The Jewish National Fund held its annual Global Conference for Israel at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas from Nov. 14-17, drawing approximately 2,500 attendees and over 1,000 protesters from across Texas and Oklahoma.
The first day of the conference, members of Jewish Voice for Peace blocked a road outside the conference while a rabbi led the protesters in prayer. Twelve protesters were arrested and subsequently released Nov. 15. The first of three noise demonstrations was held that night, with follow up noise protests held on the 15th and the 16th with the intent of disrupting the sleep of “genociders.” In an article for The Jewish Star, conference attendant Carin M. Smilk wrote regarding the noise disruptions that “many thought the ruckus was simply the sounds of the city.”
On Nov. 15, protesters organized a “Chalk the Block” event around the hotel. A thirteenth protester would be arrested that day for entering the Hilton Anatole and disrupting the JNF conference by setting off alarms inside the building, which the Palestinian Youth Movement said caused a delay in the conference schedule. The protester would be released around 10 p.m. that evening.
On Nov. 16, protesters organized a statewide demonstration against the JNF conference. Protesters from UTD, UT Arlington, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Youth Movement and Neturei Karta were among the various groups that began gathering near the Hilton Anatole at 1 p.m.
As the protesters prepared, organizers spoke about why they had come to demonstrate against the conference. Fatima, an officer of UTD’s Students for Justice in Palestine, said students at UTD were opposed to their university’s investments that funded Israel’s military actions in Palestine, and that SJP was at the Hilton Anatole to show that they did not believe JNF was welcome in Dallas. Neturei Karta rabbi Dovid Feldman said that his Orthodox community viewed the actions of Israel as antithetical to Jewish law.
“They call themselves the Jewish National Fund, this name is misleading,” Feldman said. “Judaism and Zionism are not the same. We should never allow for the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Judaism.”
“We should never allow for the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Judaism” – Dovid Feldman
Around 1,000 protesters had arrived by 2:50 p.m. and the protesters began marching toward the Hilton Anatole by 3 p.m., which is when the Dallas Police Department closed off car access to the roads the marching protesters were occupying.
At 3:05 p.m., protesters marched past the Verandah Athletic Club and Spa, where a group of approximately 20 conference attendees had gathered to view the protest. An attendee approached the marching protesters and said, “You guys can spread hate, I will spread peace,” before DPD asked her to move away from the demonstrators. The same attendee would run toward the protesters ten minutes later before a member of DPD intercepted her and took her away from the demonstration.
Protesters shouted “shame” and “shalom, come join us” at the nearby conference attendees. Two police cars followed the marchers with over 20 other police vehicles spread across the Hilton Anatole property. The protest would continue outside the Hilton Anatole well into the evening before transitioning into the 10 p.m. noise protest.
Retrograde staff attempted to speak in person with hotel management and conference attendants Nov. 16. Upon identifying themselves as members of the press, hotel security told them to leave the premises.
Beginning at 2 p.m. Nov. 17, protesters drove around the Hilton Anatole to artificially create traffic in an attempt to delay the departures of conference attendees.
A JNF-USA spokesperson told ABC 8 in a written statement that the conference was not impacted by the protesters outside the hotel.
“Our conference is about bringing people together who want to build a better future for the land and people of Israel — and we’re delighted to have achieved this with over 2,500 proud supporters uniting this weekend during this critical time for our community,” the statement reads.
Earlier this year, JNF had its non-profit status revoked in Canada and U.S. anti-Zionist organizers have pushed for the U.S. to do likewise. Fatima said the conference being allowed to happen in Dallas was an indictment of city and hotel officials after a month of protesters attempting to communicate their heavy opposition to the conference.
“We are absolutely disgusted and disappointed that our city is hosting what the JNF is calling the largest Zionist conference,” Fatima said. “It has operated for over a hundred years and focused on the displacement of Palestinians, and more recently, the greenwashing of these efforts to remove native Palestinians from their land.”
“We are absolutely disgusted and disappointed that our city is hosting what the JNF is calling the largest Zionist conference.” – Fatima
Ryan Torok of the Jewish Journal reported that rabbi David Wolpe spoke about “the future of American Jewry” and how outsized criticism of Israel compared to other countries leaves “no choice but to assume anti-Zionism stems from antisemitism.” Feldman said that labeling all criticism of Israel as antisemitic was wrong and dangerous because it erroneously conflated all Jewish people with the actions of Israel. Torok reported that few conference attendees were even aware of the protest against the conference happening outside the hotel.
“Calling criticism of Zionism antisemitic is both an injustice to oppressed Palestinians, and it is an injustice to the Jewish people,” Feldman said. “Doing so misconstrues the Jewish people as if they are behind these war crimes, we must oppose these crimes. We oppose them even when they come from a small sect of Jewish people.”
Feldman criticized the operations of the JNF with its aim of acquiring land in Israel for settlement by Jewish people as an embarrassment to Jewish people across the world, He said that in an ultra-orthodox view of Jewish religious writings, people creating Israel violates the divine decree for exile, which can only be undone by redemption from God instead of human violence.
“The root cause of all of this is not the difference in religions,” Feldman said. “Contrary to Zionist propaganda, the root cause is this illegal occupation. We hope and pray to God that this ends peacefully.”
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The aftermath of arresting 21 students, faculty, community members – The Retrograde
[…] turnout than the previous semester. The most notable protest that fall was when UTD students joined over 1,000 total protesters outside the Dallas Hilton Anatole Nov. 16 to oppose it hosting the annual Global Conference for […]