and witnessed the attack, emphasized the reactionary threat posed by Hamas. She and others have been speaking in opposition to resolutions calling for Israel to sign on to a cease-fire, a move that would leave Hamas in power in Gaza, where it has sworn to rearm and pursue the destruction of Israel. “If you want to understand the nature of Hamas, read their founding charter where they call for killing Jews,” Dorenz said.
Socialist Workers Party congressional candidate Margaret Trowe underlined the importance of united action to get out the truth about the Oct. 7 massacre and to defend Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. In the face of the boos and chants against speakers at city council meetings, she said, “we’re insisting on freedom of expression, civil discussion and denouncing violence against Jews, from the death squads of Hamas to the assault in El Cerrito.”
“The attack on Jews is a working-class question,” Trowe said. “In times of capitalist crisis, despairing middle-class layers become open to fascist forces scapegoating Jews for the crisis instead of blaming the real culprits, the capitalist class.
“The Socialist Workers Party’s fight against Jew-hatred is in continuity with Lenin and the Russian Revolution,” Trowe said. “Working people cannot rely on ‘democratic’ imperialism to protect Jews. Israel was born out of necessity after the Holocaust, as Washington and other imperialist powers refused entry to Jewish refugees trying to flee the death camps. The decisive question for humanity is building a revolutionary leadership capable of ending capitalist oppression, of leading the working class to take political power.”
Ilana Pearlman, a nurse-midwife in Berkeley, spoke about the fight she and other parents are waging against the rise of antisemitism in the public schools. Pearlman said antisemitism and hatred of Israel were evident immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7 pogrom. “This is what lit a fire under me,” she said. “They had a ‘walkout for Palestine’ just after 1,200 Jews had been killed.”
“Teachers are pushing propaganda on the kids,” she said. “They say the study of Jewish history should not be included because you cannot center ‘white stories.’” She pointed to the harm done by the “liberated” ethnic studies programs utilized by many Bay Area schools that present Israel as a “white supremacist colonizing nation” that has no right to exist.
Pearlman said that some parents have taken their children out of the public schools, but she and others are staying and fighting back. At first it was Jewish parents, now they are winning others.