Thread by @JoshuaCypess

1/ The dilemma for American Jews sympathetic to even radical change to our abusive policing & carceral system, is that - esp. after the Pittsburgh massacre - our community looks at the PD as a life or death necessity. Even if we *know* it comes at a cost to POC

2/ When all shuls got armed guards after PIT, many of us were concerned abt. the inevitable profiling & danger to Jews of Color, but that was often overruled in favor of the defense provided by open uniformed police

Choosing PD over JOC concerns is proof of the difficult terrain

3/ Add to that how many of my fellow Ortho Jews are inveterate Trump (ym'sh) supporters. Why? Well (I have 3+ yrs of observation, I could/should write a book on it) a combo of: (a) soc-econ status (b) authoritarian impulses (c) religious oppo to modernity (d) social conservatism

4/ (e) conflating militaristic support for Israel as support for Jews in gen. (f) all of the above driving them to exclusively watch FoxNews & get further radicalized & (f) lastly, sadly, outright racism

20-30% of Ortho Jews oppose the above litany, I think. But we're isolated

5/ Next week's parsha shows how 2 of 12 won't have much effect, but that's my Torah support. More than half refused the golden calf (all women & 1/13 of men) & even that wasn't enough

So the task of getting the frum community as allies in PD reform starts immediately in the hole

6/ So 3 sectors of Jews who'll resist PD reform:
(a) the Trump (ym'sh) supporters
(b) the ppl who feel the police are the only ones capable of protecting us from literal terrorists
(c) ppl who know the PD are out of control but can't afford to alienate them b/c of real threats

7/ BTW, this is why calls to abolish the PD will be met with fear not just scorn. Scorn b/c it sounds pollyannish & ignorant: an anti-vax position for social safety.

We need vaccines, we need police. Bad vaccines, though, are like bad police: way more harm plus little to no good

8/ Many of the 'abolish PD' ppl I read were vocal Bernie supporters & while their hearts may be good, I didn't trust their solutions a year ago. And I can not, will not, let that crew co-opt the need for PD reform the same way I opposed the takeover of the Democratic party

9/ The insane US "Law & Order" system is too horrible to be left in place & needs real solutions, just like the Dems need to defeat Trump (ym'sh) w/a real candidate not some cartoon messianic fiction

So, to get the Jewish community on board will be complex given these factors

10/ How to ensure our community safety & preserve social order w/o making it at the expense of BIPOC Americans? How to reform the entire criminal justice system so it works for every American equally

e.g. How does cash bail or for-profit prisons keep me safe?

11/ Add onto all this the BDS movement which infiltrates a lot of US social justice activism. BDS is often code & a cover for antiSemitism (see adl.org/resources/tool…) It was heartbreaking when BLM aligned w/BDS. It was unnecessary & alienating

12/ How could I support a movement to protect my fellow citizens if it poses an immediate threat to my life? Why force me to make a false choice? Supporting BIPOC Americans should not make me, ipso facto, strengthen the hands of ppl who want to use Israel to attack American Jews?

13/ When I try to convince Zionist Jews (like me) to support BLM, I explain that throughout history Jewish lives were thought to be cheap: like in Israel today. That argument works. The MSM often treats Israeli victims as deserving their murder b/c of MSM cultural anti-Zionism

14/ All lives are equal... yet not Israeli lives nor BIPOC lives in America

BDS should not, can not, be made equivalent to criticism of the Occupation or generalized Likudnik policies

Blacks & Jews should are natural allies, let's keep it that way!

15/ I'm trying to convince a threatened minority to help each other, so I think a central ethic needs to be one group's welfare should not come at the expense of another!

Doing so, pitting one group vs the other, is classic Edgar Hoover, Steve Bannon stuff. Stop it!

16/ All the needed reforms wouldn't hurt anyone b/c the essential argument vs the current US justice system is that it doesn't actually do what it's supposed to!

If it's used as a means of maintaining white supremacy, e.g. replacing slavery with permanent prison, then it's evil

17/ We can see the police as another example of what white supremacy, now in the guise of the GOP, has done to government in general

Taxes are to steal from the 99.9% to give to the 0.1%; no health care, no education, no infrastructure

That doesn't help Jews. It helps nobody

18/ We reform the PD by showing how that system is a largely a lie that's used to oppress, impoverish & deny citizenship. Personally, I want police for keeping me safe.

So my mission is to show how the current system isn't doing that *enough* & is unnec. unsafe to many others

19/ Again, 'police' are irreplaceable for keeping me safe from terrorists. It's not a joke. But since that function *can* be done w/o a system designed to oppress BIPOC, the system *must* be reformed to combat that oppression

I curse something that helps me by harming innocents!

20/ So to get my community on board, we need to preserve the protection I receive by ensuring that it's available to all Americans

Yet, as I said yesterday, this is so obvious that there's a paradigm conflict: BIPOC aren't seen as citizens so PD are constructed to be their enemy

21/ The America I was taught to believe in is where everyone is equal. That's why I can join this fight as a patriot. To make the promise of America real.

But Jews know: the USA refused sanctuary to us when we fled the Nazis, we know the promise is an ideal, yet to arrive

22/ The same slogan 'America First' that sent my relatives to their deaths is used now to preserve White Supremacy in the police & security system

The task to get US Jews on board to reform & improve the police & justice system. We can do it together