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(JTA) – Teresa Shook said she liked working "behind the scenes". But this week, the woman who co-founded the Women's March has started by calling her leaders to step down.
Shook, a grandmother from the isolated Hawaiian town of Hana, has posted on Facebook the event that became the March 2017 mbad protest for the women's march.
After the controversy resurfaced over the links between Tamika Mallory, co-chair of the Women's March, and Louis Farrakhan, the virulent anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam, Shook called on leaders of the progressive movement to step down from their positions. functions. Linda Sarsour is another co-chair of the March of Women. This American-Palestinian liberal activist has become a source of contention within the Jewish community because of its anti-Israeli activism.
Shook wrote Monday on Facebook that Mallory and Sarsour, along with their co-chairs Carmen Perez and Bob Bland, "have allowed anti-Semitism, anti-LBGTQIA sentiment and hateful and racist rhetoric to be part of the platform. in refusing to separate themselves from groups that espouse these racist and hateful beliefs. "
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"They lost the trust of the community," retired lawyer JTA Shook said on Wednesday. "You can not continue to say that you are going to do something and not do it. There is no confidence, and people do not feel safe to express their point of view without being attacked. "
Teresa Shook attends the Common Good Forum at the University Club in New York on May 12, 2017. (JTA)
Since 2017, Shook has retired from the leadership of the movement, remaining locally involved in Hawaii. She plans to attend the 2019 Women's Walk in January, but does not expect to speak about the podium.
Shook stated that she remained in intermittent contact with Bland, but that she had not communicated privately with the co-chairs before sending her message.
"I've had enough communication with them on other topics," Shook told JTA. "Basically, the statement is," We are working on it, we will change it and make it better ", and the action will not change, I did not feel the need to talk to them. Had hit a dead end. "
The controversy around Mallory and Farrakhan erupted for the first time in March and Shook said he was worried about anti-Semitism in the movement for some time. But she said that she did not want to break the movement. She decided to speak after the actress Alyssa Milano had declared that she would not speak at the protest because of concerns about anti-Semitism.
"They did a good job, but we have to be inclusive and we need to get rid of hate speech," Shook told JTA. "I wanted to believe that it would not be a problem. … then the cracks started to appear.
Sarsour responded with a mix of excuses and provocative messages. On Monday, she rejected Shook's criticism and denigrated his role in the movement.
"You spend thousands and thousands of hours raising money, organizing, thinking, building and strategizing for a movement that inspires the world and you always do it two years later – and the person who formulates the requests and wishes the credit is the one that makes the Facebook event, "wrote Sarsour.
But the next day, Sarsour apologized to Jewish members of the March of Women for not taking more seriously the concerns about anti-Semitism.
"We should have been helping people understand our values and our commitment to fighting anti-Semitism more quickly and clearly. We regret it, "said the statement released Tuesday afternoon. "Every member of our movement is important to us, including our incredible Jewish and LGBTQ members. We are deeply sorry for the wrongs we have done, but we see you, we love you, and we fight with you. "
Wednesday morning, Hawaii time, Shook had not read the excuses.
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