r/JewsOfConscience 21d ago

AMA AMA: Rafael Shimunov, Jewish left activist, radio host

Hey Reddit and r/JewsOfConscience, I'm Rafael Shimunov.

I'm a Jewish left activist who is active with JVP, IfNotNow and JFREJ. I'm the co-host of Beyond The Pale: Radio’s Home for the Jewish Left on NY’s WBAI 99.5FM. I'm a creative activist and founder of ArtvWar, a mostly anonymous group who uses art to create cultural interventions. I also cofounded The Jewish Vote, an electoral project of JFREJ in NYC who helped elected leaders like Jamaal Bowman and many other progressives.

I arrived to the US with my parents as a HIAS child refugee from Soviet-dominated Uzbekistan. I'm a Bukharian Jew, one of Central Asia’s many minority ethnic groups who have largely settled in Queens NYC. You may have first found me when I went viral after Ellen DeGeneres’ lawyers tried to censor my criticism of her support of disgraced former President George Bush on Twitter. Or my installing an illegal exhibit in the Whitney Museum to protest its leader’s manufacturing of chemical explosives sold to Trump’s border patrol. If you were around during Trump's Muslim ban, you may have been one of the 12 million on my livestream during the JFK Airport protests against it, which I filmed from the airport me and my family arrived in as refugees.

I've also worked to successfully help organize with Queens residents against building an Amazon headquarters for their ties to ICE, militarization of police, racism, labor and small business abuse. I've worked professionally and personally supporting movements and orgs winning $15 minimum wage, going after the crime of Guantanamo Bay, Stop and Frisk, and more.

I grew up in the projects aka public housing. My parents did all the stereotypical immigrant jobs you can imagine until my father became an architect and my mother a nurse and I began to go from poverty to the middle class. My parents learned English watching Star Trek with me. That influenced me a lot. And my secret past is working in advertising. For the bad guys. Man that was bad. My not so secret and proud past was being a warehouse worker and bicycle mechanic for Toys R Us, where I learned more about life than almost anywhere.

Find me on X, BlueSky, Instagram.

And the radio show on WBAI 99.5FM NY, X and Instagram. You can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and a bunch of other apps.

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u/vastros 21d ago

What insights can you offer into the Ellen situation that won't appear when casually researching the topic?

18

u/rafternoon 21d ago

Ellen and her lawyers abused internet law (primarily the Digital Millennium Copyright Act / DMCA) to censor my video. I've learned to legally and ethically use that same law to protect vulnerable people from things like doxxing, revenge porn, and defamation. Thanks Ellen.

I've also learned that when you try and do the right thing, it doesn't have to be viral. It just has to be attacked. And in order for something to be attacked it has to be true and powerful. My original video felt like a failure, no one saw it. It wasn't under her practice in the Streisand Effect that people got mad that she got away with censoring Twitter, and began to risk their accounts to repost a copy. So while my video got hundreds of views, the collective responded and their videos got hundreds of views. There were so many of them, collectively the video got millions of views, and there was no way to censor it because of the sheer frequency and user base. We have so much power as individuals even with accounts which have only dozens of followers.

Oh, one thing you won't find is how it helped move social narrative around her, where people began to really come out with their own experiences about her. Eventually, ending her show.

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u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_ Jewish Anti-Zionist 21d ago

Oh, one thing you won't find is how it helped move social narrative around her, where people began to really come out with their own experiences about her. Eventually, ending her show.

Very true. I remember reading the first stories about how poorly she treated her staff.

I was surprised but also not, because something just felt off about her persona.

14

u/rafternoon 21d ago

Had we lived in a society where labor rights were on the forefront, we would have heard workers long ago warn us about her. But they are always warning us about people. And this nation is getting better on labor rights, well at least in more people expecting them and celebrating their victories. Black and brown folks, immigrants, workers, queer folks, disabled folks... always always warn us about these people from before they become wealthy and powerful. We just have to listen.