Another Education Is Possible

What is the force of education? Is is liberatory? Genocidal? Does it reproduce social conditions? Challenge them? How does education guide social movements? What role does education play in making and maintaining fascism? When is education a tool of colonialism? Why do anti-colonial struggles center education? On this season of Another Education Is Possible, we grapple with education's many roles as part of the graduate course Education, Genocide, Liberation.

For the season 1 finale, we're flipping the script. Our first guest, Raz Segal, returns to the podcast to play host and Jordan takes a turn as a guest.

Finally, our episode about the student encampments! In this episode, J & A tell us about the paths that led them toward helping build and participate in an encampment at a small liberal arts college in the U.S.

Hannah Mermelstein's Palestine solidarity and education work spans decades, settings, and forms. Whether co-founding the Birthright Unplugged program or Librarians and Archivists with Palestine, Hannah's work remains committed to working for justice in Palestine. In this episode, Hannah takes listeners through delegations, book clubs, zine making, and many other anti-Zionist educational projects.

Members of the internationalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-Zionist organization Jews Against White Supremacy (JAWS) join the podcast to explore principled anti-Zionism, revolutionary struggle, and political education. While we spend a lot of time discussing educational experiences and the role of education in social movements, we also talk about how these experiences relate to engaging in direct action and mobilizing other Jewish folks to join the struggle against Zionism.

Sarah Ema Friedland's work as a filmmaker and educator shows the wild, radical potential of documentary. In this episode, Sarah takes listeners through unlearning liberal Zionism and college lessons that helped her avoid Birthright. She also describes how Cuban film school and Palestinian filmmakers influence her work. Sarah and Rami Younis' sci-fi documentary about the city of Lyd offers an opportunity to nerd out on third cinema and speculative fiction. More importantly, the film shows the complexity and radical possibility found in the collective work of imagining and struggling toward a free Palestine.

On a show that keeps mentioning mutual aid, we haven't yet explored its meaning or role within education. Luckily, abolitionist Rachel Joy joins us to talk all about this exact topic. We look at mutual aid as educational, part of Jewish tradition, and something urgent in this moment. We also discuss Rachel growing up queer in South Florida, discovering Judaism beyond Zionism in college through participating in SJP, and ongoing abolitionist work within the Palestine Solidarity Movement.

Researcher, activist, founding Director of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism, and fellow podcaster Emmaia Gelman joins guest host Eli Meyerhoff to discuss the role of radical study in organizing for Palestinian liberation. From being a Jewish kid in New York City to queer and anti-racist organizing, Emmaia shares a complex story that reveals the many ways people encounter Zionism, how to uncover it, and how we might collapse Zionism's superstructure. Eli and Emmaia's conversation offers forceful critique and thinks toward an expansion of our collective vision.

Teacher Dan Cohen and organizer Julie Kosowki take us through their decades of work in the Palestine Solidarity Movement in Chicago. The episode includes stories from Dan's public school teaching and Julie applying lessons from her survivor father to her activism. Dan and Julie are also married and close collaborators. They tell listeners about date nights watching Noam Chomsky documentaries and going to marches together. This is an episode full of grief, struggle, rage, and love. As Dan and Julie share, our work is about trusting and caring for each other, not because of shared identities but because of connected liberatory values.

In this episode, we talk to writer and activist Dave Zirin about the political potential of sports. Dave takes us through his childhood in New York City Jewish communities, which included playing street ball with Kenny Anderson. He describes life lessons from anti-Zionist writer Mike Marqusee and former NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who refused to stand for the national anthem in the 1990s. It's a packed episode that touches on the role of BDS in sports, Zionist attempts to sports wash, and the ways that sports can be a site to struggle, escape, and imagine other possibilities.