History of A Different Jewish Voice

A Different Jewish Voice (Een Ander Joods Geluid, EAJG) was founded in the Netherlands as a result of discontent about how debate and opinion making on Israel was taking place within Dutch-Jewish circles. Criticism on Israel tended to be translated as anti-Israel. Any sort of understanding of the Palestinian position was also portrayed as anti-Israel. Many people inside the Jewish community either kept silent or indiscriminately supported the official viewpoints of the Israeli government.

The excessive reaction of Israel to the Second Intifada, both in the occupied Palestinian territories and within Israel itself, urged a number of Jews to voice their outrage in public. Many Jews gave their support to the first ads of Een Ander Joods Geluid voicing this outrage and a great number of people were present at the first public gathering on January 14, 2001.

Some of the signatories of the manifesto organized themselves in an executive committee that wanted to propagate this different Jewish voice further and to organize all the necessary actions needed. From this executive committee the foundation “Een Ander Joods Geluid” emerged in the spring of 2001 on the basis of a Statement of Principles of which the most important parts were anchored in her statutes.

A Different Jewish Voice strives towards: 

• Contributing to the public debate and critical opinion making on Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
• Breaking the taboo among Jews that they cannot utter criticism on the state of Israel and do not accept this from other people.
• Supporting peace initiatives based on a felt connection with the fate and survival of Israel. Starting point here are the generally accepted principles of equality, tolerance and humanity as anchored in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and aiming at a sustainable peace in the Middle East that must be reached without oppression and/or discrimination from either side in any form whatsoever.
• Performing any further action that relates to the items mentioned in the broadest sense or that might be conducive to them.