Carinne Luck
Overview
Carinne Luck was reportedly a co-founder of IfNotNow (INN) in 2014 and has participated in events that repurposed Jewish rituals.She has demonized Israel, as well as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) movement and defended an anti-Israel agitator.
As of August 2019, Luck’s LinkedIn page said she continues to consult forINN and that she is a Strategic Advisor at Hand in Hand: the Domestic Employers Network since 2013 and a consultant at Carinne Luck Consulting since 2012.
As of the same date, Luck’s website said she was a “board member” of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ), a “founding staff member and Vice President for Field and Campaigns” at J Street and a national grassroots field director for Brit Tzedek v’Shalom in 2004.
In 2007, Luck was reportedly the first staff person hired by JStreet,as well as “a founding staff member and Vice President for Field and Campaigns for JStreet.” Luck reportedly left the organization in 2012.
Luck reportedly attended Boston University (BU) for her undergraduate degree and completed her graduate studies at New York University (NYU).
Repurposing Jewish Rituals
One July 24, 2014, during Operation Protective Edge (OPE), Luck participated in an INN action at the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations in New York City “to call for an end to the war on Gaza and the occupation.”Israel commenced OPE in July 2014 to stop rocket fire targeting Israeli civilians and to destroy Hamas attack tunnels.
At the INN action, Luck recited [00:00:21] the Mourner’s Kaddish and lit memorial candles for those killed in Gaza.
The Jewish ritual of the Mourner’s Kaddish is a prayer customarily reserved for close relatives or Jews murdered for being Jews.
Throughout the summer of 2014 — during Operation Protective Edge (OPE) — Hamas's deployment of human shields was extensively documented and publicized. Hamas encouraged Gazans to act as human shields to frustrate Israeli efforts to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza.
At the protest, Luck read [00:00:54] from prepared remarks, saying [00:01:02]: “As we were dehumanized by the oppression we faced, we are now dehumanized by the oppression we are inflicting.”
Luck continued [00:01:28] “So long as the Jewish people occupy and rule over another by the force of military might and the power of the gun we are not free.”
On April 9, 2015, Luck participated with INN activists in an INN-organized: “Freedom for All: #IfNotNow Seder in the Streets.”
A Seder is a Jewish Passover ritual, that involves telling the story of the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in ancient Egypt and their travels to the Promised Land.
The description on the Facebook photo album for the event said the INN activists “went to the central office of the Jewish Federations of North America” to “renew our commitment to wrestling with our community” over its alleged “support for Israeli military rule over the Palestinian people.”
On April 21, 2016, Luck tweeted: “Which side are you on? Liberation or occupation? @IfNotNowOrg” and included an image of INN activists from an INN Liberation Seder and disruption they held in the lobby of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in New York City.
INN activists, seventeen of which were later arrested, held a “liberation seder” and occupied the lobby [00:05:44] of the building housing the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Protesters demanded that the ADL publicly oppose Israeli “occupation.”
On April 22, 2016, INN announced that they rejected an invitation to a meeting with the ADL. INN wrote that “the ADL...AIPAC, Hillel International, and the Jewish Federations” had collectively “spent many millions of dollars to create an environment in the Jewish community that vilifies anyone who doesn’t meet their litmus test of what it means to be a member of the Jewish community.”
In April 2016, prior to the Jewish holiday of Passover, when seders are traditionally held, INN leaders Ethan Miller and Sara Sandmelwrote an op-ed stating that INN actions would take place in Washington DC, Boston, New York City, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Many of the activists set up tables and manipulated symbols from the Jewish Seder table to represent different aspects of “the occupation.” INN uploaded resources for public use to their website and claimed that approximately 500 people participated in their liberation seders across the country.
INN activists in New York repurposed [00:45:29] the Passover ritual of spilling wine to symbolize the ten plagues in order to “reflect on the modern plagues that ravage our society. In Israel and in Palestine and at home in America and in our Jewish communities.”
INN activists in New York then used the ritual of the 10 plagues inflicted on Egypt in the Bible and replaced [00:45:58] them with the “ten plagues of occupation.” INN activists went on to demonize Israel with their “plagues,” which included [00:46:12] “uprooting olive trees,” as well as [00:46:34] “imprisoning and torturing Palestinian adults and children…”
INN activists in New York also accused [00:46:42] Israel of “theft of resources” and “destroying the Palestinian economy.” INN activists went on to accuse [00:46:52] Israel of “false democracy. Destroying equal civil, political and economic rights to non-Jews in Israel, while claiming to be a democracy.”
The last plague was [00:47:53] “Abusing Jewish histories of persecution to justify the persecution against Palestinians.”
Also on April 20, 2016, Luck tweeted another photo of INN activists from the INN Liberation Seder in New York City.
Demonizing Israel
On January 25, 2019, Luck published a piece in Medium, titled: “When Michelle Alexander “Broke Her Silence on Palestine.”Luck’s piece praised Alexander and defended her opinion piece in the New York Times. The piece accused Israel of adopting “practices reminiscent of apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crow segregation in the United States” and promoted BDS.
In her piece, Luck said that while “the mostly Ashkenazi Jews who made their way to Palestine...was a project of survival, not colonial ambition (my family included…)...we cannot dispute that the takeover of Palestinian land, the moving of a settler population onto that land, the subjugation of the Palestinian people, and the legal discrimination of an entire population today makes this anything other than a colonialist project.”
On January 23, 2019, Luck also posted on Facebook her “response to Jewish hand wringing about Michelle Alexander’s NYT opinion piece,” quoting her piece in Medium.
Demonizing AIPAC
On March 15, 2016, Luck wrote on Facebook: “...AIPAC providing platform for Trump: Inevitable result of increasingly extremist pro-Israel positioning at any cost. Join If Not Now and #DumpTrump at AIPAC.”The stated mission of AIPAC is to “strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel.”
Luck’s post linked to a Facebook event page for an INN DC protest outside the Washington, D.C. venue of the AIPAC Conference, calling to “#DumpAIPAC.”
INN organizers claimed on Facebook that AIPAC's invitation to the U.S. President revealed AIPAC was “more invested in the politics of hate than in a vision of a peaceful Middle East.”
On March 26, 2016 Luck tweeted a photo of INN activists preparing signs for the event and wrote: “‘Dear @aipac , dear Trump, you do not speak for me’ @IfNotNowOrg.”
Supporting BDS
On August 31, 2019, Luck tweeted: “Your position on BDS is actually your position on Palestinian freedom.”On July 18, 2019, Luck tweeted: “One top notch way for liberal American Jews to support Ilhan is to loudly support her bill that protects the right to boycott. Another would be to fight like hell for an end to the Occupation.”
Ilhan Omar was elected to the U.S. Congress in 2018. In February 2019, top Congressional leaders denounced Omar for tweeting anti-Semitic remarks.Omar has demonized Israel and endorsed BDS. In July 2019, Omar introduced a pro-BDS resolution in the U.S. Congress, which she described as “an opportunity for us to explain why it is we support…the BDS movement.”
On June 23, 2019, Luck tweeted: “Time for liberal Jews to start engaging with BDS on its merits and necessities given the crimes of the Occupation rather than as a purely free speech issue.” Defending an Anti-Israel Agitator
On August 16, 2019, Luck responded to a tweet from U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib demonizing Israel.Luck tweeted: “A person having to choose between their principles, dignity, rights and their family is a part of the psychological warfare of Occupation.”
Representative Rashida Tlaib is connected to six Hamas-linked activists, all of whom served as fundraiser co-hosts for her successful 2018 congressional campaign. She has advocated for a one-state solution, endorsed the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and called for reduced foreign aid to Israel. In July 2019, Tlaib co-sponsored a pro-BDS bill in the U.S. Congress introduced by Representative Ilhan Omar.
Social Media and Weblinks
Twitter:https://twitter.com/c_luckFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/1338685519
Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/carinne.luck/
Personal Website:http://carinneluck.com/
Medium: https://medium.com/@carinne.luck
