SFWAR has taken, in the words of one Jewish observer, a first step toward reconciliation with the Jewish community.
When, how or even if that will actually happen remains incredibly ambiguous, however.
The embattled agency has been in the hot seat since a July Bulletin article revealed San Francisco Women Against Rape officially declared itself an anti-Zionist organization, and its applications questioned potential volunteers’ thoughts on “supporting Palestinian Liberation and taking a stance against Zionism.”
On Aug. 15, SFWAR Executive Director Nina Jusuf met with members of the San Francisco Domestic Violence Consortium, including Naomi Tucker of the Oakland-based Shalom Bayit, which does advocacy and outreach in the Jewish community. Abby Porth, the assistant executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, also attended the last hour of the meeting.
“I think this meeting was a good first step,” said Tucker. “There’s no way SFWAR is going to completely change after one meeting, but I do think it’s significant that we were all able to come around the table and be civil and cordial and agree to this process.”
According to Tucker, who founded Shalom Bayit 11 years ago, Jusuf told the group that SFWAR opted to declare itself an anti-Zionist organization after anti-Arab graffiti that appeared on its offices and nearby convenience stores in the wake of 9/11 led to political discussions about the Middle East.
Former Jewish volunteers and SFWAR board members told the Bulletin the organization’s decision to publicly brand itself as anti-Zionist traced back to an emotionally charged meeting in February of last year.
Tucker also claimed Jusuf told the domestic violence professionals at the meeting that SFWAR has removed anti-Zionist content from training material and is meeting with “members of the progressive Jewish community” in an effort to deal with the situation internally.
Tucker said she questioned SFWAR’s aloofness and silence regarding its internal dealings. She was told the organization has shied away from publicly addressing the Jewish community, largely because of an inundation of “hate mail, death threats and hang-up calls on their crisis line.”
“That really needs to stop,” Tucker said of the threats. “It essentially gives the Jewish community a really bad reputation. I know it’s just a few people on the fringe, but it actually makes the problem worse.
“It perpetuates stereotypes SFWAR has about the Jewish community and makes them defensive. It makes them unable to see how we are the ones who were initially hurt in this process, and rather than respecting the Jewish community as the ones they hurt, they see us as the ones hurting them. That’s part of why we’re stuck in this process,” Tucker added.
In a brief message left on a Bulletin answering machine, Jusuf said SFWAR had no public statement to make about any internal policy changes, but that she had agreed to meet with the JCRC at the end of the month.
Subsequent calls to Jusuf were not returned.
News of a meeting was a surprise to Porth, who told the Bulletin on Wednesday that she had given Jusuf five possible meeting dates next week but hadn’t heard back from her yet.
“There were a lot of people around the table and it wasn’t the kind of direct exchange with SFWAR I might have hoped for,” Porth said of the meeting.
Regarding any policy changes, “They haven’t told me anything they’re doing.”
Tucker, who has expressed “anger, hurt and disappointment” over SFWAR’s anti-Zionism, said it will take time for the two sides to concur.
“Any change that happens immediately will be superficial and won’t represent any real, attitudinal change underneath, which is what I’m invested in,” she said.
“Unfortunately, we’d all like to see this over quickly, and I think the best thing to do is continue a dialogue saying how we feel. Real change always takes time.”