Women in Black
by Marge Jacobs, vol.2, No. 1, June 1991
"The only thing that can get me into the City on a Saturday morning is Women in Black."
Marg Jacobs (seen here leafletting at our December 2009 vigil)
Why does a person get involved in political work? When I look at my political comings and goings over the years, how much of it has been 'must' and how much 'ought'? I'm aware that these are very white middle-class questions asked by the comfortable...but that is my situation and these questions need to be asked without wading in guilt. It's become cliche for many of us who were part of the women's movement in the early seventies to describe the urgency that drove us--there was no choice, it seemed, this was what you had to do, and every action resounded in society as well as in us.
It's the nineties now and during the twenty years, what changed for me? Apart from things never seeming quite as straightforward as in 1972, political activity has been and I suppose must always be several parts grind. The romance of struggle is a middle-class illusion. Meetings, power plays and the tedium of the many small unglamorous jobs that have to be done: a lot of us have been caught up in all this and it has often drowned the sparks.
I came across Women in Black at a time when the spark had been missing for a while and life had begun to consist of getting to work every day. I joined the Solidarity Choir which seemed a a great way to have politics without tedium. We performed at an international Action day where Women in Black had a stall with posters, information and a list of dates for their vigils. I'd heard of the WIB groups in Israel--groups of women regularly demonstrating their opposition to the Israeli's government's actions in the occupied territories. For once I didn't agonize (do I really want to join another group?). I turned up to the next vigil, on the GPO steps [where we still vigil, the first Saturday of every month, including this one.] 11 o'clock on the first Saturday of the month, then November 1989. I've been nearly every month since.
The ambivalence I usually feel about political work hasn't been a problem for me with Women in Black. It's not just that the group doesn't demand a huge commitment. I love the fact that there is a tremendous age range among us (twenties to eighties) and that we have a mixture of backgrounds including Jewish, Anglo-Celtic, Arab, with many of us having migrant origins. The warmth of our greetings, and the intensity of some of out discussions, and the generosity of people in the Mall have kept me going. During the Gulf War being in Women in Black became even more important to me, despite the fact that the war forced me to look harder at the political and emotional complexities of being a Jewish member of the group.
The diversity of political opinion and background amongst Women in Black members in Melbourne does not always make organizing a straightforward business. When is it ever, indeed? But I find the diversity stimulating: so often on the Left either assumptions float around unchallenged, leaving no real debate, or people simply mud-sling. Our opinions about the state of Israel and its relationship to the Arab world are not unanimous, but we all want to see an end to the occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem and are opposed to the attacks on Palestinians' rights and lives by the Israeli government and its military.
What is not so clear is how we focus our energies, two years later after the first vigil was held in Melbourne. We've collected signatures for our petition which calls amongst other things for an end to the occupation. We want to present these to the Israeli ambassador soon. While the vigils have been and will probably remain a worthwhile organizing point, we have agreed that we need to look hard at where we are going and how we can make 'solidarity' work more effective. Should those of us who are Jewish put more effort into presenting our point of view within the Jewish community? How can we involve more Palestinian women? The situation of the Palestinians is as terrible as ever and settlement of Jews in the territories is definitely increasing not decreasing.
To return, finally, to the reasons for my involvement in this group in particular: the fact that it is Women in black is one, because I feel that as women we share assumptions about the importance of process in organizing--the how as much as the what--and that we feel free to question and discuss in a way that is often not possible in mixed groups, But there's something else.
I'm a Jew who has had no Jewish upbringing, who hasn't 'belonged' to Jewish culture or religion. Being in Women in Black means that I do something about being Jewish, about wanting to work out what it means to me. I feel that as a Jew born of parents who lived under Nazi rule I'm forced to learn about the world in a different way. I don't want to avoid the effort of trying to connect this past with what I see going on in Australia and the rest of the world, and with my political views in general. And I have never been so openly Jewish as I have been since joining Women in Black.
Marg Jacobs has been committed to social activism, especially women's issues, for many years and is an active member of Women in Black. End of Archival document.
Back in Melbourne, 2010, on the eve of our February vigil. Marg and her partner are off on a six month international journey, including a visit to Hanover and a sharing of her mother's published ms about the rise of Nazism in her home city. As I sat here, typing in Marg's words from the yellowing issue of AJD, I felt an over whelming sense of humility, I who am newly come to this city by the Yarra, bringing with me all my New York centeredness, taking in each word of Marg's explanation, her connection to so many activist communities, her honest public questioning, the strength of the women's activist community here. Here is social change history, women's history, lesbian history, Jewish women's history, Australian progressive movement history, diasporic history. I want again push for Women in Black groups around the world to form their own archives so these stories of how women come to the streets becomes part of public history and of our present actions. Sadly, I was also forced to see as I transcribed the article how little has changed in Palestine/Israel and how much worse things have become. Operation Cast Lead and the ongoing ceaseless embargo against Gaza, the continuing encroachment of the Jewish settlements on the West Bank and the clearly stated Israeli government's view that it never will accept a totally autonomous Palestinian state on its borders make actions even more compelling. I have heard that some think the older women who stand in Women in Black vigils are wasting their time, for what has changed. I think of the Israeli women, in their 90s, Holocaust survivors, who stood in the Jerusalem heat enduring the taunts of passer-bys. Not to take some form of public action is to acquiesce to daily tortures of other human beings in our name, not to take some form of public action is to loose in a deep sense that which makes us human. Marge and Jules, travel well.
