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This Israel-born, Jewish chef is demanding a cease-fire
“I’m devastated and exhausted,” Ora Wise told me on a video call from her New York City apartment, her facial features flickering between fatigue and animation.
Just three days earlier, the chef and food activist marched in the nation’s capital to call for a cease-fire in Israel’s siege of Gaza. The offensive has claimed the lives of over 10,000 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, since Oct. 7, when over 1,400 Israelis were killed in Hamas’ terrorist attacks.
The day after our interview, Wise was scheduled to appear in court for charges of obstructing traffic and failure to disperse during another cease-fire demonstration the previous month.
In Washington, D.C., this past weekend, Wise marched alongside three Palestinian American chefs — Reem Assil of Reem’s California in Oakland, Omar Anani of Saffron De Twah in Detroit, and Marcelle Afram of Shababi in Washington — and Kimberly Chou Tsun An, a writer and farmer. The five of them demonstrated under the banner of Hospitality for Humanity, a coalition of food professionals organizing for a cease-fire and against U.S. funding of the Israeli military. Assil, who was a full-time labor organizer before she became a professional chef, initiated the project when she reached out to her four collaborators a few weeks ago.
For Wise, who helps lead a food justice nonprofit called FIG NYC, the march was the culmination of a journey that started in Jerusalem, where she was born to a rabbi father. She spent her childhood between Israel and the United States, and describes working as an English tutor in a Bedouin community in the West Bank as a turning point in her relationship to the region.
In 2017, on the same nights that high-profile chefs around the world cooked in Israeli restaurants as part of the government-funded Round Tables festival, Wise joined Assil, Chou Tsun An, and Palestinian American chef Amanny Ahmad in organizing a pop-up series called the Asymmetrical Table, spotlighting Palestinian cuisine. The following year, they were part of a successful effort to get the featured New York chef to pull out of the Israeli festival.
Ora Wise leads a cooking demonstration at the New York Botanical Garden. Courtesy of Ora Wise
On Oct. 29, Hospitality for Humanity released an open letter that now has over 1,000 signatures — from chefs, food writers, farmers and other members of the food industry — of people pledging to advocate for a cease-fire and an end to unconditional U.S. funding of the Israeli government, boycott pro-Israel products, events and trips, and participate in events that help the Palestinian cause. The coalition also released a downloadable restaurant menu insert that includes a phone number for the U.S. Congress, Instagram accounts to follow, and a QR code that links to info on protests planned around the country.
I spoke with Wise about her journey towards fighting for Palestinian rights, the destruction of Palestinian culinary practices, and why protecting those practices is a Jewish issue.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
How have your views on Israel and Palestine developed over time?
I was raised Zionist. I went to Jewish day school, conservative Jewish summer camp, synagogue, Sunday school and youth groups. I was raised to feel this passionate possessiveness of that land and this deep connection to Israel.
When I was a child, we were living in Minnesota, and we did joint programs with the Lakota tribe and learned in gruesome detail the history of genocide and colonization here in the United States.
Ora Wise, raising her fist in this photograph, said that teaching English in a Bedouin community in the occupied West Bank was a turning point for her understanding of Israel and Palestine. Courtesy of Ora Wise
When I was 18 years old, I was living in Jerusalem and became an English tutor working with the Jahalin Bedouin, a semi-nomadic Semitic people indigenous to that land. They had been kicked out of their homes in the Negev desert when the State of Israel was created, and they had been displaced to the West Bank. The Israeli government was forcibly relocating them yet again, in order to expand the Ma’ale Adumim settlement. They were forced to live on what I came to understand was a reservation.
I remember walking on a dusty path between shacks fashioned out of corrugated metal shipping crates. It was on land that was barely livable, only about 500 meters (a third of a mile) from Jerusalem’s largest city dump, which was, of course, not in Jerusalem, but in Palestinian territory. So it clicked for me: “What is different here than what I’ve been raised to believe was wrong in the creation of the United States?”
What was the genesis of Hospitality for Humanity?
For us, as food workers, we wanted to make sure that our community was extending its values and practices — around sustainability, equity and health — to include Palestinians.
We know that in Palestine, the Israeli military occupation suppresses, destroys and controls Palestinian foodways — whether it is Israeli soldiers themselves, or armed settlers, destroying or stealing wheat harvests or olive harvests.
Before 1948, Palestinians were predominantly an agricultural people. Now, Israel has constructed an apartheid wall that divides a Palestinian farming village from its farming lands, so farmers either lose their land or have to go through a military checkpoint. Even those that somehow manage, against all odds, to continue to grow their crops, are not able to get much of their produce to market through the Israeli system of separate roads, military closures and checkpoints.
How does food fit into the movement to boycott products that support the Israeli government?
The strategy of the Palestinian-led global boycott movement is based on complicity, not identity — institutions, not individuals.
Ora Wise stands in front of a mural outside of a cafe in Ireland. Courtesy of Ora Wise
I’ll give an example. Sabra hummus is on the boycott list. It’s owned by Pepsi-Cola and the Strauss company. The Strauss company gives money to the Israel Defense Forces.
SodaStream’s production facilities are in a so-called free trade zone in the occupied West Bank. So that’s why we boycott SodaStream and Sabra Hummus.
Hospitality for Humanity’s statement also describes the “appropriation” of Palestinian food traditions by Israel. Can you explain what you mean by that?
The branding of a pan-Arab and North African dish as “Israeli” is something that needs to be unpacked in the same way that the food world has examined how white chefs have been co-opting different Asian diaspora foods or Mexican foods or Black Southern foods, rebranding them, redressing them, and profiting from them.
It’s really disingenuous when people claim, “oh, it’s just hummus,” or that these are just “hummus wars.” We’re not talking about some just trivial squabble over ownership. What we’re talking about is one people dominating another people.
I grew up eating, making and loving these foods, and I continue to do so. But I’m very committed to sourcing from Palestinian producers and making sure that the Palestinian authorship of these foods is central.
How has your Judaism informed your approach to this project?
So many Jewish rituals and traditions are based in food: We tell stories through food, we celebrate and mourn through food. And food has always been really central to my family and traditions. So I’m heartbroken to see another people being denied that in my name.
I was also raised to celebrate and honor the land — to recognize the seven sacred plant species named in the Torah, including olives, pomegranates, dates and barley. These are all ancient crops that Palestinians have been stewarding for generations, that are being destroyed by Israeli settlers. The State of Israel has bulldozed thousands of olive trees.
I care about and love this land. And that’s exactly why I’m going to fight like hell against the way that the State of Israel is destroying it, and everything that I love and value about it.
The post This Israel-born, Jewish chef is demanding a cease-fire appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, and Houthi media said three people were killed.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said in a statement.
The Israeli military said that in addition to striking the airport, it also hit military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said two people were killed in the strikes on the airport and one person was killed in the port hits, while 11 others were wounded in the attacks.
There was no comment from the Houthis, who have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attacks that Israel will continue its mission until it is complete: “We are determined to sever this terror arm of Iran’s axis.”
The prime minister has been strengthened at home by the Israeli military’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and by its destruction of most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were also reported by Al Masirah TV.
Tedros said he had been in Yemen to negotiate the release of detained UN staff detainees and to assess the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa … the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” he said in a statement.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues were safe.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the incident.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel‘s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel‘s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
The post Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew. Photo: Alchetron.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for casting doubt on a new report claiming that famine has gripped northern Gaza.
The controversial Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday slammed Lew for his “callous dismissal” of the recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report accusing Israel of inflicting famine on the Gaza Strip. The organization subsequently asserted that Israel had perpetrated an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan,’” CAIR said in a statement.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling, and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza,” the Washington, DC-based group continued.
On Monday, FEWS Net, a US-created provider of warning and analysis on food insecurity, released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in the area without sufficient access to food.
“Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians in the beleaguered enclave, the report stated.
Lew subsequently issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
Following Lew’s repudiation, FEWS NET quietly removed the report on Wednesday, sparking outrage among supporters of the pro-Palestinian cause.
“We ask FEWS NET not to submit to the bullying of genocide supporters and to again make its report available to the public,” CAIR said in its statement.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has been repeatedly accused of inflicting famine in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
This is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by FEWS Net that a famine had taken hold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
Meanwhile, CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the onset of the Gaza war last October.
CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the Oct. 7 atrocities. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage across southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
The post Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
The international Jewish civil rights organization legally representing more than 50 victims of the attack on Israeli soccer fans that took place in Amsterdam last month has joined many voices in lambasting a Dutch court for what they described as a mild punishment for the attackers.
“These sentences are an insult to the victims and a stain on the Dutch legal system,” The Lawfare Project’s founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “Allowing individuals who coordinated and celebrated acts of violence to walk away with minimal consequences diminishes the rule of law and undermines trust in the judicial process. If this is the response to such blatant antisemitism, what hope is there for deterring future offenders or safeguarding the Jewish community.”
On Tuesday, a district court in Amsterdam sentenced five men for their participation in the violent attacks in the Dutch city against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. The premeditated and coordinated violence took place on the night of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of Nov 8, before and after Maccabi Tel Aviv competed against the Dutch soccer team Ajax in a UEFA Europa League match. The five suspects were sentenced to up to 100 hours of community service and up to six months in prison.
The attackers were found guilty of public violence, which included kicking an individual lying on the ground, and inciting the violence by calling on members of a WhatsApp group chat to gather and attack Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. One man sentenced on Tuesday who had a “leading role” in the violence, according to prosecutors, was given the longest sentence — six months in prison.
“As someone who witnessed these trials firsthand, I am deeply disheartened by the leniency of these sentences,” added Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at The Lawfare Project. “The violent, coordinated attacks against Jews in Amsterdam are among the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe. These light sentences fail to reflect the gravity of these crimes and do little to deliver justice to the victims who are left traumatized and unheard. Even more troubling, they set a dangerous precedent, signaling to future offenders that such horrific acts of violence will not be met with serious consequences.”
The Lawfare Project said on Wednesday that it is representing over 50 victims of the Amsterdam attacks. It has also secured for their clients a local counsel — Peter Plasman, who is a partner at the Amsterdam-based law firm Kötter L’Homme Plasman — to represent them in the Netherlands. The Lawfare Project aims to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people around the world through legal action.
Others who have criticized the Dutch court for its sentencing of the five men on Tuesday included Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum; Tal-Or Cohen, the founder and CEO of CyberWell; and The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
The post Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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