Markeshia Ricks Photo
Anti-pipeline protest outside TD Bank on New Haven’s Chapel Street.
A New Haven rabbi felt pulled to stand at Standing Rock — in part because of his own values as a Jew.
The Sioux Standing Rock tribe has been taking a stand at its reservation to stop work on a 1,172-mile pipeline designed to carry crude oil from North Dakota to southern Illinois. The original proposed path for the pipeline runs under a river and reservoir on tribal-owned land, potentially threatening the tribe’s drinking water and violating its treaty rights.
The stand-off with police last year drew Native American and other activists from around the country, featured police attacks on protesters, and saw people arrested for civil disobedience. It also featured protests in New Haven against TD bank, which has contributed $365 million to the $3.8 billion project. The drama is now on pause because of an Obama Administration decision to hold off on approval for construction of that section of the pipeline.
Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen of Westville’s Congregation Beth El Keser Israel decided recently to travel to the reservation after the crowds left. (Other New Haven activists have also made the trek there as well.) With his sister Janie, Tilsen bypassed a state police highway blockade and “illegally” delivered garbage bags and other supplies as a show of support.
Janie Tilsen Photo
Cousin Mark Tilsen’s yurt in the Standing Rock reservation’s Oceti Sakowin Camp.
On an episode of WNHH radio’s “Chai Haven,” Tilsen, who has family roots in North Dakota, said he acted as both an American and a Jew.
“The genocide against the Native Americans — that and African slavery in America — are the two big stories of America. The genocide against the indigenous peoples is one that is just not talked about. It is as though it just never happened. The names were erased,” Tilsen noted.
“As a Jew, you have to give a little bit of credit to Germans today who are facing their national history of genocide. It’s fairly recent. Some of them are trying to deal with it. At least they talk about it. In America, it’s a whole episode, a central episode of American history, it’s like there’s no part of our brain that is allowed to think about it. That’s bad for everyone.
“Here now you have these people on a reservation who are struggling to survive, to have their culture survive and thrive. They’re the remnants of a tremendous civilization, the Sioux nation. Now comes along this pipeline company [which was] told, ‘You can’t put the pipeline in Bismarck because the people don’t want it.’ Somehow they think it’s a good idea to run it by the Indian reservation [instead].
“These pipelines leak…. The Missouri River is their source of water. If they contaminate Bismarck, a couple of hundred thousand people can move somewhere else. The people on this reservation, that’s their country. They don’t have any place to go. This is their homeland. If it’s contaminated, that kills them.”
Both the U.S. political system and Judaism aspire to be based on law, protecting the rights of vulnerable minorities, Tilsen noted. Too often those systems protect the interests of the powerful. But sometimes, he noted, when those systems work best, they can protect the rights of the vulnerable, can serve the interests of justice.
Tilsen also spoke of how the Standing Rock action drew together tribes from all over the United States in the greatest Native American ingathering in history. He drew parallels to Jewish history, in which different tribes or factions succeeded by banding together rather than allowing differences to divide them. That history continues today, he noted.
“As it is today, the Jewish people also are somewhat divided,” he said. “We have AIPAC. We have J Street. We have various groups that either don’t talk to each other or, worse, fight with each other …
“One of the inspiring parts of what happened at Standing Rock was seeing people whose lives are very distant. They share something very important in common — their indigenous history. To see them come together for a specific purpose in a way that transforms them — we in America, we occasionally have moments of clarity, usually when we’re under some terrible attack.
“If we could find a way to bring that forward in a positive way, we could be so much better.”
You can listen to the full conversation with Rabbi Tilsen on WNHH radio’s “Chai Haven” by clicking on or downloading the above audio file.