Hello, my name is Rabbi Rebecca Zimmerman Hornstein. I am the Executive Director of the Boston Workers Circle—-a 950-member, 125-year-old progressive Jewish community here in Boston.

The Workers Circle was founded by a group of immigrant sweatshop workers to provide mutual aid and build solidarity in the fight for a better world. Our founders believed that the future of the Jewish people was bound up in a shared future with our neighbors wherever we were. They believed the antidote to the antisemitism they were experiencing as Jews in Europe and then in the US was fighting for collective liberation—which meant fighting antisemitism by fighting for a world where everyone is safe, a world where everyone has what they need to live with dignity and to thrive, a world where everyone is free. Today, we draw strength from this legacy by continuing to fight for the better world our ancestors fought so hard for. 

Tonight begins the Jewish holiday of Purim. On Purim Jews around the world commemorate the bravery of a woman named Esther who stood up to power and won. Because the story of Purim is the story of the powerless ultimately becoming the powerful, Purim’s catchphrase is “v’nahafokh hu,” which means just the opposite happened. Purim’s rituals and practices try to get us to turn everything we know on its head —it’s kind of like Jewish opposite day. 

So here we are together on opposite day. And boy does it feel like the worst kind of opposite day. Because this administration is trying to tell us that fighting antisemitism means abducting a Palestinian student activist in front of his pregnant wife, stripping him of his rights, and moving to deport him on the grounds that they don’t really like what he has to say. They are trying to tell us that Jewish safety requires dismantling our educational system—from our public schools to our institutions of higher education like this one. They are trying to tell us that the only way to protect Jews is to entrench repression, attack free speech and move us all closer to authoritarianism. Of course even they don’t really believe this—it’s a naked cynical ploy that none of us are falling for. 

And this is all being done as part of Project Esther the Orwellian plan connected to project 2025 ironically named after Purim’s hero. Project Esther is a plan to “combat antisemitism” by repressing free speech and pro-Palestinian activism, and it was created entirely by Christian nationalists who seeks to harm anyone who doesn’t fit into their mold–Jewish people included. 

It is so clear that repression and authoritarianism are not the way to safety and freedom–it’s ridiculous to even have to say it.  “v’nahafokh hu,” it is the opposite. We are all safer and freer when the world is more just. We are all safer and freer when the Palestinian people are safe and free. We are all safer and freer when all people are safe and free. There is no such thing as a liberated world for only Jewish people, just as there is no such thing as a liberated world that does not include Jewish people.

Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest was supposed to deter us from speaking out for what is right, it was supposed to turn us against each other and make us afraid, it was supposed to distract us from the truth that we are all on the same side. But we are here to make it clear that we won’t let it.  We won’t stop until Mahmoud Khalil is released, authoritarianism is defeated, our educational institutions are funded, the Palestinian people are free, and our democracy is protected. We will fight this. Together we will resist fear, resist intimidation, resist the dismantling of our schools, colleges and universities. And we will REFUSE to let ANY of us be made into an example. And as Queen Esther said in the story of Purim—perhaps we were made for a moment such as this.