Last Friday, I participated with a group of 20 American Jews who sat in at the Washington, D.C., office of U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz to demand that the Hawaii congressman speak out for a ceasefire in Gaza, and to introduce legislation to make it a reality.

We were Jews from across the country, with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Our sit-in took the form of sitting shiva, a Jewish ritual of grief. We joined together in community, in perpetual mourning for the 1,400 Israelis killed, and a rapidly growing list of over 10,000 Palestinians murdered by Israeli airstrikes.

We appealed to Sen. Schatz as a Jewish progressive, calling on him to join us as Jews who have been raised to obey the call of tikkun olam, or repairing the world.

Israel’s bombing of civilians, mostly women and children, is not repairing the world. It is not tikkun olam to place an occupied population of nearly 2.5 million under military siege, cutting off their access to food, water and medicine. Israel’s withholding vital fuel from hospitals treating the sick and wounded violates Jewish values that hold all life as precious. We asked the senator, an ardent environmentalist, to tell us how white phosphorus dumped on Palestinians is in any way repairing the Earth.

As we mourned, we expressed the urgency for an end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians while also calling for the release of hundreds of Israeli hostages. Echoing the protests of Palestinians and Israeli families of the hostages, we reiterated our demand: “It’s not too late for you to be with us on the right side of history and call for a ceasefire now.”

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called for a ceasefire on Nov. 2. We asked Senator Schatz to join his colleague. Hanaloa Helela, board member of Hawai‘i Peace and Justice, sent a statement in solidarity with Palestine and with our actions: “Kanaka Maoli, the native people of Hawai’i, call on Senator Schatz of Hawai’i as a Jewish-American to follow Illinois Senator Durbin’s leadership and join him in his call for an immediate ceasefire.”

Sens. Schatz, Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) and others have called for a “humanitarian pause” or “short-term cessation” in the relentless bombings and violence. During our sit-in, we declared that a “pause” is nowhere near sufficient, and it is hardly “humanitarian.” After a so-called pause, Israel’s genocide — funded with our tax dollars — will resume. This is unacceptable.

We need long-term solutions, which are political, not military. In our grief, we reject this country’s funding of weapons to Israel, to the tune of 3.8 billion per year. In Hawaii, more than $13 million in taxpayer dollars sent to the Israeli government could instead fund 1,545 households with public housing for a year and many other public goods, according to data from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

During our ritual, we read aloud a letter from Allison Nemenyi Shiozaki, a Jewish constituent in Sen. Schatz’s district. “If we want a humanitarian world, we need to use the tools of liberation for all to build it, not annihilation and destruction. The senator must take action now to stop genocide and end all U.S. complicity in Israel’s violence,” Shiozaki wrote.

We raised our voices louder and louder, singing the Jewish song “Lo Yisa Goy/Nation shall not lift sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more,” until U.S. Capitol police expelled us from the office. About a third of us were arrested. We will keep holding Sen. Schatz and all of our elected officials accountable until they act with moral courage and clarity.

———.

Leah Harris is a Jewish-American activist and journalist living in the Washington, D.C., area.