The Episcopal Peace Fellowship is celebrating its 75th birthday by sponsoring The Stones Cry Out: Responding to the Occupation of Palestine, a conference in Los Angeles on November 7-8.
Featured speakers include Dr. Jonathan Kuttab, a human rights lawyer in Israel and Palestine, Rev. Sandra Olewine, former United Methodist Liaison to Jerusalem, and Shakeel Syed, Executive Director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. The Rev. Allison Liles, EPF’s Executive Director, calls the conference “a perfect embodiment of EPF’s history as we call for justice and nonviolent activism in the midst of the most controversial events of our time.”
The Saturday portion of the conference will be held at the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in San Gabriel. A major focus for the conference will be the discussion of the importance of the Boycott-Divestment-Sanction (BDS) movement. In calling for action this month, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a long-time supporter of the BDS movement, said divestment will “respect international law and strike a powerful non-violent blow for peace.”
Saturday afternoon workshops will cover Political Engagement, Motivating the Episcopal Church, Campus Activism, Pilgrimage as Witness, Multifaith Challenges and Opportunities, the Blockade of Gaza, Church Actions on BDS, and Local and Personal Action on BDS.
A Friday night dinner “Peacemakers and Pilgrims” will be held at Wahib’s Restaurant in Alhambra. In addition to live music by members of the Turath Ensemble, speakers will celebrate EPF’s 75 year history, its Palestine Israel Network (PIN), and the peacemaking role of pilgrims to the Holy Land.
Vicki Tamoush, a conference organizer, calls the conference “a chance to engage the grassroots of our church. I believe it will be the average parishioners who move our church forward by courageously supporting strategies that are proven to work, even if the hierarchy of our church is not convinced of these methods. Yet.”
The cost for the weekend is $70, or $35 for Friday and $40 for Saturday. For registration and information go to www.epfnational.org or contact the Los Angeles planning group at epf.pin.la@gmail.com, or EPF/PIN LA, 80 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. # 92, Sierra Madre, CA 91024.
This sounds like a wonderful conference! Great speakers! I'll be praying that God will move through them and bring the Israeli Occupation in the Palestinian Territories to an end! Many of us here in the Greater Seattle Area have followed the total devastation of the Occupation, and work deligently to advocate for justice and peace with our National Congressional representatives and the Administration. But they don't seem to be listening. I pray for a ground swell of J & P people that will be able to "move this mountain"! Thanks be to God!