Jewish Voice for Peace - Indiana

08/13/2026

❓What are Israel Bonds? How can Indiana choose better investments for Hoosiers? Watch to find out how we can build a movement to stop buying Israel Bonds and invest in Indiana instead.

05/30/2026

A Jewish Response to Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith’s
Islamophobic Hate

In a speech on May 21, Indiana Lieutenant Governor Micah Beckwith declared “I hate Islam.” Calling Islam a “demonic death cult,” Beckwith also encouraged the rest of us to hate: “we need to be okay with hating again.”

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Indiana fully rejects Lt. Governor Beckwith’s bigotry and hate. His comments are disqualifying for holding elected office.

JVP Indiana knows that Beckwith’s hate speech makes Muslims in Indiana and beyond less safe, and we stand unequivocally alongside our Hoosier Muslim family, friends, and beloved community.

Hate is itself a form of violence. And hateful words – especially from persons in authority – give permission for and enable physical violence. Once hateful words circulate, moreover, they spread and foster more hate and violence. Bigotry and hate are, in short, a public safety issue, making Lt. Governor Beckwith’s speech a public safety issue.

All elected office holders in Indiana, starting with Governor Mike Braun and Senators Todd Young and Jim Banks, must publicly repudiate the Lt. Governor’s anti-Muslim bigotry and hate. Failing to do so provides a refuge for bigotry and hate – and this too is disqualifying for holding elected office.

JVP Indiana knows also that Islamophobia has provided cover for the U.S. and Israeli militaries to kill countless civilians across Southwest Asia for decades. In this moment, the Israeli state continues its genocide in Gaza and accelerates its ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Islamophobia tells us to look away from these atrocities; we refuse to do so. That Christian Palestinians too are victims of Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing is a tragic example of the fact that hate disperses and hemorrhages.

Jewish ethics teaches that every life is a universe, deserving of dignity and love. At a moment when Indiana’s lieutenant governor is spewing Islamophobic hate, it is thus incumbent on all of us to denounce that hate and in all of its manifestations and locations. This requires looking inward and recognizing Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian hate within our own Jewish institutions and communities, rather than limiting our scrutiny to the Lt. Governor’s words. Put otherwise, we must commit to fight hate both when it appears in crude public outbursts, as in the Lt. Governor’s speech, and when it lies under protective cover and is normalized.

We end by re-affirming our commitment to do all we can, today and moving forward, to stand alongside our Muslim family, friends, and beloved community.

May 30, 2026
Contact: [email protected]

05/30/2026

https://www.instagram.com/p/DY-A_O_lWRl/?img_index=1

04/08/2026

These are intentional war crimes. We need to invoke the 25th Amendment now to stop these violations.

04/02/2026

This year, as we welcome Passover, we welcome you as you are: We welcome your grief, your broken hearts, your rage, your fear, your steadfastness, and all of our dreams of collective liberation.

During the course of the night, we tell our ancestral story of the Israelites’ journey from mitzrayim, the narrow place, to freedom. While tonight our story ends with the Israelites crossing the Red Sea, dancing with Miriam and her timbrels, tasting freedom—we know that the Exodus story doesn’t end there. The Israelites would go on to wander for forty years in the desert, to build and lose empires, killing and displacing people in pursuit of the Promised Land. 

Tonight we acknowledge that the Jewish tradition contains both stories of freedom and of conquest, narratives of supremacy and narratives that teach us about the sacredness of all life. We ask, how does our experience of the Passover story change if we understand that each of us can both experience and perpetrate oppression? Tonight we wrestle with the contradictions in our inheritances.

This year the world feels unfathomably narrow. As we gather for Passover, the Israeli government furthers its genocidal project, destroying life and land all across Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon. As we gather for Passover, modern day Pharoahs are in power all over the world, especially here in the US, with an authoritarian regime that puts more and more lives at risk each day. May our Passover gatherings be acts of refusal. We will not allow our tradition, history, and identity to be fuel for authoritarian crackdown.

It has never been more clear: the journey to liberation will not be realized until it is a journey for collective liberation.

To read and download the anti-Zionist haggadah, go to jvp.org/passover5786 or click the link in our bio. Check your local JVP chapter’s social media for information about local actions and seders.

Herbs illustration by (https://www.instagram.com/mirandacohenmakes/)
JVP Action, our 501c4 organization, is now doing business as JVP; JVP Lab, our 501c3 organization, continues separately and remains focused on our nonpartisan educational and cultural work.

04/02/2026

Nationalism is chametz, during Passover and always!

Right now, the Pharaohs of our time are carrying out a campaign of mass slaughter and destruction across Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon — claiming to do so in the name of Judaism. In the U.S., the Trump regime exploits Jewish grief to justify crushing anyone who opposes these atrocities.

Our oppressors are the same. Trump and his profit-driven, billionaire friends who want to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” at the expense of Palestinians are the very individuals leading the crusade to “make America great again” at the expense of everyday people.

This Passover, we cannot celebrate as usual while the Israeli military continues its genocidal campaign in Gaza, and joins the US in replicating its tactics across the entire region. The questions of liberation are not theoretical—this year’s Jewish holiday of liberation calls us to strengthen our commitment to the liberation of the Palestinian people.

During Passover, Jews abstain from eating “chametz,” or foods that are forbidden to consume during the holiday. For many, part of the ritual of beginning the Passover fast from chametz can include donating or burning these foods. This passover, and every day, we strive to build a world free from the US-Israel alliance that is funding and enabling Palestinian genocide. We collectively work towards a future free from Zionism — the colonial ideology built on the premise of “maximum land with minimum Palestinians,” which requires the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land — as well as all forms of nationalism.

Check out jvp.org/passover5786 or click the link in our bio to read and download JVP’s anti-Zionist haggadah. Throughout Passover there will be dozens of public JVP seders across the country — check out your local chapter or pod for more info and to attend!

Artwork by
JVP Action, our 501c4 organization, is now doing business as JVP; JVP Lab, our 501c3 organization, continues separately and remains focused on our nonpartisan educational and cultural work.

03/17/2026

02/22/2026

What does resisting militarism look like—from the inside?
Join Jewish-Israeli anti-militarist activist Sahar Vardi for a discussion and Q&A on resisting Israeli militarism in Palestine, global arms exports, and activist safety.
Bloomington | Feb 27 | 5:30PM

Free tickets required
Register via indianafastforgaza.com/join-an-action