Walking Through Lent for Peace A Focus on Palestine/Israel February 21 - March 17, 2021

Times are Pacific time.  Don't forget to adjust to your location.

Come walk the path to peace with justice for Palestine/Israel. The series begins with Palestinian Tarek Abuata preaching online at Ainsworth UCC followed by four evenings. Each of the four evenings will be a combination of film on the Palestine/Israel conflict, readings and prayers, and a responder to questions. The UCC Palestine Israel Network resolution A Declaration for a Just Peace Between Palestine and Israel will be provided as a study piece. A Palestinian, Israeli, or American role will be provided for your private reflection to walk with through Lent.

Here is the Link to sign up for this Lenten ZOOM Experience.

SUNDAY ZOOM WORSHIP FEBRUARY 21 at 10:00a.m. AINSWORTH UCC- PORTLAND (will be posted on Ainsworth United Church of Christ YouTube Channel)

TAREK ABUATA PREACHING – As a Palestinian Christian, growing up in Bethlehem, Tarek moved with his family to Texas during the first Intifada when he was 12. After graduating from the University of Texas Law School, Tarek started his career working for the Negotiations Support Unit in Ramal- lah, researching legal and policy issues. Since then, Tarek worked in Hebron in the West Bank for 9 years as the coordinator of the Christian Peacemaker Team (cpt.org) and served as the representative of Rev. Bernard LaFayette, protégé of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for five years training Palestinian youth in grassroots organizing and activism. Tarek just finished serving as the Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America, (www.fosna.org) an ecumenical liberation theology movement founded by Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land amplifying the voices of Palestinian Christians. To view the recording, visit this website on February 22 or search for the “Ainsworth United Church of Christ YouTube Channel.”

EVENING #1: WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 24 at 7:00p.m. “Israel and Palestine 101” A Jewish Voice for Peace short film.

John Pilger’s “Palestine Is Still The Issue/Real Stories”

In 1977, the award-winning journalist and filmmaker, John Pilger, made a documentary called “Palestine Is Still The Issue”. He told how almost a million Palestinians had been forced off their land in1948, and again in 1967. In this more recent in-depth documentary, he has returned to the West Bank, Jordan, Gaza, and Israel, to ask why the Palestinians, whose right of return was affirmed by the United Nations more than half a century ago, are still caught in a terrible limbo - refugees in their own land, controlled by Israel in the longest military occupation in modern times.

Responder: Mark Braverman

Mark is Executive Director, Kairos USA, and Research Fellow in Sys- tematic Theology and Ecclesiology, Stellenbosch University. Mark is a Jewish American with family roots in Jerusalem. Mark was transformed by witnessing the occupation of Palestine and by encounters with peace activists and civil society leaders from the Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities. Mark is a cofounder of Friends of Tent of Nations North America, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Palestinian land rights in historic Palestine. He currently serves as Director for Kairos USA, a movement to unify and mobilize Americans to take a prophetic stance for a just peace in Israel and Palestine. Mark is the author of Fatal Em- brace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land (Beaufort Books, 2011), A wall in Jerusalem: Hope, healing, and the struggle for peace in Israel and Palestine, (Jericho Books, 2013).  Easy to understand, historically accurate mini- primer about why Israelis and Palestinians are fighting, why the US-backed peace process has been an impediment to peace, and what you can do to make a difference. This conflict is essentially about land and human rights, not religion and culture. Endorsed by Palestinian, Israeli and American scholars and peace activists.

“Imprisoning a Generation”

Zelda Edmunds’ film is a documentary following the stories of four young Palestinians who have been detained and imprisoned under the Israeli military and political systems. Their perspectives, along with the voices of their families, form a lens into the entangled structures of oppression that expand well beyond the prison walls.

Responder: Jennifer Bing

Jennifer directs the Palestine Activism program for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Chicago. Jennifer began her advocacy for Palestinian children after working as a teacher in a Quaker school in Ramallah during the first Palestinian uprising (1986-1989). During those years she also worked as a field worker and researcher for Save the Children, documenting the impact of the first popular uprising on Palestinian children under the age of 16. Jennifer has worked with AFSC since 1989, organizing dozens of speaking tours, conferences, educational workshops, protests, delegations, and public events. She has directed two documentary films about the Pales- tinian community in Chicago. Jennifer currently works with Defense for Children International Palestine on their joint advocacy campaign, “Israeli Military Detention: No Way to Treat a Child.” She also co-leads the educational project “Gaza Unlocked” with her AFSC colleagues in the US and Gaza.

EVENING #3: WEDNESDAY MARCH 10 at 7:00pm.

“Seeing Through the Wall” - Parents Circle short film

BBC “Palestine Now Documentary 2017”

This film features building the Apartheid Wall, a rabbi’s work against Israeli’s military occupation and settler violence, the fight over water rights, the Israeli soldier group ‘Breaking the Silence’ sharing experiences, Civil vs. Military Law, checkpoints, Gaza as an open-air prison, and Combatants of Peace – both Israeli and Palestinians against the Wall.

Responder: Ned Rosch

Raised in an observant Jewish family that strongly identified with Zionism, and named after a great-uncle killed in the Holocaust, Ned Rosch grew up with a deep connection to Israel where he worked on a kibbutz and studied at the Hebrew University. As he studied more and developed friendships with Palestinians, he became increasingly conflicted about his Zionist upbringing and his growing understand- ing of the Nakba, the dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians from their land and the ensuing Palestinian struggle for liberation. He ul- timately came to understand that tribal loyalty must never trump a commitment to justice, a realization that included a burning passion to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle and a belief that his own liberation as a Jew will never be complete until there is justice for the Palestinian people. Ned traveled to Gaza with Washington

Physicians for Social Responsibility two months after the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza. His recollections of that experience - teaching yoga to people in refugee camps and bombed out apartment complexes who had lost loved ones and so much of their lives - are chronicled in his chapter in the recently released Stories of Personal Transformation: Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism.  Ned returned to Gaza to teach stress reduction and yoga in February and March of 2020.

EVENING # 4: WEDNESDAY MARCH 17 at 7:00p.m.

“Our Power is Our Pain” - Parents Circle short film

“Land and Honor”

A film by Art Wright chronicles life for Palestinians behind the wall under Israeli military occupation, Israeli settler land theft and violence, life in the apartheid city of Hebron, excerpts from Jewish author Miko Peled- Jewish activist, and Mazin Qumsiyeh –Palestinian activist, plus beautiful Palestinian children caught behind the Wall. It is narrated by Zaha Hassan, a Palestinian American lawyer.

Responders: CPC Palestine Israel Network members

Feedback on this film, the Lenten series, role reflections, passing the resolution at your church, and other steps for action.