Background: On July 21, during the question and answer portion of a St. Louis Jewish Federation community briefing, I was screamed at, then grabbed by security guards, for having introduced countervailing thoughts to a very one sided conversation. Then on July 29 four members of St. Louis Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) interrupted Consul General of Israel to the Midwest Roey Gilad while he addressed a crowd at another Jewish Federation event. They were forcefully expelled – and St. Louis JVP member Hedy Epstein was pushed by a member of the audience. Hedy will be 90 years old this week.

I believe in response to to our bad treatment at these events, Rabbi Susan Talve invited members of St. Louis JVP to speak at her Central Reform Congregation (CRC) on August 6. CRC has a reputation as being a very liberal congregation and Talve is involved in many campaigns for social justice, such as the struggle of local fast food workers to earn a decent wage. Five of us spoke. We were well received by the roughly 70 people in the audience, who asked good question to create a lively conversation. While Talve made it very clear that she did not support most of our views, we were appreciative to have the space to address members of the congregation.

Talve recently went on an AIPAC sponsored tour of Israel. On August 13 the Central Reform Congregation hosted an AIPAC event called “The Progressive Case for Israel” – which consisted of Talve and former Hillary Clinton advisor Ann Lewis answering questions from a representative from AIPAC.

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Arielle and I were at the event – we had fliers about why Israel is an Apartheid state, and another from JVP giving a factual analysis of recent events in Gaza.

We both walked into the event with our friend Ben who recently joined JVP. They asked if we had signed up or if we are a member of the congregation. I said my mother and brother are members, which the AIPAC people didn’t accept as good enough. Then Ben, who had signed up, told them we were with him. They said we could come in. Then they saw the flyers and they said I couldn’t bring them in. So I went outside to put away the flyers but soon after Arielle was called a security threat by the AIPAC people so she was kicked out. So we started giving the flyers to the crowd coming in – mostly hostile, but I did see a few friends come in and talked with them.

Then CRC Rabbis Susan Talve and Randy Fleisher came out to talk. Talve said that AIPAC made the rules, so I asked her, isn’t it your congregation? She said there are security concerns because of “everything going on”. I asked her if she had ever witnessed either Arielle or I act violently. She said we had our event last week and now this was something different. Talve said there would not be a question and answer session. Arielle was really upset, told Talve that she did not feel welcome (having been called a security threat), and left. Talve and Fleisher did allow me back in and allowed me to put our fliers on a table. So I talked to a few people on the inside before the thing began.

The format was this: first a representative from AIPAC spoke. Then Rabbi Talve and Ann Lewis (a former Hillary Clinton aide who represents AIPAC) shared the bema to answer questions from the first man. Here are some highlights:

It started with a video asking people to come to the 2015 AIPAC conference

Then the AIPAC man actually said – “2000 people dead – yes that stinks” but the good news is that the Israeli military showed exemplary morality. All the deaths were Hamas’ fault.

Then Talve talked about being at an event for Michael Brown and said that in the United States we need to address our out of control gun violence and learn that racial profiling doesn’t help

Ann Lewis then outlined the Progressive Case for Israel. It is exactly what you would expect. She said that Israel protects women’s rights, LGBT rights, free speech, free elections, rule or law, and demonstrates advanced environmental stewardship.

Then one of them said “Israel is not a perfect country” and recommended reading Ari Shavit’s “My Promised Land”.

Talve said that just as the United States is a Christian country which protects minority rights, Israel strives to be a Jewish country that protects minority rights.

They all kept saying that AIPAC supports a two state solution.

I left after about 45 minutes – I couldn’t take all the lies anymore. I realized that disrupting would be pointless, and staying would drive me insane. I was pretty angry at all I had just heard I decided to drive to Ferguson to support the protests against the killing of Michael Brown.

I got there and joined a peacefully protest of about 70 people in front of the main Ferguson police station. After talking to a bunch of people and being there an hour or so I went to where the larger crowd was by the Quick Trip. When I got near, around 9 pm – boom, boom, boom – the police shot several rounds tear gas and people started running. Then a cop threatened to arrest me if I didn’t leave. I went back to the other protest for another hour, then came home, then watched on the computer how the tear gas just kept coming, how they used rubber bullets, how they arrested St. Louis Alderman Antonio French, two journalists, on and on – it’s crazy. I saw no evidence of any violence tonight perpetuated by anyone except the Ferguson and St. Louis County police. It’s like they are trying to make people angry to the point in which they get violent in order to justify their own violence.

I just feel so angry – at these county police, at these Ferguson police, at these Rabbis who call themselves progressive, who can go to a vigil for Michael Brown (the only rabbis so far in St. Louis to do so at the time of this writing) but yet stand in solidarity with those who killed Nadeem Nouwarah, Mohammad Mahmoud Odeh Salameh and thousands of others. By having an AIPAC event at CRC in my book they crossed a line. I’m not sure where that line is but they way crossed it. Behind them on the stage was a gigantic banner that had the Israeli and American flag and said “AIPAC”.That Talve can without irony, at an AIPAC event in her synagogue, talk about how the USA needs to address our out of control gun violence and racial profiling – when out-of-control gun violence and racial profiling is a pretty good (albeit very incomplete) description of Israel.

Talve sometimes expresses a nuanced view of the situation in Israel/Palestine, but there is nothing liberal, or progressive, or nuanced about allowing AIPAC to host an event at your congregation, about taking an AIPAC sponsored trip to Israel, about encouraging people to join AIPAC. This is the AIPAC which brings Netanyahu to its annual conference to receive standing ovations from our fawning members of congress. This is the AIPAC which bears a large responsibility from sending the arms Israel uses to continue its occupations and killings of Palestinians, for sheilding Israel from the consequences of international condemnation.

I just saw all these parallels in my head – the AIPAC representative cites Israel’s exemplary morality after the murdering 2000 people and leaving 500,000 homeless, the same night that Saint Louis County Police Chief Belmar says “We’ve done everything we can to demonstrate a remarkable amount of restraint” after gassing, arresting, threatening and shooting at peaceful protesters and press. Blemar’s recent predecessor as St. Louis County police chief in 2011 went to Israel to study “counter terrorism”.

I’m certainly not saying that the different situations are analogous – but after a long and emotional night at CRC and in the streets of Ferguson – I started thinking of both and seeing parallels.