AMA: Rafael Shimunov, Jewish left activist, radio host

[u/rafternoon]

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/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_]

Hiya Rafael,

What has been the biggest changes you've witnessed in groups like If Not Now over the past several years?

I know that seems kind of vague, but I read an interesting article by Jewish Currents about If Not Now trying to redefine itself post-Trump and in the face of Israel's escalating brutality. The landmark reports on apartheid came out in 2021 and now, we're witnessing a genocide on live-stream.

If Not Now has done a lot of excellent work and I'm curious if the organization changed in any substantial way in terms of tactics, ideology, etc. as these years have gone by?

Thank you!

[u/rafternoon → u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_]

I joined IfNotNow pretty early during part of my radicalization after Israel's 2014 attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. Because I was raised to be an unquestioning Zionist, one who believed there was always an explanation for its daily human rights abuses and history, it felt much easier to me to join a group like IfNotNow, as opposed to JVP, SJPs, and other groups back then. Mostly because they offered an entry level way to get involved, using a wide and welcoming strategy for people who were not yet critical of Zionism itself. But deeply concerned with what we may not have seen to be the violent and rotten fruits of Zionism.

So today, as these groups so beautifully put aside their different strategies, dramas, and the (sometimes) different communities (and front doors) they hold, in order to be in total solidarity together for Gaza, and beginning to sound more and more alike I'm starting to wonder if someone like me back then would still have a way to enter and learn and evolve. But I am also aware that may be shortsighted, because of how radicalizing what is happening in Gaza is, perhaps it's more important to make those higher asks of people now rather than offer a pathway to them.

One thing I do appreciate that seems to have stayed the same, are how JVP is primarily about how to show up in solidarity with Palestinians in a very outward way. Beautiful. And how INN is primarily helping Jews who are looking inward and examining how and why we got here, and how to free ourselves from harming ourselves. Beautiful too.

[u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_ → u/rafternoon]

So today, as these groups so beautifully put aside their different strategies, dramas, and the (sometimes) different communities (and front doors) they hold, in order to be in total solidarity together for Gaza, and beginning to sound more and more alike I'm starting to wonder if someone like me back then would still have a way to enter and learn and evolve. But I am also aware that may be shortsighted, because of how radicalizing what is happening in Gaza is, perhaps it's more important to make those higher asks of people now rather than offer a pathway to them.

You bring up an excellent point about entry-way into changing one's perspective.

And I also agree that the reality of 2014, as bad as Protective Edge was - is really different compared to the genocide of 2023-2024+.

Thanks for this answer. It makes me wonder what ways we can be persuasive (in the entry-level way) but also understanding that the moment we live in now is radical too.

[u/rafternoon → u/_II_I_I__I__I_I_II_]

Yes. We have to design a home with many front doors. Stairs. Slides. Ramps. Open windows. Harder than it sounds. Because we're social animals and what occurs in homes, even with entries, are subcultures. Niche and coded language. Vague, ever changing rules. Cult of personalities. Mob behaviors. Our spaces are so beautiful, to me. Even with their flaws. But to someone new, can be overwhelming and even kind of dangerous. I find it such a hard balance to keep our spaces open for everybody, while keeping everybody safer Safer from racism, homophobia, sexism, etc etc. I say safer instead of safe on purpose. Nothing can be fully safe. Some now say our places should be safer and bold. And boldness, and the ability to appeal to every day people is going to require risk. And we're all going to have to become really skilled at radical solidarity (sticking together to maintain our majority) because if the right doesn't rip us apart, we will.

[u/GladysSchwartz23 → u/rafternoon]

This is so well said. Thank you.