Consciousness in the Core of the Core: A Reportback on Ceasefire Sunday of South Orange/Maplewood
If America is the belly of the beast, South Orange New Jersey is nestled deep in its gastric folds. A village with an average household income of over $120,000 a year nestled in Essex county, hosting 27 Jewish and countless Christian Zionist religious congregations, it is as close to the epicenter of Imperial privilege as exists anywhere on earth. Commuters travel to and from finance jobs in Manhattan and the pharmaceutical company offices of Morris County just a few miles to the west. It is a surreal location to find a catalyst of Antizionist, anti-imperialist awakening.
Precisely this depth of reaction has activated the 75ish regular attendees of Ceasefire Sundays, who gather every Sunday at 3pm to protest the continued Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, share news of Palestinian solidarity events throughout North Jersey, and work out collective strategies and tactics to aid in the Palestinian struggle within a local epicenter of Zionist mass activity. The first of these events was an object lesson in the local social terrain. Planned on November 19th as a candlelight vigil for the children killed in Israel/Palestine since October 7th, with time and speakers blocked out to mourn children killed on both sides of the conflict, any hope for a quiet and orderly event was dashed as several dozen belligerent counterprotesters arrived on the scene with bullhorns, Israeli flags, and virulent racist invective lobbed indiscriminately at Arab and non-Arab mourners as well as, of course, at the Palestinian people themselves. As planned speakers continued to be drowned out by the local racist ghouls, the tenor of the crowd escalated to a spirited protest, and quiet reflection pivoted rapidly to piercing shouts for Palestinian Freedom. Eventually, the counterprotesters were themselves drowned out by the voices of the mourners. Outnumbered three to one, they slipped back into their luxury sedans and SUVs, leaving the now triumphant gathering of solidarity protesters behind. As the final speaker of the evening remarked with great clarity, “we were going to end this vigil with a moment of silence, but I think we’ve been silenced enough this evening. Instead I say we end this event with a call to FREE FREE PALESTINE!” The chant could be heard from blocks away.
Today the crowd at Ceasefire Sundays is a picture of militant consciousness with more in common with central Brooklyn or the midsized cities of the Pacific Northwest than what one might expect of Suburban North Jersey. Ebulliant calls to globalize the intifada and cheers of support for Yemen’s continued blockade of Israeli shipping in the Red Sea intersperse chants for immediate ceasefire and an end to occupation as they circle the block of upscale restaurants and salons surrounding South Orange’s Spiotta park. The counterprotesters, once a constant presence at Essex County solidarity events, are now nowhere to be seen. They gave the greatest gift they possibly could to the local solidarity movement - a grotesque but timid and easily distracted public opposition. In their absence the protesters, stalwart in their attendance but increasingly frustrated by the limits of public and permitted protest, consider their options with increasingly fleeting trepidation. Calls to strike en masse and join the thousands of protesters around the country who have gathered to block arms shipments to Israel are increasingly common. Whether they choose to plunge themselves onto the gears of the killing machine, to end the monstrous institutions that have extinguished 20,000 Palestinian lives in the past three months once and for all, is their choice to make. If you choose to join them, this Sunday and all Sundays at Spiotta park at 3pm, it will be yours as well.
