“When you tell us that CJNV is returning next year, it makes me very happy because it shows you trust me. I don’t need people to come for just one year, we want a relationship that continues.”
In the spring of 2014, the Israeli government uprooted hundreds of fruit trees from the Nassar family farm, the Tent of Nations, located south of Bethlehem in the West Bank. In February 2015, at the request of the family, nearly 30 Jewish activists from 4 countries traveled to their farm to help replant fields and sow seeds of creative, nonviolent activism.
In October 2015, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence organized actions, protests, and solidarity campaigns with Palestinian and Israeli nonviolent activists to counter the 2015 World Zionist Congress’ deafening silence on the issue that we believe is most central to Israel’s future, and arguably the most important challenge facing the Jewish people today: ending the occupation.
In July 2016 forty Jewish activists from more than half a dozen countries spent 10 days in solidarity and nonviolent resistance with Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank. We joined with Youth Against Settlements–a Palestinian nonviolent direct action group in Hebron–and members of All That’s Left: Anti-Occupation Collective to reclaim stolen property in Hebron and build the first cinema in the city.
In May 2017, in response to 50 years since the beginning of the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, CJNV brought an unprecedented cohort of 130 Jewish justice seekers to the West Bank and East Jerusalem to participate in a week of shoulder-to-shoulder solidarity work in various Palestinian communities and culminated in a 300-person joint civil disobedience action, Sumud: Freedom Camp.
45 Jewish activists from across North America gathered in Israel-Palestine to stand in coresistance with our Palestinian and Israeli partners. Over nine days, we learned, worked, and connected with partners in the South Hebron Hills, East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Givat Amal, and Lyd/Lod. Together, we cleared roads, laid concrete, painted murals, rehabilitated land, planted trees and built relationships rooted in resistance that will carry this work forward.
For the second time in six months, 45 Jewish activists from across North America gathered in Israel-Palestine to stand in coresistance with our Palestinian and Israeli partners. Over nine days, we learned, worked, and connected with partners in the South Hebron Hills, East Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Givat Amal, Abu Kbir and Lyd/Lod. Together, we laid concrete, painted murals, rehabilitated land, planted trees, reclaimed a freshwater spring and built relationships rooted in resistance that will carry this work forward.
“In working with CJNV this summer, I gained a deep and nuanced understanding of the situation on the ground in the Occupied Territories. I participated in inspiring nonviolent activism led by Palestinian and Israeli organizers working each and every day to end an unjust and untenable situation. And I came away with an even stronger motivation to bring what I learned and saw back to the United States, to educate my home Jewish communities about struggles that are too often ignored.”
“It was not a show – cleaning a field that wasn’t clean for 20 years, carrying in huge amounts of materials, challenging the soldiers, opening the area right beneath Baruch Marzel’s house. The family can walk now, with trash and barbed wire removed. The family felt it, they knew it wasn’t photo ops.”
“The trip did so much to show us the lived experience of Palestinians, but also to problematize and not hide any of the complicated aspects of our own interactions in this space as outsiders. I was inspired by the incredible Palestinian activists we worked with and feel energized to bring this work back to the US.”
CJNV's work--building partnerships and networks of solidarity--is what we need to face the challenges ahead. Partnership and coresistance upend the systems of division and oppression of Jews against Palestinians. When those in power choose to ostracize and oppress, we choose to link arms and struggle. Join us in choosing solidarity and coresistance with a donation today.
