When I told my Auntie Ana I wanted to be a teacher, she exclaimed her Auntie Thomasa had also been a teacher. My auntie clarified: she was a teacher before the Japanese bayoneted her in front of my great-grandmother for saying “no”. My great-grandmother survived. I descend from survivors, one side of my family is Filipino and the other is Jewish.

Trauma rests in my bones and the words “never again” ring in my heart. 

Never again means never again will we allow genocide to happen. Never again will we miss the early signs. And never again will we be silent.

Never again means we will not allow Israel to commit genocide in our name. It is not anti-semitic to be against genocide and occupation, especially as today is the last day of Chanukah, a holiday that celebrates the Jewish victory over the occupying Greek army who were trying to rid the area of Judaism and replace it with Hellenism. The most Jewish thing one can do is be against Isreal, an occupying army who are trying to rid the area of indigenous Palestinians through extreme violence and replace it with a Jewish state.

According to KSTP news “University of Minnesota professor Richard Painter and former regent Michael Hsu sent a letter to the Department of Education, calling for a federal investigation into claims of antisemitism at the school.” This letter was in response to the GWSS statement that accurately called the “war” a genocide. The GWSS statement is well thought out and intentional. They drew upon the colonization of Mni Sota Makoce, where the University of Minnesota is located on stolen land, to recognize the influence of settler colonialism in all our lives.

The genocide of indigenous people on Turtle Island inspired Germany, who then committed genocide against the Jewish and Roma people during WWII, while the Japanese brutalized Asia, including the Philippines. The US and the USSR colonized Southeast Asia, resulting in the Korean and Vietnamese wars and further genocide. Each of these acts of colonization and violence were not isolated but rather drew inspiration and tactics from the ones before. 

A key tool of colonialism and oppression is sexual violence. My ancestors experienced it. Palestine is experiencing it today. “Never again” includes genocide and the various forms of violence within it. It is for this reason that GWSS writes, “As scholars and solidarity workers who seek justice everywhere, we respond to the call of Palestinian feminists and Palestinian freedom fighters for transnational solidarity and assert that Palestine is a feminist issue.”

As a Jewish student in CLA, I condemn and disagree with the letter Professor Painter and former Regent Hsu sent out. I fundamentally disagree the GWSS statement was anti-semitic. GWSS’s statement was representative of Jewish values, with the words “never again” at the forefront of all our minds. 

Isabel (Izzy) Laderman is a history teacher in training who plans to graduate this spring.