Women Speak Out Against Zionism

Women Speak Out Against Zionism was an article in the August 1982 edition of the feminist magazine Spare Rib, which contained interview excerpts with three women, one Palestinian, one Lebanese and one "Israeli" who spoke to Roisin Boyd. It was published in the wake of the Zionist invasion of Lebanon. The subtitle in quotes was "If a woman calls herself feminist she should consciously call herself anti-Zionist".

It set off a significant controversy over whether Zionism was racism and about the proper role of Jewish feminists in relation to the occupation of Palestine.

Among the responses was a book edited and published by two of the participants in the dispute Erica Burman and Libby Lawson. Titled That's Funny You Don't Look Anti-Semitic, the book, was, however, published in 1984 under the authorship of Steve Cohen, a one time member of the International Marxist Group, who by the time of his death in 2009 reportedly considered himself a supporter of the Zionist and Islamophobic Alliance for Workers Liberty

See also

Women Speak Out

• Erica Burman
• Nira Yuval-Davis
• Steve Cohen
• Engage

Resources

• Tony Greenstein, How Identity Politics Turned the Victims of Sabra & Chatilla into the Antisemitic Oppressors of Zionist Feminists - A Reply to Erica Burman Azvsas, 27 December 2020.
• Nira Yuval-Davis, Anti-Semitism and the struggle against racism', Spare Rib, September 1984.
• Erica Burman Reading “That’s Funny…” now: and why it’s different from then, Jewish Voice for Labour, Wed 11 Nov 2020.