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The Thin Veil explores what happens when inherited narratives about history, identity, power, and belonging begin to break down—and what it means to move toward greater moral clarity and alignment in their wake.
Centered around Palestine and anti-Zionism, and rooted in musician/activist Ezra Lipp’s own process of political unlearning later in life, the show features conversations with artists, organizers, and others navigating questions of imperialism, colonization, liberation, and the systems shaping our world.
14 Cat Zavis Full Episode 1
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Cat Zavis: [00:00:00] one of the things that was important to me and remains important to me as a rabbi and spiritual leader is to take moral stance on issues. And it was clear to me what the moral stance was. there was no spiritual moral choice for me. It wasn't, a difficult choice even though I knew that there would be consequences both for the congregation and for me. and it- when you look at the history and the current reality, it's just really clear.
Well, hello. Hello, hello, and welcome back to The Thin Veil with Ezra Lipp. as always, I am your host, Ezra Lipp. This is a show about unlearning inherited narratives, and most of these conversations center around Palestine and anti-Zionism. Leave a five-star rating and review wherever you are listening to this, be it on YouTube, on the podcast platforms.
It really makes a [00:01:00] difference, and Iappreciate your support. If you wanna support this show, you can go to patreon.com/ezralipp. Sign up to be a patreon, a patron. It really helps. I don't have a lot I wanna add today. I'm gonna get right into the interview. We have an amazing guest. She is a rabbi and a spiritual leader who has been doing pro-Palestinian, activism and related work, for decades.
She is a, uh, activist and attorney and the current rabbi at Beit Tikkun, which is one of the only anti-Zionist Jewish congregations in the country, and it is the only one in the East Bay, of California, in the Bay Area. Of course, I'm talking about Rabbi Cat Zavis. Rabbi Cat Zavus is amazing.
I so enjoyed this conversation. It is a powerful episode. [00:02:00] She, to me, is an example of what moral leadership and, courage and what I think all Jewish leaders should be enacting today
So thank you, Rabbi Cat, for being an example of moral courage. Without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with Rabbi Cat Zavis
Cat Zavis: My name is Rabbi Cat Zavis, and I'm the rabbi of Beit Tikkun, a synagogue without walls in Oakland, California. We're an anti-Zionist congregation, one of, one of few in the country and the only one in the East Bay and San Francisco area. And I, I have spent my life doing social justice work. I was a public defender and a women's rights lawyer and then a mediator and came through to become a rabbi through that path [00:03:00] and, have been involved in Palestinian solidarity work since around 1990, I wanna say, maybe 1991 in law school.
Cat Zavis: and have been on that journey in various ways, shapes, and forms, more involved and less involved over the course of, 40, years
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: What made you want to start a anti-Zionist congregation?
Cat Zavis: So the Congregation Beit Tikkun has been in existence since the late 1990s. It was founded by Rabbi Michael Lerner, who's been a pro-Palestinian, was a pro-Palestinian advocate throughout his life. And, I took over the congregation in 2023, just before October 7th. and then, we co-led it for part of that time, and then, I moved it over the course of time to be explicitly anti-Zionist
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Where did it start?
Cat Zavis: It started, I would say, as very progressive liberal [00:04:00] Zionist.
Cat Zavis: very much supporting at least a two-state solution, but open to any possibility where there would be justice and equality for all peoples in the land
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: was that shift something that caused some controversy in the community
Cat Zavis: a few people were not happy, and a few, some, I'd say maybe a handful of people left
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil:
Cat Zavis: because of that. but then more people came than left. So it had that effect. one of the things that was important to me and remains important to me as a rabbi and spiritual leader is to take moral stance on issues. And it was clear to me what the moral stance was. there was no spiritual moral choice for me. It wasn't, a difficult choice in some ways, even though I knew that there would be consequences both for the congregation and for me. and it- when you look at the history and the current reality, it's just really clear. So I, I [00:05:00] did things to help support the community to deepen their understanding of the history. So we did a book group on Rashid Khalidi's book, "A Hundred Years War in Palestine." I had a lot of different speakers that, challenged us and pushed us and engaged us.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: will you give us an introduction to how you first came into consciousness around Palestine?
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Because as you know, and as I've spoken about on the podcast before, it is not something that is, let's say, encouraged in the, in our Jewish mainstream communities.
Cat Zavis: Right. So I'm gonna back up for when I was a child. around 12 years old, I was watching Roots on TV, which,
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: at least some people will be familiar with
Cat Zavis: it was a television series, which were extremely rare at that time, about, the origins of slavery, and it was told through, it was Alex Haley, and it was told through his family's story that was a [00:06:00] conglomerate of different characters.
Cat Zavis: and the main character in the story was Kunta Kinte, who was his grandfather or great-grandfather.
Cat Zavis: And, like, I'm sitting on the floor, or maybe I'm sitting on the couch watching it, and the scene that I'm watching is Kunta Kinte as a child, maybe 10, maybe eight, but, near my age, being trafficked, human trafficked to another traffic-owning family, slave-owning family, being ripped from his mother's arms as a child. And all the African people, screaming and crying and trying to stop this ripping of this child from his mother's arms, and the white people are just ripping the child. And I lost it. I was a child. I threw myself on the floor and started screaming and yelling, like my little body couldn't [00:07:00] handle it. And my father said to me, "No child should watch this." And I said, "Every child needs to see this." And I tell that story because I think at that point, my inner being said to myself, "Never on my watch. I will never sit by and watch this." 'cause I'm, I was yelling. Like, "Why is nobody stopping this? How come this is happening?"
Cat Zavis: I just tell that to say, like, that's my, the way I move in the world
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: that makes sense, and, you know, I can relate a similar story Being in seventh or eighth grade in Jewish day school, learning about the Holocaust and thinking, "How could this society let this happen?" the people that were living next to these death camps.
Cat Zavis: Right.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: but I'll push back a [00:08:00] little bit to say that, I don't think this deep empathetic experience that you're articulating is alien to Judaism or even liberal Zionism.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: But the problem is the trick of Zionism is that it doesn't connect that empathetic feelings, and feelings of, of moral clarity to the issue of Palestine. It obscures that. So how did you get from that to Palestine?
Cat Zavis: I'm gonna preface this by saying I love my family and I love my parents, and they're products of their generation.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Uh-oh
Cat Zavis: I was raised in a family that I would say was more racist than Zionist So like many Jews, I was certainly taught that Arabs don't value life as much as Jews, that there was a land without a people for a people without a land.
Cat Zavis: I was less raised in a home that was like, "We have to move there. This is our [00:09:00] land." I was raised before Israelism, if you know what I mean by that phrase,
Cat Zavis: right?
Cat Zavis: I wasn't raised in Jewish daycare, day, day schools. I didn't go to Jewish day schools or Jewish daycare for that matter. I wasn't bat mitzvah-ed, I was confirmed.
Cat Zavis: It was light Zionism. It was Zionism to be sure, certainly a belief in our right to that homeland. But we never went, I never went there as a child. so I think that's one of the reasons why it was easy for me to challenge and confront that, that discourse and story because I was already confronting racism in my life.
Cat Zavis: So once you start to confront racism, it becomes an easier journey I think. so it never made sense to me, like the story never made sense to me once I started to learn about it in college and law school and be- It just didn't make sense to me. but I did have to overcome what I'd been raised with, you know, it was a land without a people for a people without a land, Arabs don't value life as much as Jews.
Cat Zavis: Like certainly that was part of my DNA. It was seeped into me. [00:10:00] And, I think once I started to question everything, I just questioned everything. Like it became an easy thing for me to just question everything, including that story. And then once you start to think about it, for me anyway, it was like, why shouldn't everyone have equal rights?
Cat Zavis: I mean, I was born in the s- the mid-60s, so I grew up as a teenager with feminism, steeped with feminist civil rights, gay rights, struggles for equality. I was a feminist in my teenage years. so it was just, it was part of that, like how else would you be in the world?
Cat Zavis: and yet it was still, and yet it was still a journey. It was a harder journey for sure than, anti-Black racism or feminism. It was a harder journey because it was our people, right? Like we won't be safe. So I'd certainly had all those stories
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: And I, I would assume at the time when you were learning and unlearning, all this [00:11:00] stuff, there's not much of a Jewish anti-Zionist community for you to be with. there, there's now there's probably more than ever, and it's still such a minority, but at the time in the would you say the 80s when
Cat Zavis: '80s, '90s, yeah, 2000s, yeah
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: And then you're becoming a rabbi around the same time
Cat Zavis: No, that's-- I became a rabbi in 2023.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Oh, okay.
Cat Zavis: Recent, yeah
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: so maybe you weren't actually doing this within the Jewish community. Maybe it was a more political left community you were finding this in
Cat Zavis: So I had basically rejected Judaism after I left my home and went to college because it was, for me, it had no spiritual meaning in spite of my desire to have that in my life. and it didn't really have political meaning. I didn't understand it through that lens at all.
Cat Zavis: This was, this was before that was much more common in Judaism, as you just pointed out. it was really being [00:12:00] raised in a secular, what's the word? Assimilated community with values of capitalism, in college, I studied in London and studied Marxism, so that, opened up
Cat Zavis: that worldview.
Cat Zavis: But it didn't open up the worldview on Palestine at all. And then in law school, it really is when it really started. And I had a group of Jewish friends, and we had, the precursor to Jewish Voice for Peace, Peace Now. and, this was in the '80s, so around the Intifada. So that's really where I'd say my education began, and I started to read and learn and,over the course of decades, it just became deeper and deeper. There were times when I didn't really focus on it, because my focus was elsewhere. I was raising kids, and I was doing women's rights work. You know, I was doing other justice work.
Cat Zavis: And then in, early 2000s, I moved to Vancouver, BC, and I got involved with a Jewish meditation group and Independent Jewish Voice for [00:13:00] Peace, I think is what it's called, in Canada.
Cat Zavis: And, that's when I really started to get more involved in doing work with International Solidarity Movement there and,
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Did you visit Palestine
Cat Zavis: I was there in 2018. In the summer of 2018, I was, studying at Hebrew University in Pardes, part of my rabbinic program, and went to the West Bank and Hebron and,all around and saw what was happening I actually challenged the instructors at both of those places, questioned them about what they were teaching
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah. How did that go?
Cat Zavis: But, uh, so at Pardes for folks who don't know, is a non-denominational yesh- yeshivas, a study hall. so people Orthodox to Reform, and we're studying Jewish texts, and it's a wonderful house of learning, like Jewish houses of learning. obviously very Zionist. All of the faculty live in, I did not know this when I [00:14:00] went, but I learned it, live in, settlements.
Cat Zavis: so at the end of the semester, I wrote a note, you know, feedback. You know, it's great to study all these texts, but we never talked about the elephant in the room, which is the occupation, how these texts apply to the occupation, and that's deeply problematic. And the head of the program asked to speak to me,
Cat Zavis: so I told him, what the heck are we doing here? There's an occupation. Palestinians are suffering. Our text is clear. Our teachings are clear about this. Why are we not even talking about it and applying it and grappling with these questions?
Cat Zavis: That's what Judaism is all about." And he said, "Well, we tried to show you some things. We took you on some tours, and we did these things." I said, "You took me on, you took us on tours of so-called ancient sites that are, that are trying to prove that King David existed on ancient Palestinian lands, and you never talked about that."
Cat Zavis: And he tried to justify it, and I said to him, [00:15:00] "Okay, let's imagine for a moment that you're living in Naz- in Germany in the '30s, and you walk into a Catholic or Christian study hall, and they're talking about Jesus' teachings, which are Jewish teachings, about love the stranger and care for the neighbor and turn the other cheek, and all these beautiful teachings, and Kristallnacht is happening. Pogroms are happening, and no one's,making the connection or talking about it. How would you feel?" Okay, you sitting down? He said to me, "It's not that bad yet." Yeah. This was in 2018 when the nation state law had been passed, okay? And I said, "How the hell do you know? Do you ever speak to Palestinians about what their lives are like and how bad it is for them?
Cat Zavis: Because you're not the oppressed here, you're the oppressor. How the hell do you know?" And then I said, "When [00:16:00] it gets that bad, whatever that is for you, it's too late And here we are
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: so in 2018 I'm curious where you were in your political orientation that you would even decide to study at Hebrew University in Israel,
Cat Zavis: a very valid question. I was in a place where I was wanting to deepen my Hebrew knowledge, I was not raised speaking Hebrew or even learning Hebrew.
Cat Zavis: And in hindsight, I probably wouldn't have gone. so but I did spend time, like I said, in the West Bank and other places, so I could get more. it was my, it was my-- I had been there in college with my parents, actually, but it was my first time really going on my own and having the opportunity to learn and explore and understand. So when I was studying at Hebrew University, it was in a classroom with foreign students, Jewish Israelis, and Palestinian [00:17:00] students from East Jerusalem and other places, and we were studying Hebrew, like literally just studying Hebrew. And one day we watched a movie in Hebrew about,the, quote-unquote, "founding of the land," like people coming to Palestine and creating communities and, It was so problematic, it was disgusting. and the Palestinian students in the class were young.
Cat Zavis: they were like 18 to 23 or something. They were young students because they're wanting to learn Hebrew so they can have work and be able to make money and have a life in this crazy messed-up society that they're in. and so I went up to the teachers afterward and I said, "Are you aware that you have Palestinian students in your class and you just presented a movie that whitewashed and ignored their entire history on this land?" And they tried to like, "Oh, it didn't really make it clear. It didn't say any of that." And I said, "Yes, it did. In its silence, it clearly [00:18:00] said
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: And he said to me, "We've never had students complain." And I said, "I'm sorry, are you aware of power dynamics? Because these students are young adults. They're basically kids who cannot possibly challenge you because passing your class is a difference between an ability to support themselves and their family and not, and to build a future for themselves or not." the advantage of being older and not caring, I didn't care if I passed or didn't even get a grade. So, There were many aspects of it that were horrifying, and I got to meet with, you know, very leftist Jews in Israel who were building an anti-occupation left movement and speak to left Jews who justified the wall.
Cat Zavis: And it was incredible. They were like, "Well, you know, now we're safe, and we're not having bombs [00:19:00] go off, and we don't have to look at it." And I'm like, you consider yourself a leftist? What are you talking about?" So I got to experience it. So,you know, that's not a bad, that's not a bad thing to have done, and I appreciate you problematizing my going at that time, and it's,it's worthy of problematizing for sure
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah. So would you say the experience of going there deepened your understanding of how unjust this society is?
Cat Zavis: Yeah, it was brutal. It was
Cat Zavis: awful
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: from being an attorney and an activist,And not really being raised with a lot of religious Judaism, what drew you to wanting to become a rabbi?
Cat Zavis: I was exposed to a Judaism that had within it, radical politics like anti-empire, anti-capitalist ideology, deep spiritual mystical wisdom and experiences like rituals, psychological depth, [00:20:00] and intellectual rigor
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Can I get that? Where does that happen?
Cat Zavis: Come to Beit Tikkun.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Okay,
Cat Zavis: You're welcome. Any Shabbat, any time.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Thank you.
Cat Zavis: Yeah, I'd love to have
Cat Zavis: you. We'd love to have you. Yes, so I was exposed to that Judaism, and those are four things that I'd been steeped in and trying to find my whole life. I s- explored Buddhism, as many Jews do, but Buddhism for me didn't have the fire of, what I call my Jewish soul, like the fire of holy outrage, and holy rebuke, which is what I call what the prophets do.
Cat Zavis: there's value in centering and meditating and finding that center. But what about the fact that there's a fricking genocide going on? I'm not gonna sit and, meditate about... I know it's a genocide, I know it's apartheid, I know it's horrific, and I need to do something.
Cat Zavis: And to me, for me, Buddhism didn't provide that.
Cat Zavis: and when I found it in Judaism, I was like, "Oh my God, [00:21:00] if someone had taught me this existed when I was a kid, I would've been a rabbi decades ago."
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: And was that through Michael Lerner? Can you speak a little about him and,that strand and how that came about for you?
Cat Zavis: we connected and I learned and became, I worked at Beit Tikkun with him, and so I basically was mentored and co-led Beit Tikkun with him and Tikkun in the Network of Spiritual Progressives. And so was very steeped in that. And then I exposed myself to liberation theology and all sorts of, experiences and teachings and learnings that made that connection.
Cat Zavis: And then I went to Aleph Rabbinic School, which, is very steeped in neo-Hasidism, so it's very spiritually rich. I would say it's less political, but Arthur Waskow was there, and Burt Jacobson, and Michael, [00:22:00] and other people who were more involved in critiquing the status quo, let's say
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Would you say that where your personal politics and the median politics of Beit Tikkun congregation are, are different from the way that Michael Lerner,thought about these things and where Beit Tikkun used to be
Cat Zavis: I would say that we are more clear on an anti-Zionism stance.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: otherwise I would say no, because we... It's always been anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-empire, So what is the difference beyond semantics? And maybe it's not just semantics, but is it just that they didn't say anti-Zionism at the time or is there a real distinction there?
Cat Zavis: That's a good question. I would say that Michael was very clear that he was Zionist, that he believed in the right of the Jewish people to have their own homeland, [00:23:00] and that it was a, movement for Jewish self-determination. And I would say he did not critique the history as deeply as I do, or-- and he doesn't go f- as far back in the history to critique it.
Cat Zavis: what he was focused on was trying to, create a way of understanding the conflict that would provide empathy for both sides. a very valid, important thing to do. And it also, in many ways let's say whitewashes or flattens the power dynamic. And he would talk about the power dynamic for sure and hold Israel more responsible.
Cat Zavis: But he was very clear that, in his mind, it should be a two-state solution, that Jews have a right to have their own homeland. He was also open for sure to a one-state solution. I don't wanna dismiss that at all. But he felt that efforts to dismantle Israel as a nation state [00:24:00] first of all the nation states that are unjust and unethical, of which the United States is probably one of the top, the Jewish state shouldn't be the first. I think I'm stronger on that issue where I s-it's not that I say the Jewish state should be dismantled. There needs to be a one-state solution And for me, the Palestinian voice and perspective needs to be centered because in every discussion that happens around this, a Jewish voice is centered and Jewish safety is centered, and I'm done with that frankly.
Cat Zavis: The Palestinian voice needs to be centered, and we need to acknowledge the fact that part of the struggle in the Palestinian society is the fact that Israel has undermined their capacity to build solidarity amongst themselves by separating, dividing and conquering, which is always the modus operandus of empire
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: And I would also say that he [00:25:00] was not as critical or maybe not even at all critical of the history of what the Zionist movement really was We are seeing what the Zionist movement always was, and, he believed in a liberal Zionism that I don't believe in at this point.
Cat Zavis: You can't have a Jewish democratic state. so I don't know if that helps distinguish it. and it's also very centered now at Beit Tikkun. certainly Palestinian liberation was always centered at Beit Tikkun. we have had Palestinian speakers at High Holidays for decades, so which is very unusual.
Cat Zavis: I would say it's just more centered now. It's just more prevalent, which of course, as well it should be, given the fact that we're almost three years into a genocide and expanding ethnic cleansing and expansion of empire into Lebanon and Syria trying to undermine Iran and
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: I feel like that is a, a verycommon theme I hear [00:26:00] from liberal Zionist people I know, that some of whom I consider very well-intentioned, where they talk about, we need to have mutual trauma acknowledgement, and we need to have empathetic dialogue." But I feel like starting there While bombs are dropping and children are being starved, and while one side is one of the biggest military powers in the world, obliterating a largely defenseless entrapped population It's like, how dare you?
Cat Zavis: Yeah
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: we should talk about mutual trauma?
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Like maybe one day when Palestine is free, if Palestinians want to have that discussion with their oppressors. But that is not the path to peace. You should be speaking out to get the state that represents your people to stop obliterating and, wiping off the map this other [00:27:00] people. So sometimes I just, I feel like it almost like defers justice and creates this false sense that things are moving when it actually is ignoring the real problems.
Cat Zavis: It's like MLK's quote about white, northern white liberals, I don't remember the exact quote, but it's the same thing. It's like they, at least with the white racists in the South, you knew, it was clear, The white liberals in the North were racist, but it was masked. it, similar to, the Democrats with their,
Cat Zavis: nicer capitalism, let's say.
Cat Zavis: Slightly nicer capitalism,
Cat Zavis: which wasn't so nice in Clinton's, war on poverty and war on welfare and everything.
Cat Zavis: but slightly nicer war on crime, right? Slightly nicer efforts to, like, create a society where there's still complete inequality and capitalism rules. but we're gonna soften it around the edges so that people have enough and they're not suffering so much and it's not so obvious.
Cat Zavis: but the
Cat Zavis: elite can [00:28:00] continue to have their elite comforts and grotesque opulence and we can continue to bomb other countries when, they're socialist and that's kind ofscary to us for some unknown reason. And so yeah, it's similar to that. when I got really frustrated with it was when as the starvation campaign increased and we started actually seeing, if you weren't only on alternative media, starving children, you could see it in more mainstream press that these babies and children were literally being starved to death.
Cat Zavis: And liberal Zionists and liberal Zionist rabbis suddenly got upset. They're like, "This is terrible. Babies are starving," which triggered for them Holocaust memories of children starving to death. And so some of them protested outside the Israeli embassies in their cities, including here in San Francisco, and I participated in it.
Cat Zavis: And, and that happened and, and then ceasefire, and they haven't spoken a [00:29:00] word since
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: And people are still starving
Cat Zavis: deliberately being starved,
Cat Zavis: food's not being let in, and when they let food in, they let in things like candy and other things that aren't actually nutritious that could actually help to build back the fat and nutrients that they need to heal and repair their brains and their bodies.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: medicine is being blocked and shelter and yeah
Cat Zavis: and they're bombing, how many people did they kill yesterday? like, they killed, seven in Gaza and, like, 30 in Lebanon. and they've just made the numbers small enough so it's not so obscene.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: So Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times, it's kind of amazing, published an article about the, torture, rape, and abuse of Palestinian prisoners
Cat Zavis: So I've been hearing about this... How long have
Cat Zavis: we been hearing about this? Right?
Cat Zavis: and the increased levels of it, since they started kidnapping [00:30:00] Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza since October 7th.
Cat Zavis: And he actually wrote about it in The New York Times, so now at least it's finally gonna be more publicly known. But where are the protests at the Israeli Embassy
Cat Zavis: by liberal Zionists? Like,if you care about the state of Israel for whatever reason, this- no one can stand for this.
Cat Zavis: This is unacceptable. Go out and stand outside the protests, the Israeli Embassy and demand that this stop. Oppose weapons to Israel.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah
Cat Zavis: Stand for an arms embargo
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: we're already speaking about this, but do you even consider yourself part of the mainstream Jewish community these days? 'Cause I'm pulling my hair out when I, some rabbis I follow online, I mean, as a rabbi,how do you deal with these people?
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Like, I mean, do you, do you challenge them? do you have private [00:31:00] discussions?
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: I have challenged them. I, I don't engage as much in private discussions anymore. Why is that?
Cat Zavis: I don't think I'm gonna convince anyone.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: I think that, engaging with Rabbis for Ceasefire or Jewish Voice for Peace or as, as a rabbinic council and also just in public, I think my voice as a spiritual, moral Jewish leader, is more important in other places. So,
Cat Zavis: when the Palestinian movement asks me to go and speak on X, Y, or Z, I gotcha.
Cat Zavis: I'll be there. that to me is more important. If they wanna engage in a conversation with me, I'm here. If they wanna reach out to me, there's no shortage of avenues for information,
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah
Cat Zavis: for ways of learning, and for opening your heart and your mind to a different understanding. There's plenty of material.
Cat Zavis: I, I [00:32:00] did it. I learned it. I studied it. I read it every day.
Cat Zavis: and if- They come to me, I'm happy to have the conversation and discuss it. I'm involved in Jewish movements that are trying to move congregations. I guess I don't feel trust that I will actually be heard in those spaces.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah
Cat Zavis: I've experienced not being heard in those spaces.
Cat Zavis: I've experienced being, actually attacked in those spaces and being dismissed and demeaned And I'm not saying that's everybody, but I have had that experience, and I'd rather be in spaces where my voice can uplift the Palestinian struggle for liberation and justice and freedom as a Jewish leader, and use my knowledge to support that through a Jewish lens
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Why do you think, it is [00:33:00] still so pervasive the amount of disinformation and ignorance there is in our community, maybe not our communities, but the mainstream Jewish communities,Maybe it's this,Israeli Zionist Hasbara, this big propaganda campaign that's been going on for decades.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: it's a very impressive operation,despite, you know, the, what we're seeing with our own eyes, You would
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: just think some of these rabbis who proclaim to have these moral principles could snap out of it
Cat Zavis: I think there's a number of things going on. I think there's the Hasbara, which is incredibly Powerful. and we've been steeped in it, most of us, our whole lives. so it's hard to push back on it. I think that October 7th did terrify people, and I think the increase in antisemitism, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say more about that in [00:34:00] a moment, that is real.
Cat Zavis: There is real increase in antisemitism, actual antisemitism, stokes fear. I think that at the same time, the weaponization of antisemitism is an incredibly powerful tool, and the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, which is a lie, but it's there, makes people really uncomfortable. And so there's a lot of Retraction into, sinking into, not necessarily as a positive thing,Jewish identity and a belief that the way we are safe is, Oh my God, to say, I can't, it's hard to say it, but this belief that the way we'd be safe is through the state of Israel, which is the most unsafe place for Jews in the world, or that our safety should be on the backs of other people's oppression.
Cat Zavis: but there is a fear, [00:35:00] for sure, that fear is mobilized and weaponized and used and distorted. there's a new book out, coming out next month in June. it's about, basically about the racist foundation of the ADL, it's never been a civil rights organization.
Cat Zavis: It's always been a racist organization. It's always been in alignment with white supremacy, and yet it's still relied on, although fortunately less and less, for its reporting of antisemitic, attacks, behavior, incidents. Yeah, thank you. And, and it's a lie because they include in that, of course, pro-Palestinian actions and, and protests outside congregations in New York where they're s- literally selling off Palestinian land to Jews, and people are rightfully, thank God, protesting that, and it's considered anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish instead of anti-empire,
Cat Zavis: anti-colonial actions.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah. [00:36:00] Anti-war crimes since
Cat Zavis: Anti-war crimes,
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: illegal transfer of population into stolen illegal land by international law.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: It's
Cat Zavis: So I think that's part of it, and then I also do think, that people are afraid of breaking up congregations, losing their jobs. the Jewish establishment won't fund Beit Tikkun, for example. You know? Like, I'm not gonna get money from, the Jewish community centers or, mainstream Jewish sources to support us, and no congregation survives alone on membership dues.
Cat Zavis: So you need big funders or grants And if you just look at the amount of canceling that's happening to anyone speaking out, I think that's part of it. Now, I believe that, I have a blessed community. We're moving people already very, very progressive on this issue,
Cat Zavis: and I brought speakers that were challenging. I wanna be clear about [00:37:00] this. but I was able to move people and,I believe in my heart of hearts that if communities actually engaged in education campaigns and if spiritual leaders took a spiritual moral stance, more communities would actually move.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah
Cat Zavis: I believe that in my heart of hearts because I think people are actually wanting and looking for spiritual leadership, and you don't have to shove it down people's throats. You can do it compassionately and gently, and I do believe it's possible to move people. I think the tricky spot, is the liberal Zionist communities. that's the linchpin, if you will, or like the-- That's a tricky spot because people think and see themselves as being progressive and caring and somehow are unable to take the leap to a one-state solution or full support of Palestine or even to have Palestinian speakers who might make them uncomfortable speak on their bimahs
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: I'll add, and maybe, maybe you [00:38:00] will or will not agree,my observation is they also don't connect it with, the way that Israel is being used as an outpost of American imperialism,
Cat Zavis: Right.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: and they don't see how
Cat Zavis: Zionism is so linked to that And like the reason why it's so entrenched in American, politics, it's not because Donald Trump or JD Vance cares about Jews clearly.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil:
Cat Zavis: And I don't know how many of them really see Zionism as a white supremacist movement, right? Which it really is.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Yeah. can you say more to that? Because the default Hasbara, is, "Well, no, the Israelis are in all shades, and there's Ethiopian Jews, and there's
Cat Zavis: And they're all
Cat Zavis: treated
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Jews." And yeah,
Cat Zavis:
Cat Zavis: like how is it that all the Jews living on the border of Gaza are Mizrahi Jews? like the vast majority living in the borders of [00:39:00] Gaza were Mizrahi Jews, So there is an incredible amount of racism within Israeli society and that's the foundation of,of Zionism. it was a movement of European Jews who wanted to be white, but in Europe they weren't white. they were the other, they were the Jewish minority. So they wanted all the same rights and powers and capacities to be capitalists and all these things that
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: the Germans or the Poles or that the ruling elite had in those countries,
Cat Zavis: it really is when you read it and see it and you make that connection. I think maybe that's also why it was easier for me to make that shift because I could see it as that. And once you see it as that, if you're anti-racist, then you're anti-racist. whether it's anti-Palestinian racism or anti-Black racism or... so It's very sad, and it's very sad that, That Israel has done an incredible job of linking [00:40:00] Judaism and Zionism so that people literally say, rabbis and others literally say, "Judaism is Zionism. Zionism is Judaism." And I'm reading Molly Crabapple's book right now, which is wonderful, and like actually people have been opposed to Zionism forever, and Zionism has not existed as long as Judaism, obviously.
Cat Zavis: So that's just a complete lie, Judaism has such a rich, incredible culture, like I said, of four things, right? deep intellectual study, psychological depth, mystical spiritual rituals and traditions and practices, and radical politics. And,all that I would,I would say is anathema to Zionism.
Cat Zavis: it's a rich tradition, and it feels important to me as a rabbi to stay really steeped in that aspect of Judaism and uplift that Judaism, because otherwise Zionism's gonna [00:41:00] take Judaism down.
Cat Zavis: And Judaism's beautiful. It's beautiful
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: What is our responsibility as Jews, in this moment in terms of Palestinian solidarity? there's so much harm that's been done in our name. H- is there, could we even begin to hope to repair? obviously we need to stop the immediate violence,
Cat Zavis: I don't wanna say there's never a possibility of repair because we've seen throughout history there's been repair for unjust systemsSo I don't wanna say there's no possibility of repair. Obviously, the harm needs to stop immediately.
Cat Zavis: and I think if there was a leader in Israel or leaders in Israel, and I'm, now I'm talking about Jewish Israel, Jewish Israelis, speaking to the Jewish Israeli society, and there are, I mean, like Standing Together is trying to do this.you know, there are Israeli Jews that are doing this work, [00:42:00] so I think it's really important to acknowledge and uplift those because it's not easy work, and the more they do it, the more they get oppressed and suppressed and beaten up and nothing compared to what's happening to Palestinians.
Cat Zavis: I'm not trying to equate that at all. But we know that fascism oppresses the other and those within their own society that identify with the other or care about the other. I think it's possible to awaken a society and re-educate, if you will, a society and help them understand the lies that they've been told, the distortions. and that's part of our work as Jews here everywhere, That's why it was important to me to do educational work. so every week we send out a weekly action for peace that includes, go and learn, and we send links to different things people can read or listen to or watch to help expand our consciousness and our understanding of the history of people's voices.
Cat Zavis: that's why I bring Palestinian voices into our [00:43:00] high holiday services and other places, to sensitize ourselves to their stories and their truths and their reality, so that we can then reflect on the harm we've created and try to repair it
Cat Zavis: And, ultimately the proof of repair is not repeating the harm. we're obviously not anywhere close to that step of that teshuvah process unfortunately. But, that's part of our journey, to do that work. And I guess part of Judaism is hope, faith and hope. And I couldn't be doing this work without holding that possibility.
Cat Zavis: And that to me is part of divine source. We never know what's possible in the world until we struggle for what we yearn for, and then it becomes possible, and then the [00:44:00] historians and scientists were like, "Oh, of course, that was always gonna happen. That's what science us. That's what was gonna happen," or history shows us.
Cat Zavis: When n- you know, months before, no one said the wall was gonna fall in Be- Berlin, and then it fell, and they're like, "Oh, of course, it was inevitable." So my understanding of the divine, of God, is that force in the universe that makes possible the transformation from that which is to that which can and ought to be. So the possibility of possibilities, the force that allows for transformation, and that requires our participation. It's not inevitable. It requires our participation. That's the beauty of Judaism. We are called to partner with the divine to create the world we yearn for. And as we do that, I do believe that there's a force and energy in the universe that then, like a wind behind our sails, uplifts us and pushes us and brings us further than we ever would've been without all of us and that divine force uplifting and pushing us.[00:45:00]
Cat Zavis: So I don't think it's neutral. Just as like it probably when negative forces are flowing, consciousness ends up being constricted, and thus the winds behind the sails of justice are less because there's a constriction,
Cat Zavis: like like Mitzrayim. There's a constriction of liberatory energy, of prophetic energy, of transformative energy.
Cat Zavis: But when it's unleashed Then that divine force,I like to think of it like a magic carpet, lifts us and we get further than we would've been. And that's our job. Our job is to be our own wind behind the sail, to be the sail, to be the wind for others, to help uplift that magic carpet, to get into the divine flow of liberation and justice and move the arc toward justice further along. And as we come to Shavuot, which is next week, [00:46:00] Shavuot is the giving of the Torah, receiving of the Torah. It's a time when divine inspiration is-- that veil between the imminent and the transcendent is narrowed, is thinned,
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Hence the podcast name
Cat Zavis: Right, that thin veil, beautiful. And that divine's energy's more powerful at this time, and we can all try to hear what the divine is calling to us in this moment to do and what's our role.
Cat Zavis: And we each have a role to play. We each can do something, whether we can leave our homes or not, whether we think we have a voice or not, we each can do something. Whether it's helping others so they can do more, or speaking when you're uncomfortable, or, writing a letter, or standing up and joining a protest once. There's al- something we can all do, and if [00:47:00] we all did it, it would transform the world, and healing and transformation and justice and liberation and repair would eventually happen. And, I don't know that I'll live to see it, but
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: If you do.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: inshallah
Cat Zavis: Inshallah
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Rabbi Cat, thank you so much for coming on today. That
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: was beautiful.
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: if somebody wants to, find you or get involved in, your congregation in the... It's in the East Bay, right? Where,
Cat Zavis: It's in East Bay, but it's also hybrid, so you can-- people join from all over the world.
Cat Zavis: Tikkun, www.beittikkun, org. Yeah, they can find us there and lots of events and we have a whole page on what we think, so you can read about it. And yeah, would love to have you join us if you want
Ezra Lipp - The Thin Veil: Great. Thanks
Cat Zavis: Thank you
And there you have it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rabbi Cat, for coming on the show. You are an inspiration, and I hope more people can follow your lead [00:48:00] and your courage. Thank you everyone for listening. Please share the show, get these conversations out, send these to your friends, send them to your family, share them on social media, leave a rating and review, support the show on Patreon if you can, and also support people on the ground in Gaza.
Cat and I are both part of an amazing mutual aid network of people helping, people suffering in Gaza called Connecting Gaza. I've spoken about that before. I will leave a note in the show notes. Also, you can get involved with Jewish Voice for Peace, whether you're Jewish or not, if you wanna be more politically active in this field.
And there are many other organizations and many other, great, places doing this work. If you want to, be part of Beit Tikkun, I'm sure Cat would love to have you, as she articulated, if you're in the Bay Area or online. If you're looking at a place to, have a explicitly anti-Zionist Jewish space, that is there for you.
All right. Thank you again. [00:49:00] I wish you all a great week and a very free Palestine. Keep up the good work. Thank you for being here.
Cat Zavis: