More than 200 activists from Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), including artists Nan Goldin and Molly Crabapple and filmmaker Laura Poitras, were arrested yesterday, October 14, for participating in a sit-in for Palestine outside the New York Stock Exchange. The action criticized the rising stock prices of weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, the largest arms manufacturer in the United States, amid Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.
The action attracted about 500 protesters, including descendants of Holocaust survivors, JVP said in a statement shared with Hyperallergic. From the moment the exchange’s trading floors opened at 9:30 a.m., activists wearing “Not In Our Name” t-shirts fitted the red garments over the famous bronze sculptures “Charging Bull” (1989) and “Fearless Girl” ( 2017) of Wall Street and banners were unfurled reading ‘Gaza bombed, Wall Street booms’, ‘Stop arming Israel’ and ‘Fund FEMA Not Genocide’.
The Resistance Revival Chorus, a group of women and non-binary singers, carried out a call-and-response song. “O Palestine, you are not alone,” they sang. “We will be with you until you get home safely.”
At least six activists also chained their bodies to the building’s main entrance. Photos and video of the action show police officers forcibly removing them from the site by carrying and dragging them away.
“I’m proud to be arrested along with them if that helps amplify our message,” Goldin said Hyperallergic.
This was announced by the New York police Hyperallergic that the group dispersed around 12:30 p.m. and that “several people were taken into custody.” Goldin and Crabapple were released Monday; NYPD has yet to confirm the charges.
The protest coincided with the US celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day yesterday and this weekend’s celebration of Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. It also came at a time when viral video footage of a Israeli airstrike that hit and set fire to a hospital complex in Gaza yesterdaykilling at least four people and injuring dozens of others, one man appeared to be seen identified while 19-year-old Sha’ban al-Dalou is burned alive with an IV, causing a stir on social media.
“Every day we see a new, unspeakable Israeli war crime on our smartphones,” said Crabapple, a New York-based artist who took part in the action. Hyperallergic. “Israeli bombs crush apartment buildings in Beirut and burn Palestinian patients alive in Gaza.”
“With their genocidal campaign, Israel is destroying the people and places I love, with the enthusiastic help of the US government,” Crabapple continued. “Protesting is the least I can do.”
The action referenced the lack of government support for southern communities affected by the recent hurricanes Helene and Milton and also referenced the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP. Protest from 1987 on the stock market, which put pressure on pharmaceutical companies to lower prices for AIDS drugs.
“ACT UP’s first action took place on Wall Street to protest the lack of funding for AIDS care and medicine. Today, a growing anti-war movement is returning to these streets to demand health care, not warfare,” said artist and ACT UP activist Gregg Bordowitz, who participated in a lock-on action at the fair two years later. disrupting the opening bell for the first time in history.
“For those of us alive today, the continuity of struggle and dedication remains clear,” Bordowitz said.
Candice Breitz, a Berlin-based artist who was not present but shared photos online in solidarity, shared Hyperallergic that protests like this weekend’s are “encouraging.”
“As progressive Jews (alongside like-minded Palestinian, Muslim and/or Arab allies), we are fewer in number and immediately stigmatized when we stand behind protests critical of the ongoing massacre of Palestinian civilians, the ongoing Israeli policy regarding Palestine. and Israeli state violations of humanitarian law,” Breitz said.
Valentina Di Liscia contributed reporting.
