Jason Landau Goodman walked into the reception room at the Chicago Hilton in the early evening, just after Shabbat services, on Jan. 22.
“People are socializing,” he said. “Then you hear a growing rumbling outside. But the doors were very heavy. You could tell there were probably a lot of people out there. But I didn’t see anything that was going on outside.”
The founding executive director of the Pennsylvania Youth Congress was already on edge because the Jewish attendees at Creating Change, the annual conference hosted by the National LGBTQ Task Force, had decided to break into groups for the religious services: one for anti-Zionists and one for anyone else. Landau Goodman attended the main service, at which, he said, attendees prayed for peace.
“It feels so odd to be pro-Palestine or pro-Israel,” Landau Goodman said. “There are a huge number of people that just want peace.”
About 200 people protested the reception, which was hosted by A Wider Bridge. The nonprofit works to build bridges between Israeli LGBT people and American-Jewish LGBT people. The group brought two leaders to speak from Jerusalem Open House, an LGBT community center.
It was the first time in the 28-year history of Creating Change that a reception had protesters, said Rea Carey, executive director of the Task Force. More commonly, people protest plenary sessions with the majority of conference-goers in attendance.
While most of the protesters stood outside the reception room, three sat in the back. As soon as the people from Jerusalem Open House began speaking, the three protesters rushed the stage. They spoke loudly to obscure what the Israelis were saying. The main complaint was “pinkwashing,” which is the claim that Israel promotes itself as LGBT-friendly to distract from poor treatment of people who identify as Palestinian or Arab-Israeli. Language quickly turned anti-Semitic, Landau Goodman said.
“It was a terrifying experience on so many levels,” he said. “Rampant, violent anti-Semitism is so fresh in political and personal memory of many Jewish people. To be confined in a small room, being shouted at, ‘Death to Israel’ and ‘End the occupation,’ this has already traumatized people and I’m not even getting into politics.”
Landau Goodman left through a back door when he began to feel unsafe.
Hilton staff called police to disperse the crowds, according to the Task Force. Chicago police told PGN there wasn’t a specific record of the incident. There would have been a notation if anyone were arrested, said Officer Ana Pacheco, police spokeswoman.
The Task Force made several scheduling changes to the reception for A Wider Bridge in response to uproar from both sides of the issue. The week before Creating Change started, the Task Force cancelled the reception, but reinstated it a few days later. A dialogue session was also planned to precede the reception, but was cancelled due to requests from Jewish and Muslim groups, said Russell Roybal, deputy executive director of the Task Force.
“They wanted us to be more intentional and not rush to have a conversation,” he said. “They wanted us to do the pre-work.”
Carey issued a statement condemning anti-Semitism and the way the protest occurred.
“Hate speech of any kind is unacceptable whether it’s directed at Jewish or Muslim people,” she said in the statement. “We are deeply concerned about how the events of the evening unfolded — and have already initiated a review of our conference practices.”
Carey said the Task Force is considering improvements to conference inclusiveness and program content review; safety and security; and promoting conversation and peaceful protest. She noted conference infrastructure was established when it was a smaller event. Now over 4,000 people attend.
“We will include in that review process consulting widely with leaders in different communities, supporters and stakeholders,” Carey said in the statement.
For Landau Goodman, improved dialogue should prove a boon. He said he hoped to listen, learn and have a productive conversation at the Wider Bridge reception.
“None of us are going to solve the Middle East crisis or Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a few hours at a conference, which is frankly a luxury for many people,” Landau Goodman said. “I would’ve loved to have seen us talk about a service project where we are helping send resources to people who are in need, whether Israeli or Palestinian.”
He noted the people from Jerusalem Open House had recently experienced a terrorist attack on their Pride festival.
“We could be doing so much more than protesting each other,” Landau Goodman said.