Refusenik Shabbat Dinner + Panel

Doors: 5:45 pm

Shabbat and dinner: 6:00pm

Panel: 7:00pm

Location in central Toronto to be shared with registrants closer to the date of the event by email. 

The Panel: 

Tal Mitnick and Einat Gerlitz have served a combined 272 days for refusing to serve in the Israeli military. They are part of a rebellion of ‘Refusenik’ Israeli youth. 

They will be speaking in conversation with anti-war and decolonial organizers here in Tkaronto/Toronto, including Rachel Small (World Beyond War).

Panelists will speak from personal experience on resistance to Zionist repression, resisting the war machine, and refusing complicity from Turtle Island to Palestine.

If you have any questions, please contact ijv-toronto@ijvcanada.org.

National tour info:

IJV has partnered nationally with the Mesarvot Network, World Beyond War Canada, Labour for Palestine, and the United Jewish People's Order on this tour, which features speakers from across the Palestine solidarity movement in Canada. 

Mesarvot’s mandate is to support and raise the profile of young Israelis who refuse to be part of Israel’s war machine. These speakers approach this work from an anti-Zionist perspective while aiming to build a broad coalition to defeat the ongoing forces of oppression within and outside Israel.

Independent Jewish Voices chapters, with support from partnered orgs, from coast to coast will be hosting a speaking tour of two young Refuseniks in March 2025, Israelis who have refused mandatory military service. Tal Mitnick and Einat Gerlitz have both spent time in Israeli military prison for refusing to participate in the enactment of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and defying the illegal occupation and apartheid of the Israeli state.

In 2023, Tal Mitnick served a sentence of 185 days for being the first conscientious objector to refuse military service after October 7th and sparked a rebellion of youth across Israel who pledged to refuse to serve in Israel’s military while citing the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian people as the source for rising fascism.

In 2022, Einat Gerlitz served a sentence of 87 days for her refusal to serve in the Israeli army and has been involved in the climate justice and queer movements in Israel. Einat is engaged in solidarity work with Palestinians in the West Bank and 48’ borders as a protective presence.

Together, they have led the recent wave of internal dissent and conscientious objection amongst Israeli youth and will speak from their personal experience on:

● The importance of war resisters within the movement for human rights and a free Palestine

● Non-violent resistance to Zionist fascism within Israel

● Critical feminist analysis of Israeli militarism

● A queer response to pinkwashing of Israeli apartheid

● Updates on the current state of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation and an insight into the political atmosphere

● How Canadians can support nonviolent resistance to Israeli war crimes by making links with the resistance within the ’48 borders

Accessibility info:

The venue has an accessible washroom, and a wheelchair lift for stairs at the front. The lift requires a key and generally requires assistance to use.

If you would like to request ASL interpretation, please email ijv-toronto@ijvcanada.org