Artists Nan Goldin and Molly Crabapple, as well as filmmaker Laura Poitras, were among the more than 200 activists with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) arrested during a sit-in for Palestine outside the New York Stock Exchange on Monday, as first reported by Hyperallergic.
Around 500 activists, including some descendants of Holocaust survivors, arrived at the opening of the stock exchange in Wall Street wearing red “Not In Our Name” t-shirts. Red garments bearing the words “Stop Arming Israel,” and “Fund FEMA Not Genocide,” were fitted over the tourist-favorite “Charging Bull” (1989) and “Fearless Girl” (2017) sculptures. Around 10 activists chained themselves to the Wall Street gates, the oldest being 82-year-old MacArthur fellow and Hunter professor emeritus Ros Petchesky, according to Democracy Now!. Photos and video shared by JVP show handcuffed activists, including the elderly, dragged and carried away from the premises by New York City police officers.
“I’m proud to be arrested with them if it helps amplify our message,” activist-artist Nan Goldin, who has been an outspoken opponent of Israel’s presence in Palestine, told Hyperallergic. Goldin and Crabapple were reportedly released on Monday.
The demonstration was organized after the US government announced the deployment of American troops and a new missile system to Israel to aid its year-long aerial and ground assault of Gaza, and now Lebanon.
For context: According to a report from Brown University’s Costs of War project, the US has approved $17.9 billion in “security assistance” to Israel since the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 Israelis. That figure consists of the standard annual $3.8 billion aid package supplemented by $14.5 billion in additional public funding. That report stressed that while this figure is “substantially” more than any other recorded since the US government started approving military aid to Israel in 1959, it represents only a partial amount of the US financial and military support granted within this year (for example, US-backed military operations in the broader region, such as the offensive against Houthis in Yemen who oppose Israel).
As of September 29, the human toll of Israel’s war in Gaza is 41,595 Palestinian lives, per the Palestinian health ministry. (Gaza’s cultural landmarks have also sustained damage or destruction within this year.)
The protest at the Stock Exchange marked Indigenous People’s Day in the United States, and came during the circulation of a video on social media of the Israeli airstrike that struck and ignited the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where displaced Palestinians were sheltering. JVP activists have also drawn attention to the plight of communities in the American south, which have called for more government aid after hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“Every day we see a new, unspeakable Israeli war crime on our smartphones,” New York-based Crabapple, told Hyperallergic. “Israeli bombs flatten apartment buildings in Beirut and burn Palestinian patients alive in Gaza.”
