This is the text of a speech I gave at the ACLU of Hawaiʻi’s 3rd Annual Community Iftar Dinner: Cultivating Peace and Refuge, on February 28, 2026.

Aloha!

I’m Josh Frost, the professional Policy Advocate for the ACLU of Hawaii and your amateur emcee this evening.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaiʻi is a non-profit, non-partisan defender of the rights of everyone who resides in these islands. Immigrant and citizen. We acknowledge the work we do here is done on land stewarded for generations by Native Hawaiians. The indigenous people whose ancestors were the original inhabitants of what we call the State of Hawaiʻi.

While we work within the federal, state, and county systems of government for greater freedom for everyone, we acknowledge that Native Hawaiians have never relinquished their sovereignty or settled their claims with the United States. The ACLU of Hawaii honors the unique rights and voices of Hawaiʻi’s native people.

Today I was asked to speak about resistance.

I’m what some might refer to as a bad Jew. I grew up in a reform household, and celebrated the “big three” Jewish holidays: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Hanukkah. That last one, mostly because we wanted end-of-year presents just like our Christmas-celebrating friends.

I’ve always struggled with faith and still do. But my closest and oldest friends from high school and college came from either Jewish youth group, or my participation in the campus Hillel. And I found deep connections during college in Jewish traditions. Not faith, but traditions.

I was fortunate enough to visit Israel my last year of college; perhaps the closest I’ve ever come to having a “spiritual experience” was standing at the Western Wall. Touching it. Wrapping tefillin and praying. Seeing the places of my people’s ancient, and not so ancient history was intensely moving.

And still I struggled with faith. The notion of believing in a thing without evidence is simply something that doesn’t exist in my wiring. Sometimes I wish I did.

So, standing here in a crowded room full of faithful individuals is a bit intimidating. Luckily, years of therapy and experience showed me that I’m awesome. So, intimidating or not, here I stand.

But perhaps I digress from the topic at hand. Resistance.

My resistance work is rooted in a deep sense of justice and equity. It’s in my bones. And though I am lucky enough to have never felt persecution because of my Judaism, the history of Jewish persecution is likely a part of my resistance DNA.

It is that DNA that forces me to see, with unbiased eyes the atrocities the Nation of Israel is inflicting on Palestinians. And I can’t help but find it puzzlingly how any Jew can look at what’s happening and not feel horror. And outrage. What Germany attempted to do TO us 80 years ago, “our country” is now doing to ANOTHER group of people.

But as a man of evidence more than faith, I don’t just believe it. Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The UN Commission on Human Rights says so.

The International Association of Genocide Scholars says so.

At least two Israeli human rights organizations say so.

Amnesty International says so.

Leading Holocaust scholars, many of whom are Jewish, say so.

It is fact.

As an American Jew, I stand in the minority who know Israel is committing Genocide in Gaza.

I am firmly pacifist and oppose all wars. I am an abolitionist and oppose the death penalty.

I’m also anti-capitalist and anti-nationalist.

Before I am a Jew, before I am an American, I am human. As are we all.

At present, our society teeters on the edge of a blade. On one hand, we may be witnessing the end American Democracy and a new gilded age in which money and corporations rule. On the other, we have an opportunity to chart a new, better, and more equitable path. But in either case, we cannot simply return to a “Pre-Trump” era and ignore the deep inequities that set us on the edge of that blade.

To start down that equitable path, we must begin with humility. I am no better or more deserving than someone who came from somewhere else find work, to build a new life, or to escape war or persecution. I am no better than the person sleeping on the streets for lack of housing, due to mental illness or addiction.

I have been incredibly lucky in my white, male, middle-class privilege. I am grateful for that luck and have been fortunate enough to take advantage of that luck to fight for the betterment of others.

So, in this moment, what does resistance look like to me? Honestly? The same as it always has.

It looks like living to work, not working to live. It’s a world without borders and without billionaires. It’s a society where gender fluidity is accepted and not feared or persecuted. Skin color is a genetic trait and not a means to segregate us. Religious faith is protected and private and not the subject of politics or punditry.

It’s a world where no one wants for food, or medicine, or housing, or healthcare. It’s a world with clean air and clean water and pesticide-free food. Teaching is coveted as the highest paid profession and education is completely free. Addiction is treated as the illness it is and not a crime. It’s a society where poverty is a symptom to abolish, not a status to criminalize.

All the work I do is toward these ends, even if indirectly. And I do it in a place I acknowledge is stolen and among a still oppressed native people.

In this moment, what is resistance? It is hope. It is the belief that together we can make something better. That we can change the status quo, dislodge the establishment and replace it with a system guided by our combined humanity.

I’m often called a pessimist. But what I think I really am is a hopeful realist. The change all of us at the ACLU of Hawaii work toward isn’t coming today. Or tomorrow. But I firmly believe it is coming. Because no matter how hard or long our struggles might be for that better world I believe we will get there.

There are so many tireless battles we’ve won. It takes time, but those wins are always inevitable. The resistance of hope always wins. That is my experience.

One of my favorite quotes is the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr., who said:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

For me it’s not just a string of wise words, but a hopeful reminder. And a warning to everyone who stands against the resistance of hope. We will win.

The work of hopeful resistance takes many forms and needs many hands. I invite and urge you all to join this resistance in your own way and in your own capacity.

Mahalo.