Journey 2012:

Our next Tree of Life Journey, led by David Good and Carleen Gerber, will depart on Monday, April 9th. This year Orthodox Easter is a week later than the Protestant and Roman Catholic celebrations of Easter, and so we will arrive on Tuesday of the Orthodox Holy Week with their Easter being on April 15th. This will an opportunity to share this sacred time with our friends in Beit Sahour with the privilege of seeing how their spiritual traditions sustain them through the injustices of the occupation. Read the rest of this entry »

Please consider a contribution to our Tree of Life Honoraria fund, a fund that we use to support those organizations in the occupied territories and Israel that are working toward a just and peaceful future for us all.  We like to think of these organizations as “parables of hope” and in our annual Tree of Life journeys we’ve had the privilege of witnessing first-hand the excellent work that they do.  Read the rest of this entry »

This is the statement offered by Tamer H. N. Alshouri of Beit Sahour in the Occupied Territory of Palestine. Tamer was one of our Bridges of Hope musicians who performed at the 2011 Tree of Life Conference.

The aim of the occupier, generally, is to confiscate the land, the natural resources and to abolish the language and culture of the occupied people.  Coming from one of the longest occupations in the history, I’ve seen that culture is the only means to keep people together and to resist the occupier with non-violent means.  This is our form of resistance—choosing to hold onto our culture through art, food, history, literature and music.

Today we are gathered here, and we thank you for welcoming us to share our culture through our music. Read the rest of this entry »

After the tragedy of September 11, 2001 our church’s Board of Deacons met, and we asked ourselves how we should respond. One of the things we resolved was that we needed to redouble our efforts to strengthen our interfaith community. Little did we know then that discussions with our Jewish and Muslim neighbors would lead us right into the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, taking us on nine annual “Tree of Life Journeys”to Israel and the occupied territories in which over 200 have participated. These journeys, in turn, have led to five annual interfaith conferences in which we have tried to amplify the voices of conscience of Israelis and Palestinians— Jews, Christians and Muslims— who have been working for a just and peaceful resolution to what they often refer to as “the American-Israeli occupation.

Reverend David W. Good of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme in Connecticut shares the church’s experiences in the June/July 2011 issue of “The Link,” a newsletter published by Americans for Middle East Understanding, Inc. Click here to read the complete article: TheLink_vol44_issue3_2011