“There is nothing antisemitic about fighting for people’s right to live,” says Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Elena Stein, who on Monday joined hundreds of protesters arrested to block entrances to the New York Stock Exchange.

We discuss the historic mass protest, which called for an Israeli arms embargo and an end to war profiteering by companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. “We are filled with horror beyond words and are attempting to embody just an ounce of that refusal,” Stein says of the moral urgency of protesting Israel’s actions in the Middle East, which she describes as a “war of extermination … done with U.S. cover.” She says JVP chose the stock exchange in order to draw attention to the role of U.S. financial and corporate interests in arming the Israeli military