JPF - News, Statements and Events

10/25/99
We call on you to protest:
Palestinian House Provocatively Demolished
From The Other Israel, the newsletter of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace

On the first day in years that some Gazans could travel to the West Bank-there was unfortunately also a flare-up of Israeli-Palestinian tensions. We ask your to act in one concrete case.

A Palestinian house was again demolished in the neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, East Jerusalem. This would have been a bad piece of news under all circumstances - and some particular circumstances make it even worse. Like most Arab neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, the inhabitants of Beit Hanina have no real option of building legally - since the issuing of building permits requires a municipal zoning plan, and for the Arab neighbourhoods no such plans exist. Perforce, since they have to live somewhere, the Palestinians built illegally.

In the beginning of this year, the inhabitants of Beit Hanina thought that they had achieved something: they signed an agreement with the Jerusalem municipality which promised to issue the long-awaited zoning plan in the near future, and until it is issued to refrain from demolishing existing houses; for their part,the inhabitants undertook not to build any more houses illegally, and await the moment when they could get official permits.

Israeli peace activists have been involved in getting this agreement signed, and it was hoped that it will provide both a reasonable solution for the inhabitants of this particular neighbourhood and a precedent for other places. However, the Ministry of the Interior had been from the start hostile to the agreement, making clear its intention to continue demolishing houses which had been "pardoned" by the municipality - and precisely this happened this morning.

Interior Ministry demolition teams destroyed a house which was built ten years ago, which had been accepted as part of the agreement with the municipality, and whose inhabitants just last week paid the years long accumulated municipal tax in the sum of 8000 Shekels (about $2000), in recognition of their home's new status.

Last night, the Interior Ministry's intention to destroy the house became known to Meir Margalit, Jerusalem Town Councillor for the Meretz Party. Throughout the night and the morning, Margalit and several other activists made enormous efforts to stave off the demolititions - but the Interior Ministry officials proved implacable. Appeals by foreign diplomats were also fruitless. The demolition was carried out. A member of the Beit Hanina neighbourhood committee, carrying documents showing the house to be explicitly included in the inhabitants' agreement with the municipality, was blocked by police and not allowed to approach the scene of the demolition.

It seems that the orders to carry out the demolition came directly from the Interior Ministry's director-general Avi Ma'oz - who happens to be a settler, a leader of the El'ad religious-nationalst settler association which forcibly took over Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem's Silwan village.

Councillor Meir Margalit was present during the demolition. After it was over, he heard the people of Beit Hanina - people whom he knows well, many of whom had dared to hope for a more calm future - shouting angry and bitter slogans.

We ask you to express your strong protest to
Prime Minister Ehud Barak
rohm@pmo.gov.il and/or pm@pmo.gov.il
as well as to
Interior Minister Nathan
Sharanski sar@moin.gov.il

You can use the following text or make your own.
For direct contact with Meir Margalit: ph +972-51-345503 or +972-2-6764948.

---------- sample letter

I am appalled and shocked at the news of another demolition of a Palestinian home on October 25 at Beit Hanina Neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.

This demolition is all the more reprehensible coming after the Jerusalem Municipality came to an afreement with this neighborhood and specifically promised to refrain from demolition. Such a provocative demolition destroys all confidence and hope. A government which wants its wish to end the 100 years of conflict to be taken seriously, should reverse it, and make sure that those responsible will pay.

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10/19/99
"Letter from Bat Shalom"
Gila Svirsky

Friends,

If there were any doubts about the wheels of justice turning with the political winds, recent events should be persuasive. All it took was a new government (102 days old), continued pressure by peace and human rights organizations, and look at the recent heartening new policies of courts and ministries alike:

1) Although Barak has been a slow and reluctant partner in terms of concessions, he is gradually complying with the Israeli commitments in the signed agreements -- small territorial returns, the release of political prisoners, and (hopefully later this week) safe passage for Palestinians between Gaza and the West Bank.

2) On Sunday, Interior Minister Natan Sharansky announced that he is rescinding the "quiet deportation" policies of the previous governments in which the right of Palestinians to live in Jerusalem is revoked if they lived outside the city for 7 years or more. Does this mean that Palestinians who work or study outside Jerusalem are now also safe from expulsion? Not yet clear. One hopes that the several thousand Palestinians who had previously been banned from Jerusalem will now be allowed to return. Is it too much to hope that they will be compensated for this abrogation of their human rights?

3) In September, torture was pronounced illegal. The Supreme Court even went so far as to warn the Knesset that any legislation that sought to legalize it would have to conform to the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom . . . which would be very difficult to do, warned the court.

4) This week, a Tel-Aviv District Court rejected the government appeal to continue the incarceration of two Lebanese who were abducted by Israeli soldiers for use as "bargaining chips" in future negotiations for hostages. 19 other Lebanese are being held for the same purpose -- accused of no crime, but imprisoned for years (some since 1986!) pending their usefulness in a future prisoner exchange. These men will soon -- 2 months, said the court -- be allowed to return to their families. (Why make them wait 2 more months???)

5) Some government ministers have talked about ending the policy of demolishing Palestinian homes -- an excellent sign. In response, however, Ehud Olmert, right-wing mayor of Jerusalem (where hundreds of homes are slated for demolition), has expressed his determination to destroy all "illegal construction" and to hire a private security firm to protect the city bulldozer "if the police won't do it". Is this the man who was guest speaker at a "Tolerance in Jerusalem" event last year? This man is gunning to be the next prime minister.

6) Last week, the Israeli army gave up on its effort to break Lotahn Raz of his determination not to serve in the army, and released him from jail, apparently intending to allow him to do community service instead. Lotahn is a conscientious objector, and has refused to serve in an army that continues its policies of occupation of the land of others.

The report card is not all positive by a long shot, however:

1) Starting from "the top", Barak has proposed that Israeli settlements on the Golan Heights be accorded "preferred" economic status. Is this consonant with a decision to return the Golan Heights to Syria?

2) Even worse is the ongoing expansion of existing West Bank settlements, with concomitant government approval for land confiscation and thousands of new housing units planned or constructed in the settlements since Barak took office. Does Barak believe that bigger settlements are conducive to a final status agreement? (Kudos to Peace Now for its vigorous monitoring and protest of this activity.)

I do regard as a positive sign Barak's decision to evacuate 10 of the 42 new "outposts" that were established since he took office, as it establishes the principle of removing existing settlements in the territories. This is critical. Just as Netanyahu broke the right-wing principle that land may not be returned, dismantling the outposts breaks the barrier of refusal to undo settlements.

3) Finally, we are waiting to see if the new budget will reflect the "change in priorities" that the electorate was promised -- support for education, health, the elderly, and addressing the huge problem of unemployment. On this, we have no good tidings yet whatsoever.

On balance, I give a C+ to the new administration. There's room for improvement.

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5/26/99
"JPF Kosovo Press Release"

The Jewish Peace Fellowship--a national Jewish organization opposed to NATO intervention-- issued a statement today demanding an immediate halt to NATO bombing and to all planning for fighting ground forces in order to end the ethnic cleansing of Albanians and further loss of lives of all in the Balkans.

The Jewish Peace Fellowship, founded by rabbis in 1941 and committed to nonviolent solutions to conflict, cited examples of spiritual resistance and nonviolent creative solutions from the Torah and Talmud as its inspiration for solving contemporary conflicts.

"More than a few survivors of the Holocaust, whose memory has been invoked as the moral imperative for the current bombing of the former Yugoslavia, contend that World War II failed to save millions of Jewish and other victims," the statement says.

JPF strongly condemns Milosevic's cynical use of the current war to increase the ethnic cleansing and dramatic suffering of the Albanian Kosovar refugees, while systematically demolishing the peaceful, nonviolent, democratic opposition to his regime in Belgrade.

"Some survivors and historians now argue that it was the war itself that gave cover for the Holocaust··and although Hitler had to be resisted, were it not for the war, the Nazis might not have gotten away with their crimes. They believe the war effort silenced German opposition from within and sabotaged potential intercession on behalf of civilian victims."

Because JPF deplores the tragic suffering of the Albanian Kosovar refugees and all Balkan victims of the violence, it seeks an immediate convening of highly publicized peace conferences to consider alternatives to the conflict from all Balkan nonviolent and democracy groups--including Albanian passive resistance groups and representatives of the 1.5 million Serbs who demonstrated against Milosevic in 1996 & 1997.

The JPF bases its call for the halt to violence in the Biblical injunction "Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor·." (Leviticus 19:16) While noting that many who support NATO's intervention also base their stand on the same Biblical citation, JPF's interpretation is that "the bombing is turning that commandment on its head when our response causes even more bloodshed. The bombing reflect our lack of creative vision for nonviolent alternatives, and the source for those visions can only come from the peace and democratic forces in the region."

The JPF statement read: " As our teacher, the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, said when calling on Jews to demand a bombing halt during the Vietnam War, ' we must not remain silent while children cannot sleep at night because of bombs.' Biblical laws of war in Deuteronomy forbid 'destroying the trees of a city' and causing suffering to non-combatants. A bombing campaign against a country, its infrastructure and its economy, is a violation of Jewish law, as we in the Jewish Peace Fellowship interpret it. "

"The moral challenge is not whether to intervene, but how," the JPF statement concluded: "Our tradition teaches us that 'even in time of war, peace must be sought,' " (Sifrei , a Midrashic work on Deuteronomy, 20:10).

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5/21/99
"Middle East Peace Statement"

The Jewish Peace Fellowship congratulates our friends in the Israeli/Palestinian peace movement on the renewed hope for peace ushered in by the results of the Israeli election. Now our job must begin-- of supporting the work of the Israeli-Palestinian peace and human rights movement on the ground, to ensure that the Barak government and the Palestinian Authority negotiate a genuine peace.

We in JPF call on our own governments (U.S., Canadian, Latin American and European) to urge the Israeli government to declare that a "meaningful, viable, governable, sovereign" Palestinian State (no bantustans)--with a shared Jerusalem-- will be the result of peace negotiations that will be resumed immediately. Although the original Oslo agreement called for decisions about statehood be held to the last stages, the current breakdown in trust dictates that it no longers makes sense to wait to the end peace negotiations to commit to a Palestinian state. Resolving this problem will inject some hope for the process, and the negotiations can focus on the practical details of making that peace happen peacefully.

We ask the new Israeli government to issue a public call for an immediate halt to all Palestinian home demolitions, deportations and confiscation of land (that have been ongoing up to the present), as a first act of moral credibility and a trust building measure for the success of the final peace negotiations.

We urge all JPF members to write this to their local (government officials) congressmen and senators, as well as write letters-to-the-editor in the local press--identifying yourself as members of the Jewish Peace Fellowship-. It is essential to demonstrate to elected officials that Jews in their districts support peace positions. Our efforts must counter the silence coming from the establishment Jewish organizations as well as the media coverage that minimizes Jewish peace voices and distorts the Palestinians. Jewish Peace Fellowship's positions support those held by peace and human rights groups in Israel including : Rabbis for Human Rights, the Israeli Coalition to End the House Demolitions, Bat Shalom, Jerusalem Link, Gush Shalom, Dor Shalom, Oz v' Shalom, and others.

For a more detailed discussion on this position, read "Building a Sustainable Peace," in the Autumn 1998 issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies by JPF Advisory Council member Professor Herb Kelman of Harvard University.

Statement of Gush Shalom on Jerusalem

Jerusalem is ours, Israelis and Palestinians - Muslims, Christian and Jews. Our Jerusalem is a mosaic of all the cultures, all the religions and all the periods that enriched the city, from the earliest antiquity to this very day - Canaanites and Jebusites and Israelites- Jews and Hellenes, Romans and Byzantines, Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Mamelukes, Othmanlis and Britons Palestinians and Israelis. They and all the others who made their contribution to the city have a place in the spiritual and physical landscape of Jerusalem. Our Jerusalem must be united, open to all and belonging to all its inhabitants, without borders and barbed-wire in its midst. inhabitants, without borders and barbed-wire in its midst. Our Jerusalem must be the capital of the two states that will live side by side in this country - West Jerusalem the capital of the State of Israel and East Jerusalem the capital of the State of Palestine. Our Jerusalem must be the Capital of Peace.

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5/21/99
"Kosovo Statement"

The Jewish Peace Fellowship, committed to non-violent resolution of conflict, condemns Serbia's ethnic cleansing and violence against the Kosovar people, NATO's bombing raids and all talk urging a ground war. We believe that past mutual outrages and injustices in the Balkans have too often led to repeated displays of rage and revenge. Negotiated agreements grounded on the basis of international law are the only way to bring an end to today's widespread suffering and devastation.

While the NATO intervention was rooted in the Biblical injunction "Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor....." (Leviticus 19:16) the bombing is turning that commandment on its head when our response causes even more bloodshed. The problem is a lack of creative vision for nonviolent alternatives. The source for those visions must come from the peace and democratic forces within the region whose voices have been muted by the extremists.

We are disturbed that the United States did not take the issue to the international community, instead of acting through NATO, initiating an aerial war against the Balkan peoples. As our teacher, the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said in calling on Jews to seek a bombing halt during the Vietnam War: "we must not remain silent while children cannot sleep at night because of the bombing." Biblical laws of war in Deuteronomy forbid "destroying the trees of a city" and causing suffering to non-combatants. A bombing campaign against a country, its infrastructure and its economy, is a violation of Jewish law, as we in the Jewish Peace Fellowship interpret it.

The moral challenge is not whether to intervene, but how. Because our tradition teaches us "How great is peace! Even in time of war peace must be sought," (Sifrei, a Midrashic work on Deuteronomy 20:10), the Jewish Peace Fellowship urges that:

1. NATO halt its bombing campaign and commence immediately with negotiations involving the international community--the United Nations and the European Union--with NATO, Russia, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and other Balkan states, to begin with an aim of granting self governance for Kosovo. In return, Kosovo would be demilitarized. Trained international peacekeepers, from the UN, the European Union plus a cadre of NATO and neutral nation armed forces would monitor the agreement and assure that all
Kosovars are allowed to return home safely. Serbia, in turn, would then be given an opportunity and help to build a civil society committed to multiculturalism and pluralism.

2. Immediate and substantial aid should be sent to all Balkan refugees
wherever they may be. The West should begin a new Marshall Plan to help rebuild all of former Yugoslavia and Kosovo, focused on renewing the infrastructure of these societies. International Peace Corps volunteers could play an important role in this rebuilding.
JPF Kosovo Statement Page 2

3. Kosovar refugees should, if they wish, be granted havens elsewhere until able to return home. The wealthy NATO nations should be encouraged to accept at least 100,000 refugees each.

4. All war criminals regardless of nationality should be indicted and tried
by an international war crimes court and punished if found guilty. In addition, to heal the wounds and build a stable peace, the international community should convene a national "truth and reconciliation" commission for each region, on the models already successful in South Africa and Guatemala. Non-governmental organizations skilled in postwar reconciliation could be supportive. Some are already proving themselves in other parts of former Yugoslavia, emphasizing interregional healing and working with young people to build their common future.

5. The western nations should offer massive support for the nonviolent, democratic forces in the entire Balkan region. We call on them to convene two highly visible peace conferences--one in the U.S. and anoather in Europe-- where Balkan peace views can be heard. The world must hear again the views of the 1.5 million Serbs, who demonstrated against Milosevic in the winter of 1996 and 1997, to learn about their vision of a future that works for the good of all. We should legitimize Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the ten-year Albanian passive resistance movement, as a genuine voice. We must not allow the authoritarian leaders and zealots to control the solutions reached at the negotiating table.

JPF believes the people of the Balkan region need a safe space to reconsider how self-determination for each ethnic group may be achieved in a political framework that best safeguards each groups' rights, as part of the construction of a democratic Europe. War became an instrument for displacing people in order to change the ethnic composition of territories. The bloody dismemberment of formerly multicultural Bosnia was set into stone in the Dayton accords. We reject the zealots who claim these aspirations can only be achieved in a state based on exclusive ethno-national principles. We also need to hear the views and experience, in the peace conference, of Aleksandar Singer, President of the Jewish Federation in Belgrade, an Auschwitz survivor (who spent three years in a labor camp under communism) regarding restructuring of the region along ethnic lines. As fellow Jews, whose citizenship in western countries must be protected by constitutional safeguards, we need to hear from his community as well.

The Jewish Peace Fellowship (JPF), founded in 1941, is an interdenominational, international Jewish organization which supports conscientious objectors and maintains that nonviolence and conscientious objection stem directly from the mandates and teachings of Judaism. JPF unites those who believe that Jewish ideals and experience provide inspiration for a nonviolent commitment to life and the remaking of society. We recognize that while Judaism is not monolithic in its approach to carrying out the obligation of peace and that there may be various answers to particular moral dilemmas, it is our position that the Jewish tradition has historically placed a great value on peace.

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"Judaic Peace Sources"

Judaic sources for peace: a summary

While Judaism developed from the Bible, it is not limited to it. Jewish custom and tradition follow the teachings of the Talmud and even more contemporary peacemaking sages like Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and Abraham Joshua Heschel. The Bible itself yearned for and envisioned peace and demanded that the Jew pursue it. This is a central mitzvah, or commandment, in the Bible. Of traditional Judaism's 613 commandments, only justice and peace are not merely to be fulfilled in one's dwelling place but to be actively pursued everywhere. Prophets and psalmists in the Bible railed against the entering of military alliances and involvements and the reliance on might and weaponry.

The Bible and later Jewish sources put restraining limits on war even when it could be fought. These included bans on defoliation, sneak attacks and surrounding a besieged city on all sides. The most familiar teaching on enemies is from Exodus 23:4-5 requiring one to help an enemy by returning his lost donkey or help him lift it up if his donkey falls from a heavy burden. The religious commentators interpret this passage as an injunction to reduce hatred and enmity in society through acts of kindness. It is explicitly noted that our natural feelings would cause us to avoid giving help and we are commanded to set aside those feelings even when hatred is justified. The sage RaMBaN points out (in Mishneh Torah, "Homicide and Life Preservation", ch. 13) that the verse specifies "with him" so that the the helper is not martyred and the kindness becomes a cooperative activity. Thus, the teaching from Avot d'Rabbi Natan, "Who is a hero? One who turns an enemy into a friend" (Chapter 23).

While the Biblical King David is known as a great warrior, less known is that the Bible sought to understate his militarism and omitted all mention of many of his military exploits. We know about them from other ancient Near Eastern sources, not from the Bible. In the Bible itself we are taught that King David was denied the one thing he most wanted, to build the first Holy Temple in Jerusalem, because his hands were too filled with blood. The honor went instead to his son Solomon, whose Hebrew name, Shlomo, contains the word shalom, which means --unlike the Latin pax--peace as well as wholeness and completion.

The world knows the stories of the great warriors of Masada, who almost led the Jewish people into extinction. Less well known is the story of another Jewish leader of that day, Rabban (Rabbi) Yochanan ben Zakkai, a Jewish scholar who decided to pursue active spiritual resistance in the struggle for Jewish survival. He appeared before the Roman commander, Vespasian, acknowledged the impending fall of Jerusalem, and bargained for Israel's future by requesting one thing--authorization to found a yeshiva, an academy of Jewish learning and scholarship in the town of Yavneh. Other academies of learning followed ben Zakkai's lead.

Thus it was the model of Yavneh and not Masada that became the guarantor of the spiritual survival of the Jewish people and the continuity of Judaism. In the Yavneh, emphasis on Jewish learning and spirituality replaced the stress on Jewish political nationalism and military resistance that was central Masada.

The Jewish Peace Fellowship draws on this example of spiritual resistance and heroism in devising nonviolent creative solutions for our own inspiration in addressing contemporary conflicts.

Throughout its history, Jewish tradition refined its awareness of the responsibility to "seek peace and pursue it" (Ps. 34:15) extending it even to those tragic situations where war seems inevitable. Moses Maimonides, in the twelfth century, wrote "you are prohibited from waging war against anyone in the world until you have attempted a peaceful solution to the problem." (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 6:1)

More than a few survivors of the Holocaust, whose memory has been invoked as the moral imperative for the current bombing of the former Yugoslavia, now contend that World War II failed to save millions of Jewish and other victims. Some survivors and historians now argue that it was the war itself that gave cover for the Holocaust. They conclude that, although Hitler had to be resisted, were it not for the war, the Nazis might not have gotten away with their crimes. They believe that the war effort silenced German opposition from within and sabotaged potential intercession on behalf of civilian victims.

In this period of increased international tensions, the need for seeking peaceful solutions is paramount. "The world stands on three legs: truth, justice and peace," says our Talmud. Let us use shuttle diplomacy--between Balkan peace forces and governmental bodies-- in the spirit of Aaron, brother of Moses, who was the first recorded Jew to employ this technique.

Sources:

The Challenge of Shalom: The Jewish Tradition of Peace and Justice, edited by Murray Polner and Naomi Goodman, New Society Publishers, 1994:
"How to Deal with Your Enemies: A Survey of Rabbinic Sources," by
Rabbi Philip J. Bentley
"Is There a Jewish God of Peace?" by Rabbi Marc Gopin
Call to Conscience: Jews, Judaism, and Conscientious Objection, published jointly by Ktav Publishing House, Hoboken, NJ and Jewish Peace Fellowship, Nyack, NY, 1986
"Some Jewish Questions and Discussions," by Rabbi Albert Axelrad
Selections from an article by Rabbi Victor Reinstein, from a forthcoming article in Sh'ma, a Journal of Jewish Responsibility

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Fundraising Letter Winter '00

Dear JPF Members and Friends:

As we write this letter, Israel and the Palestinians appear to be on the brink of all-out war. From the euphoric days of Oslo in 1993 to Camp David this year, it seemed that a peaceful settlement was within their grasp. Sadly, it was not to be so, at least at this writing and we are filled with grief and horror at the disastrous turn of events.

Even so, as the oldest national Jewish peace organization in the United States, we have not wavered one iota: There is simply no rational alternative to a peaceful resolution of the crisis. We are proud—and will always be proud -- of our steadfast principle that death and bloodletting among the children of Abraham will only bring more and more death and bloodletting.

Since the outbreak of violence between Israeli Jews and Palestinians and Israeli Palestinians, JPF members and friends have demonstrated their support of this basic principle in various parts of the country (see the latest issue of Shalom, for example).

Our excellent website (www.jewishpeacefellowship.org) allows us to be the Jewish voice of the peace movement and the peace movement’s Jewish voice. It allows us to interact globally with Jewish peace activists throughout the world and especially in Israel.

We can do this because in the past you have always generously answered our appeals for vitally needed funds. Now we are asking you once again to help us help others.

All of us at JPF are volunteers and still with only one part-time paid staff member we are spreading our message of peace and reconciliation everywhere as the only sane and viable option.

Just look at some of things we’ve done this year.

We have published a new booklet, Wrestling With Your Conscience: A Guide for Jewish Draft Registrants and Conscientious Objectors informing young men and their families what the Jewish tradition says about the Jewish pursuit of peace and its attitudes toward war, while detailing the latest Selective Service regulations and legal options that can be pursued should conscription be renewed. It is a perfect teaching tool for Jewish educators dealing with ethical responses in times of war and peace.

The JPF co-sponsored a vigil in front of the U.S. capital opposing a proposed defense program, support for a death penalty moratorium and advocating for a living wage for all. After, we spoke about these issues with congressional aides.

We have and will continue to support Israeli young men who in good conscience refuse to serve in Israel’s armed forces. We continue to support Yesh Gvul, the Israeli movement of soldiers who will not serve beyond the Green Line.

Our fight against the death penalty has been accelerated following the dramatic introduction of a moratorium by Illinois’s Governor, and the subsequent documentation of the fact that far too many inmates have been unjustly sentenced to death.

With more money we could increase our presence at hearings and conferences. We could expand our invaluable website and hire an additional technical aide. We could hire an additional staff person. We could produce more educational materials. We could recruit more members. We could buy ads. We could – and should-- be doing much, much more.

For all this and much more we need your support and your money.

Refusing to bend to the winds of wars in the Middle East and elsewhere, the JPF proudly stands for peace and justice.

We need your help.

Please let us hear from you.

Shalom,

Rabbi Philip Bentley
Honorary President

Murray Polner
Chair

Naomi Goodman
Secretary

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"Fundraising Letter Winter '99"

Winter, 1999/ 5759

Shalom Friends,

Talk of a revival of the draft shrieked from the front page of a recent New York Times "News of the Week in Review." We had no way to alert you immediately to write the editor and your Congressperson. Daily e-mails from Israeli peace groups beg for rapid responses from world Jewry to write leaders protesting the home demolitions still continuing in the Occupied Territories.

The imprisoned Israeli conscientious objector whose supporters e-mailed us in early February needed us forward a petition [ see attached letter] to all of you immediately!

We must be able to act more quickly. In this new electronic world, paper and "snail" mail are too expensive and too slow. Other political groups are mobilizing thousands to petition the White House on e-mail and organizing on the worldwide web. They can reach their national and international memberships within hours for critical issues. JPF must use this technology to find new members among Jewish peacemakers worldwide.

JPF must have its own web site-- a cyber-presence--so anyone searching for "Jews" and "peace" will find JPF on the internet. Our web site will fill a gaping need-- an electronic clearinghouse for Jewish peace activities in the United States and worldwide. Our JPF site, to be linked to Israeli peace groups, will allow peace-minded Jews everywhere to share information, forge political alliances, and launch media campaigns.

In this way, we will disseminate our views to a far wider audience and facilitate members' work on local projects regarding conscientious objection, Israel and the Middle East, opposition to the death penalty, nuclear disarmament and social justice.

The initial launch into cyberspace is costly-- creating the web site, purchasing a computer for the JPF office, building our e-mail data base-- but the payback in lower overhead and expanded membership will be enormous. We cannot expect this labor intensive work to be done for free by the generous peace activist, Martin Kelly, who donated time to put our JPF home page on the Nonviolence Web (www.nonviolence.org/JPF). We urgently need your funds to jumpstart this new effort.

Please give generously -- more than in the past--so that we can be up and running and e-mailing you soon! If you have expertise in this area and good ideas to help us launch this new effort, e-mail us.

With high hopes for our peace work together,

Carolyn Toll Oppenheim and Murray Polner, JPF Co-Chairs

P.S. Please put your e-mail address on your check for our database!
ISRAELI CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR IN MILITARY
PRISON FOR THE SECOND TIME

We would like to ask for your help in the case of the Israeli conscientious objector Yehuda
Agus.a 28-year old student from Jerusalem, who was recognised by Amnesty International on Jan. 29, 1999 as a Prisoner of Conscience. Since January 27th Agus had been incarcerated at Military Prison 4 for his refusal to perform a term of
reserve service.

Agus, has several times called upon the military authorities to exempt him from the reserve service of one month every year which is required of male Jewish Israeli citizens until the age of 45, and which he stated were against the dictates of his conscience. All his appeals were rejected.

It should be noted that by Israeli law, women objecting to military service for reasons of conscience are explicitly eligible for exemption. The Minister of Defence is legally authorised to exempt male conscientious objectors as well. However, the committee to which the minister delegated this authority is composed solely of military officers who are hostile to conscientious objectors and who tend to reject out of hand all appeals - even of those with the most well-founded pacifist convictions.

Agus has already served a prison term of 14 days in November; his present term is for 28 days.It is not irregular for the Israeli authorities to try and break conscientious objectors by repeatitious short terms of imprisonment like in Agus's case.

YOUR HELP IS URGENTLY NEEDED.
Agus should be immediately released. Israel's violation of freedom of conscience must end. The illtreatment of conscientious objectors must be terminated.

PLEASE,

Print and add your name to the following petition. Fax the signed petition to us at: 972-2-6276317.
Write your own letter to Mr. Moshe Arens, Minister of Defernce, Hakiria, Tel-Aviv, Israel (fax: 972-3-6976218).
Join our demonstrations (call us for details) or organise your own. (please inform us if you do).
Spread the word; send this website address to others.
Help the campaign financially. Checks should be written to the order of Moran Cohen, and sent to POB 8193, Jerusalem 91081.

FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS CALL:

Ms. Moran Cohen
02-6222790
email: morac@netvision.net.il

TO:
Minister of Defence
Mr. Moshe Arens
Fax: 972-3-6976218

Prisoner of Conscience Yehuda Agus

I request that you bring about the immediate release of Yehuda Agus, who is imprisoned for the second time due to his conscientious objection to serving in the Israeli Defence Forces.

Yehuda Agus, aged 28 from Jerusalem, was sentenced on 26 January 1999 to 28 days in a military prison for his refusal to enlist in active reserve duty. In November 1998 Yehuda also served 14 days in prison for this refusal.

Yehuda is a conscientious objector to military service. In a letter sent to your predecessor in November, he wrote: "I oppose oppression, both personal and systemic. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) does everything to destroy the individuality of those serving in its ranks and to transform them into anonymous cogs in the machine. The IDF brainwashes its soldiers with obuteness and reliance on force. The results is mediocrity in both thought and spirit. I view the military uniforms, national flag and military unit pride as oppressors of the individualistic and free human being.

Furthermore, it will be difficult for me to ignore the fact that the State of Israel, via the
IDF, has been oppressing the Palestinian people for over 50 years through violent killings, theft and conquest. However, I must also state that even without the current political situation in Israel, I would refuse to serve in the army. My refusal is universal. I object to any army and any state."

Yehuda's requests, that the Minister of Defence and the IDF exempt him from service according to their legal authority, were rjected. Yehuda wrote to your predecessor:

"I did my utmost to prevent a situation in which I would be forced to refuse an order, but at the same time I do not intend to refuse the order of my conscience."

The security establishment ignores Yehuda's fundamental human right to freedom of conscience. This establishment prefers to abuse Yehuda and imprison him for the second time in less than three months, while refusing to listen to his arguments. Yehuda is not a criminal. He is imprisoned because of his beliefs.

Yehuda Agus was recognised as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, and an international struggle to free him is currently being conducted.

I wish to add my voice to the call for his immediate release:

Name:

Address:

Profession:

Telephon number:

copy: Colonel Nissim Barda, Head of the Draft Board,
fax 972-3-5695603

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"Fundraising Letter Fall '99"

Sukkot 1999, Tishri 5760

Dear Friends,

I am writing to share our growing vision for the Jewish Peace Fellowship and to enlist your participation in shaping it and making it a reality. But first, let me tell you two stories that contain the seeds of this vision.

The first is about the little-known role of the Yugoslav Jews, who, throughout the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, functioned as neutrals in all of the strife-torn regions, helping everyone without concern for politics. When communications were cut off, Jews provided the connective glue to get messages and help between non-Jewish friends and families separated from each other. The Jewish- run pharmacy in Belgrade gives medications to everyone, regardless of politics.

The Yugoslav Jews are an inspiration and a model for Jews today in global conflicts. We in JPF need to spread the message that Yugoslav Jews saw their role as the peacemakers in strife-torn former Yugoslavia--not as advocates of one side over another--in a place where Jews have deep ties of friendship to members of all the different ethnic groups.

The second story is of a labor union organizer who stood up in a wonderful, activist Brooklyn synagogue this past Yom Kippur, and shared his pain and doubt about whether his last 30 years of professional social action work had been a total waste, since he had seen the conditions for working people deteriorate, not improve, over those years. He posed the challenge to his congregation: "What shall we do and with whom shall we do it?" A fellow congregant responded, "we are so small, how can we be effective ?"

Our vision of JPF is to help link congregations and activists like these to make connections with other Jewish social and peace activists and to give them the resources in Jewish tradition to draw on for their work.

Many people today no longer want to join large, national, top-down organizations. They now prefer to do work on the local level, in their own communities. But they sometimes find themselves small, under-resourced, and lacking the energy and fresh ideas once provided by national organizations.

Our new website can do that !

The community in Brooklyn can get inspiration and support from locally active groups like the one in Syracuse, NY, that Andy Mager writes about in our current issue of Shalom, or the Black-Jewish project developed by Stefan Merken in Seattle, or the Arab-Jewish dialogue project developed under the leadership of JPF board member Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb in Albuquerque, NM. And Jews everywhere can learn about the nonviolent views of Yugoslav-born Jews --living here in America-- who opposed the NATO bombings and seek help for the Jews helping others in Belgrade.

With this new website, the Jewish Peace Fellowship becomes an international clearinghouse for materials on the Jewish tradition of nonviolence and a central address for people everywhere -- Berlin, Buenos Aires, New York, Duluth, Johannesberg and Jerusalem--to find each other, connect and collaborate. Congregational social action committees, unaffiliated Jewish activists, rabbis, university Hillels, Jewish educators, students, scholars, can draw on our Jewish peace archive as a resource and share ideas and projects with each other. This activity will be the yeast that will grow the Jewish culture of peace into a large, visible movement that will begin to be felt in Jewish communities.

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureates have issued a call for the next ten years to be a United Nations Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence. Religious, peace and justice groups, community organizations the world over are already organizing for this project.
Our dream is that Jewish Peace Fellowship can lead the way for strong Jewish involvement in this global culture of peace.

To do this we need your financial help:

To hire students to do website work.
To buy ads in magazines telling folks about us.
To bring Jewish peace activists and conscientious objectors from
Israel, Europe, US, to nourish decentralized Jewish groups.
To purchase a computer for our JPF office.
To pay for more staff time to do organizing and write grants to fund
our work.

It will take money to achieve this. With your help we can weave the worldwide Jewish peacemaking community together and bring it into the emerging global culture of peace.

From a dollar to a hundred to a thousand dollars, your gift can make a difference.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Toll Oppenheim, co-chair (with Murray Polner, co-chair)

P.S. If you have time and no money, we would be grateful for the donation of typing or computer skills.

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"National Jewish Fast For Peace and Justice"

July 20, 2000

U.S. Capitol and GWU Hillel
Jewish Peace Fellowship, Am Kolel, and Jews United For Justice
15 West Montgomery, #204, Rockville, MD 20850
301-309-2310

For Release: Thursday, July 20, 2000 More Information:
David Shneyer, 301-309-2310
Ken Giles, 202-686-9479
Lee Diamond, 703-560-3623

Jews Fast To Support Peace and Economic Justice

Washington, DC -- Jews from across the U.S. will observe the Fast of Tammuz by calling on Congress and the President to promote nuclear disarmament and economic justice to foster a "decade of nonviolence" at the beginning of the 21st century. This coincides with the Decade for Nonviolence declared by the UN and supported by all living Nobel Peace Prize winners.

The Jewish Peace Fellowship, Am Kolel, and Jews United for Justice organized today's national fast to emphasize the Jewish community's support for peace and justice. "War, poverty, and racism are intertwined evils," said Rabbi Phil Bentley, Honorary President of Jewish Peace Fellowship. "We need to eliminate nuclear weapons, foster a nonviolent foreign policy, and promote racial and economic equality. We are recommitting ourselves to the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel of a culture of nonviolence and justice. Jews have always envisioned a Messianic Age of peace and justice. The Jewish tradition is a continual calling toward peace, justice, and compassion."

The Fast of Tammuz commemorates the breach of the walls of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E. For many Jews, it begins a 3-week period of study and meditation, ending with Tisha B'av (evening of August 9) which commemorates several violent calamities in Jewish history.

Jews from across the U.S. will hold a vigil during today's fast at the U.S. Capitol Building and meet with Members of Congress. U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone will address the group at noon on the West Front of the Capitol. We will urge Congress to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, enact a federal living wage, and place a moratorium on the death penalty.

In the evening, three lifelong activists will be honored. Rabbi Everett Gendler marched with King and Heschel in the 1960s and has supported the civil rights, peace, and environmental movements for decades. Evely Laser Shlensky served as Chairperson of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, worked for peace in Central America and in the Middle East, and is Co-Chairperson of the Los Angeles Jewish Commission on Sweatshops. Edgar Cahn is an activist law professor who helped found Antioch School of Law (now the UDC School of Law) and the Time Dollar Institute to provide an innovative form of work for poor people. The honored guests will speak about their life experiences and their vision of a path to peace, justice, and a culture of nonviolence.

Today's national Jewish fast is part of the 40-day "People's Campaign for Nonviolence" sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a coalition of peace and justice groups representing many faith communities. Each day, a different group leads a vigil and interfaith prayer at the White House, Congress, or Pentagon, maintaining a 40-day presence for economic justice and disarmament.

Jewish Peace Fellowship, a 60-year-old national organization, supports Jewish conscientious objectors, promotes Middle East peace, and advocates nonviolent resolution of conflicts. Am Kolel is a Judaic resource and renewal center in the D.C. area, active in many peace and justice programs. Jews United For Justice takes action for economic and social justice in the D.C. area, providing Jews with an opportunity to weave together their Judaism and activism.

Conveners: Cherie Brown, Bert Donn, Lee Diamond, Ken Giles, Joe Goodman, Greg Kaufman, Rachel Pentlarge, Rabbi Gerry Serotta, David Shneyer, Mike Tabor

Supporters: Nadine Bloch, Rabbi Phil Bentley, Murray Polner, Jevera Temsky, Carolyn Toll Oppenheim, Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center, and the Network of Independent Jewish Communities and Havurot of Greater Washington

National Jewish Fast for Peace and Justice
Co-sponsored by Jewish Peace Fellowship, Am Kolel, and Jews United for Justice
July 20, 2000
Washington, DC

Rodef Shalom v'Tzedek

Evely Laser Shlensky...Immediate past Chairperson of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism. During the 1980s, she was active in the Sanctuary Movement, working to protect Central American refugees in the U.S. and to end the wars and human rights abuses in Central America. She has promoted Middle East peace as part of an interreligious delegation to Israel and Arab countries and as an international observer during the first Palestinian election. Evely Laser Shlensky is Co-Chairperson of the Los Angeles Jewish Commission on Sweatshops as well as a founding board member of the National Interfaith Committee on Worker Justice. She has written and spoken extensively on the interface of social justice and Judaism.

Rabbi Everett Gendler...Marched with Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel during the 1960s. Longtime supporter of Jewish Peace Fellowship. Civil rights activist. Congregational rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Lowell, Massachusetts, and chaplain and instructor at Phillips Academy in Andover. Author of articles about many topics, including Jewish vegetarianism, Jewish pacifism, and Jewish environmentalism. With his wife Mary, Rabbi Gendler is involved in community education with the Tibetan exile community in India, focusing on nonviolent strategic political struggle.

Edgar Cahn...Author, activist law professor, social activist and lecturer. During the "War on Poverty" in the 1960s, Edgar Cahn with his late wife, Jean Camper Cahn, wrote the article that was to be the blueprint for the national legal services program. Later, working in the Office of Economic Opportunity, Jean and Edgar actually founded the program. Despite efforts by conservative leaders to cut the program, it exists today as the Legal Services Corporation. With Jean Camper Cahn, Edgar co-founded the Antioch School of Law, which had its own teaching law firm serving the poor and which trained law students by having them intern throughout their education by providing actual legal services. That school is still alive as the U.D.C. School of Law. In recent years, Edgar Cahn created the "time dollar" which is a new, tax-exempt currency designed to value those whom the market does not value - the disadvantaged, at-risk, poor and disenfranchised. The "time dollar" values the real work that the market does not call work: strenghtening families, building community, making democracy work. Edgar's new currency has spread to 30 states, to Europe, Asia, and Central America. Dr. Cahn is still active today, creating new concepts and programs helping people overcome poverty and injustice. His new book, No More Throw-Away People, building upon his work with "time dollars," presents a new vision of the possible.

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Box 271 - Nyack, NY 10960
(845) 348-4601
jpf@forusa.org