Dear Friends,
 In a climate of religious distrust and polarizing hate speech, the Fellowship of Reconciliation needs your support today to strengthen our creative and unique approaches to building peace and resisting oppression.
I just returned to the United States from Palestine. For the past three weeks, five other artists and I traveled throughout the West Bank, on an Arts of Resistance delegation sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
We spent several days apiece in Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus, and Jenin, developing ties with community groups and listening to profound stories of pain and suffering, hope and courage. Then, together with local villagers, we translated their visions for a peaceful future into mural form. In the village of Romana, a woman told me that the murals we painted made her feel like this was "paradise."
On the way home, one of my fellow delegates said, "The brilliance of this delegation lay in its capacity to create relationships between people." It was truly an amazing experience -- you can read reflections and see photos on FOR's blog and watch a video that we created from last year's artist delegation to Palestine.
I have been doing this work for more than three decades. Each year I travel to the Middle East to strengthen ties between peoples seeking peace, to deepen our understanding of the diverse religious and cultural narratives present in the region, and to bear witness to the Israeli occupation. During this time, I have led more than a dozen interfaith civilian diplomacy delegations on behalf of FOR to Israel and Palestine, as well as two FOR interfaith delegations to Iran.
And for this work, FOR and I are being attacked.
Last month, just days before I left the United States, a group called the Republication Jewish Coalition denounced me in a national ad campaign that labeled me an extremist "radical rabbi." In an election-season effort to divide Jewish support between the two major parties, this smear campaign politicized and targeted my and FOR's efforts to build cross-cultural understanding among Jews, Muslims and Christians across the tense barriers between Iran, Israel, Palestine and the United States.
When the attacks began to spread to major media outlets in the U.S. and Israel, I responded -- with support from FOR and Jewish Voice for Peace -- in an op-ed article in the Huffington Post. I wrote, "I joined the FOR in my 20s because I support FOR's core commitments of active nonviolence, people-to-people diplomacy, demilitarization and interfaith engagement."
Your tax-deductible donations make this kind of work possible. If you'd like to designate your gift to my work specifically, just write "interfaith" in the "In Honor Of" field of the donation form.
As I return home, I find that my allies and I are being attacked again by right-wing forces. Tomorrow I will speak at "Justice: The Path to Peace in Palestine/Israel," an interfaith conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am excited to return to Albuquerque, a community I served for two decades as the founding rabbi of Congregation Nahalat Shalom. But conservative activists in the region, led by the New Mexico Jewish Federation, have been pressuring local religious and community groups to distance themselves from the conference because people like me, who criticize the Israeli occupation, are on the program.
 It's OK. After decades of taking unpopular positions, I am used to the criticism. "Fear-mongering, slander and the spreading of hatred toward others on the basis of their race, gender or national identity violate my understanding of Judaism," I wrote in the Huffington Post. "My religious beliefs prevent me from endorsing policies that I believe lead to war and human suffering."
Donate now to support FOR's work for interfaith understanding, arts of resistance, and global peace-building.
I will continue to lead peace delegations and to build FOR's Interfaith Peacewalks project -- bringing people together across the lines of faith, culture, race, and age to study and practice active nonviolence. This project began in the hours after September 11, 2001, when a Muslim leader in Albuquerque and I talked about how we could bring our two religious communities together to practice peace. Today, Imam Abdul-Rauf Campos Marquetti is one of my closest friends. I pray that FOR's Interfaith Peacewalks initiative will create the space for other such unexpected friendships to emerge in your communities in the coming years.
Please help make this a reality with your donation. You can make a gift directly to the interfaith program by writing "interfaith" in the "In Honor Of" field of the online donation form.
L'shana Tova -- happy new year!
Shalom and salaam,
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb
Coordinator, FOR Interfaith Peacewalks |
