Neighbor ❤️
Noe Israeli Love
@DannPetty
We’re a young married couple living in Noe Valley. We are Israeli Jews. These last weeks have been traumatizing and horrific on all ends. We feel so sad for everyone and really hope for peace in the near future.
Living in San Francisco is a very complex experience. The mural on 24th street left us feeling defeated, sad, and scared. We tend to keep a low profile, but we wanted to take a moment to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for posting this letter. It made us feel safe and happy to know you are out there (in a very isolating time).
Longtime Noe Neighbor
I want to thank you for your thoughtful and compassionate poster. As a Jew who has lived in Noe Valley for 43 years, I was horrified and frightened when I saw that mural. I didn’t know how to respond, but you did and I appreciate it. I hope you are hearing other positive responses as well.
Love from Noe
Someone sent me your statement and this Jewish neighbor wants to say thank you. Your words sum it up so perfectly and I already feel better knowing you are sharing them.
DC Love
I am a Jew in DC and my colleague, who lives in your neighborhood, shared your letter with our Jewish office group chat.
Your letter really resonated with me and I feel proud of this peaceful, yet unapologetic, and nuanced letter.
I liked how you stated the diversity of Jewish opinion while also making it clear that this is not a matter of opinion. Israel is not interested in genocide. Period. This role reversal is scary and an age-old antisemitic trope.
I hope your letter makes a difference to even one person confused about these false accusations of genocide, apartheid, and colonialism.
Thank you for your thoughtful letter and setting an example for how to work towards peace in your own neighborhood.
Jewish Noe Neighbor
Thank you for taking the time to write this letter. It is so important, now more than ever, to try to make things better and not worse. Let’s fight together for peace, not against each other. As a Jewish person in San Francisco who has marched and spoken up for BLM, women’s rights, gay rights, trans rights, and immigrant rights - I am heartbroken that so few have stood up for us. I am devastated by the loss of life in Gaza and Israel, and everywhere - and know there is room for grief for both. Your letter made me feel less alone in this sentiment, and can only hope that it reaches the hearts of others. We must as a community have conversations with each other and this letter is an amazing start.
To our neighbors in Noe Valley,
We are Jews who live with you, here. We walk to the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. We trick or treat up and down the streets. We bike, play, and walk on Slow Sanchez. We wait for closed storefronts to reopen and appreciate our neighborhood patch of San Francisco sunshine.
In response to the growing acts of antisemitism in our community, we want to tell you how many of your Jewish neighbors are living and feeling right now.
On the one hand, we are of many minds, and often disagree with each other – a core value of Judaism. Some of us are longtime critics of the sitting Israeli government. Some of us have family who are doctors in Israel performing autopsies on people burned or mutilated on October 7. Some of us have been hearing antisemitic slurs our whole lives, and more in the last few weeks. Some of us want a ceasefire. Some of us are liberals, some of us are conservatives.
We’re united by our desire to see a peaceful Middle East and to bring every Israeli hostage home. Unfortunately we’re also united by our emotional response to the antisemitism we are experiencing in stores, on the streets, and among our neighbors. In a neighborhood we call home, we now fear for our personal safety and for the safety of our children on our streets.
We accept the valid rage of Palestinians, at a situation that is beyond their control. It’s a situation to which Israel, many Arab nations, and many other world powers, including the U.S., have contributed. None of us wants Palestinian civilians to suffer. We want to lead with love.
And, we hope it goes without saying, none of us wants to eradicate a people. “Genocide” – a word we now walk by on a mural on 24th Street – means “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” Israel’s response, whatever one may think of it, is motivated by defense and not by the desire to eradicate a people. Genocide is what our people suffered during the Holocaust. And, though there may be some Israeli extremists – whom we denounce – who do call for genocide, that is not what Israel is doing today.
To justify the torture and brutality of Hamas on October 7 as “resistance” – as the artist of the 24th Street mural did in another work of his – also cheapens the truth. While, tragically, this is war, we believe it is possible to retain our humanity even during war – maybe even especially during war. On October 7, Hamas failed to retain its humanity. We recognize that Hamas is not the Palestinian people. While we may want to eradicate terrorism, we want the Palestinian people to thrive.
We only have hopes for peace if we can make peace ourselves, wherever we are – starting here, on 24th Street. Here, in our neighborhood, let’s please call for care, for truth, and – when we have it available to us – even love toward each other.
Yours,
Some of your Jewish neighbors
This is based on a letter from November 4, 2023 in response to a mural on 24th Street and we’ve now updated it as events have unfolded.
