CHICAGO (RNS) — Across the country, various chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group, have been partaking in 12- and 24-hour fasts to bring attention to starving Gazans. In Chicago specifically, several JVP members have been attempting an indefinite fast in which they only consume water and electrolytes.

The hunger strikers have participated in various JVP Chicago events throughout their fast, including rallies, teach-ins and a vigil honoring the children of Gaza. On Thursday (June 26), their 11th day of fasting, they presented a teach-in at the Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago with other hunger strikers concerned with causes surrounding Walter H. Dyett High School for the Arts and General Iron Industries Inc., a scrap metal company.

JVP Chicago members Ash Bohrer, Audrey Gladson, Becca Lubow, Seph Mozes, Avey Rips and Benjamin Teller started their fast on June 16. On the eighth day, Mozes, who is son of “Sex and the City” actress Cynthia Nixon, stopped his fast for medical reasons.

Ahead of the teach-in, Bohrer, Lubow, Rips and Teller spoke with RNS about their reasoning for embarking on the hunger strike and their efforts so far.

In early May, the strikers attended JVP’s national member meeting where they heard about the dire situation in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war. They learned specifically that bombing in Gaza had become less frequent, but the most significant threat to Gazans at the time was starvation.

From March to May, Israel had blocked all food and aid from entering Gaza in an attempt to pressure Hamas. Following international pressure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered humanitarian aid to resume through a new method, however Israel continues to restrict aid into Gaza. The United Nations called the new distribution system a “death trap.” 

To bring attention to the crisis, JVP leaders pitched the idea of a hunger strike to their members.

The Chicago JVP members started to consider what a hunger strike could look like for them. Bohrer explained their decision-making process included soul searching and consulting doctors and rabbis.

For each of the four strikers, their reasoning for taking on the hunger strike was both personal and closely tied to their Jewish faith. Bohrer and Lubow said they both have been to Israel and the West Bank. Lubow recalled walking through an olive orchard with a Palestinian family, helping them harvest their olives. She saw a young girl was collecting fistfuls of bullets that had been fired at her family. Lubow said she noticed the bullets “had marks on the back, and I could see that they were manufactured by an American weapons company.”

Bohrer grew up in a Zionist household, and half of their family lives in Israel. They said they considered joining the Israel Defense Forces at one point.

“(For me), there’s a long story of transformation — about spending more time in Israel and Palestine, seeing the devastation, watching what it means for people to live under martial law,” Bohrer said. “Seeing that happen was really transformative for me, (and) I remember sitting on an airplane back from Tel Aviv and thinking, ‘I can’t be a Zionist anymore.’”

The strikers discussed the importance of the Jewish principle of pikuach nefesh, or the value of saving the life of another. “In the face of saving a human life, every other rule, every other obligation, is suspended,” Bohrer explained, noting it’s part of why the strikers are fasting on Shabbat, which is not normally permitted.

To end their hunger strike, the strikers are demanding that the United States stop arming Israel and that Israel “stop starving Gaza.” Bohrer said they will continue to fast until the group’s demands are met or their bodies give out.

“We are not under any illusions that because of this, (President Donald) Trump and Netanyahu will wake up tomorrow and have their minds completely changed,” Rips said. “We’re hoping we can be part of a collective chipping away.”