Eli Valley Quotes

If you just look at the majority of American Jews, they are more like Bernie Sanders than Joe Lieberman, in terms of secular versus Orthodox, or non-nationalistic versus nationalistic, or moral versus corrupt. There are all these articles that keep coming, saying that Bernie Sanders isn’t talking about his Judaism enough, or contrasting him with Joe Lieberman as the American Jewish icon, because — because why? Because Lieberman wears a yarmulke? Because he lends his name to extremist movements, like Christians United for Israel? To me that’s not Judaism, and for the press and even the Jewish community to implicitly assume that these extremes are our norms — that is what is self-loathing, that is when we become self-hating.

There aren’t a lot of types of views allowed in the Jewish community and there is a large group of Jewish youth who feel they don’t have a voice...It’s support Israel or else, but without open discourse the Jewish community loses. We need to be questioning the accepted truths of the Jewish world

Satirizing the powerless is not good satire

It really is absurd. It’s just amazing to me that the vast majority of American Jews are progressively inclined, and our spokespeople and our arbiters of authenticity are on the right side of the spectrum. They’re not elected — they’re just self-proclaimed leaders. It’s like that quote from Abe Foxman in the comic “It Happened on Halloween,” saying, “I don’t represent. I lead.” That’s damn true, because none of these people represent us.

the Gaza War in 2014...I know a lot of people became activists during that period. That’s actually when IfNotNow emerged.

(What would it mean to have a leftist Jewish community that doesn’t always have to be so reactive — one that’s not always on the defense against conservative Jewish gatekeepers?) It would be as diverse as the Jewish community is today, with all the different strands, fluid identities, and multicultural expressions. Some of it would be nostalgic, reinventing nostalgia, some would explore inter-generational tensions, some would be based on new Jewish experiences and encounters.

thinking that they’re the authentic ones, because implicit in that is that we are somehow deficient. And honestly, if there’s no other point to Diaspora Boy, it’s to say we are not deficient. We are authentic. Honestly, it’s crazy that that should be a radical thought. That should be self-evident. But it needs to be said.

we must disabuse ourselves of the notion that an alliance with Israel absolves you of anti-Semitism.

(Diaspora Boy reminded me of the perception that Israel is the culmination of Jewish history. Does this belief need to change?) This belief needs to change in every way. Physically, in terms of male toxicity, which is inherent in this shit. Emotionally and spiritually, maybe we should stop saying “aliyah,” which means “going up” and “ascending,” for moving to Israel. No, I don’t think so. Israel should be considered one of the Diaspora communities in the world. That’s what I consider Israel to be. We’re in a constant state of Diaspora. Israel did not end anything, and it is certainly not higher than any other Diaspora community.

The term Kapo was used inaccurately for decades against liberal Jews. Now we have conservative Jews in bed with Nazis, so if we ever had a time where the term Kapo can be used legitimately, it is now. Maybe we need to use that term a bit more.

we have to stop accepting this kind of elevation of Israel as the highest point.

What’s happening in Israel and what we’ve been ignoring and normalizing for the past ten years has now suddenly hit our own shores.

in general brainwashing begets brainwashing. In terms of liberal Jews who check their progressive values at the door when it comes to Israel, it’s fear and guilt: If we object to Israel’s policies, then we must hate ourselves, and we don’t want to be considered self-hating. For those with an emotional connection to Israel, they might do a cost-benefit analysis. They say, if it‘s my people or the Palestinian people, then someone’s gonna have to lose out, and it’s gonna be them. That’s even further then a lot of people ever get with this. For a lot of people it’s just an emotional level based on educational experiences they’ve had since they were children. When some people start admitting that this is not the ideal they’ve been taught, they rationalize it by saying, the Palestinians are to blame.

I am proudly Jewish and it flies in the face of their whole theory of assimilation and that lefty Jews just don’t know what Judaism is.

It’s outrageous that they claim the mantle of Judaism, while in my view they trespass some of the most basic post-enlightenment Jewish values. I come at it from a fierce Jewish-pugilistic perspective.