Taglit-Birthright, the premier program in Jewish-American Zionism for young adults, has sent 340,000, 18- to 25-year-old Jews to Israel on all-expenses paid, 10-day vacations since its inception in 1999. On their journey, participants consume all the riches of Jewish Israeli culture – the gorgeous landscape, spiritual holy places, chiseled soldiers – a perfectly painted blindfold that sits comfortably on their eager eyes, shielding them from the violent truths of their supposed “homeland.” The Zionist indoctrination I experienced on the trip was far more insidious and violent than I had expected.
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We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.
Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”
Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.
It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.
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