Concert of Traditional Palestinian Music: 
A Fundraiser for Gaza Aid

Wednesday December 18, 2024 - 4 pm PT/7 pm ET

First Parish of Watertown, MA and Livestream

$35 in-person, $25 livestream

35 Church St, Watertown, MA 02472

Ticketing information is here.

Download a flyer with QR code to print and share at your congregation here.

This concert celebrates the traditional music of Palestine, featuring a takht or chamber ensemble. All funds raised will support humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza by Anera, a nonprofit organization with no political or religious affiliations. The concert will also be livestreamed, and the video will remain available for seven days.

Featuring a takht (traditional chamber ensemble)
Lina Malshy, violin & artistic director • Jamal Sinno, qanun
Ghaleb Daouk, nay • Basem Batbota, percussion • Alejandro Castellano, oud
Georges Chedid, accordion • Alyssa Lawson, cello • Patrick Tabet, vocals

This ticketing platform allows fundraising with no fees whatsoever, so please be encouraged to add a donation to your ticket purchase!

Let's pull out the stops to support this important fundraiser for Palestinians in Gaza who are facing military attacks, cold, and famine.

Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East

2024 Annual Letter to Supporters

I am sending care to you during this time of turbulence in the nation and the world. As UUJME continues our mission to educate and mobilize Unitarian Universalists into greater awareness and advocacy for peace based on justice in Palestine and Israel, we need your support more than ever.

With the election of a Republican administration, there are growing concerns about the implications for multiple justice agendas. As this letter goes to the printer, a bill will be discussed in Congress that would give unilateral ability to strip non-profit status from any group. Main targets are Palestine solidarity groups and religious organizations involved in solidarity. If passed, such power can be used to target groups working for all kinds of rights that a fascist administration wants to deny.

The one-year mark has passed since the brutal response from the Israeli military after the Hamas-led attacks on October 7. And this tragedy did not begin on October 7.

During more than 400 days of genocide at the time of writing, I have felt deep grief for the worsening catastrophe, and I have felt inspiration from people’s responses. As our U.S. government continues to defy the will of the majority of people demanding a ceasefire, it is gratifying to see many UUs among people calling for a ceasefire, opposing repression of activism for Palestinian rights, and supporting an arms embargo along with boycott and divestment. One UU congregation and one UU social justice committee have become the first local UU signatories of the Apartheid-Free Communities pledge. More than 40 congregations held Empty Cups for Gaza rituals. These last two milestones are because of the presence and work of UUJME.

Despite and also because of the state of emergency around Palestinian rights, UUJME has achieved some historic accomplishments that I am proud to share with you.

UUJME Major Accomplishments since November 2023

• Received our first-ever grants from the Unitarian Universalist Funding Program.

A double grant of $29,200 was received in May 2024 for organizer hiring and educational programming. Title: Empowering UUs to Engage on Palestine and Israel.

• Hired two part-time organizers – for the first time in our history.

India Wood, a Jewish UU activist and seminary student, was hired as our first part-time organizer. Jolly Hollamon, former organizer for the UU Justice Ministry of California, was hired as our second part-time organizer. They have amplified our abilities.

• Passed an Action of Immediate Witness (AIW): Solidarity with Palestinians at the 2024 UUA General Assembly with a coalition of UU groups: 74% of delegates said Yes. See https://www.uua.org/action/statements/solidarity-palestinians.
• Co-sponsored UU Vigils for Gaza initiated by Diverse Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries (DRUUMM). View the recordings at https://www.youtube.com/@druumm.
• Produced multiple webinars – more than 1,000 RSVPs.
  Visit our Calendar page via https:/www.uujme.org.

  • Three webinars in support of the AIW, with multiple co-sponsors: Conflict Resolution in Congregations, Countering Antisemitism, and Multifaith Solidarity.

  • Five Palestine/Israel 101 teach-ins. Co-sponsors include DRUUMM, Black Lives of UU, UU College of Social Justice, Church of the Larger Fellowship, and UU Refugee and Immigrant Services and Education (UURISE).

  • Webinars about protest safety, antisemitism, and anti-Palestinian racism.

• Organized UUs to attend the Interfaith Action for Palestine in DC in July.
• Published resources for the first time on the UUA Worship Web: Empty Cups for Gaza Ritual and Jewish liturgical resources.
• Sent an email with a flyer about Palestine/Israel resources to more than 900 UU congregations.
• Co-sponsored an Apartheid-Free training during the UUA’s Mosaic gathering.
• Initiated the first of regular sharing meetings with UUA senior leadership.
• Welcomed Rev. DL Helfer to the UUJME Board.

DL, the main AIW proposer, is a long-time solidarity activist and a Jewish UU.

• Welcomed Rachel Rott to the UUJME Advisory Council.

Rachel, who was instrumental in passing the AIW, provides communications advice.

Other Accomplishments

• Edited a three-tier resource document to match congregations with activities.
• Approved four new UUJME Chapters.

Chapters were launched in Michigan, Louisiana, New York, and California.

• Provided ongoing support for chapters, local advocates, chapter inquiries, and other groups.
• Coordinated federal, state, and local legislative and policy advocacy.
• Supported UU groups to explore signing the Apartheid-Free pledge.
• Produced a UU for Ceasefire T-shirt.
• Maintained an Actions and Information Google document.

See https://bit.ly/UUJME-Action-Info-Doc.

• Published more than 15 blog posts. See News and Events via https://www.uujme.org.
• Added more than 500 subscribers to our email list.
• Signed on to six solidarity statements and campaigns.

 UUJME Goals

• Raise $7,500 above our usual year-end donations to sustain organizers’ pay and webinar speaker honoraria. There is a possibility that the UU Funding Program grants may be renewed; the chance of renewal is boosted if we receive higher donations as the funding managers want to see that UUJME can sustain the programs.
• Continue to collaborate with UU faith leaders and activists on action alerts to UUs.
• Mail a union printed postcard to all UU congregations about resources.
• Donate to Gaza relief efforts and Palestine solidarity groups.
• Continue supporting UU rituals, actions for ceasefire and arms embargo, and additional Apartheid-Free Congregations.
• Continue Palestine solidarity work with UU groups and others.
• Continue enacting the priorities in our 2022-2025 Strategic Plan.

  • Organizing, political education, and UU relationship priorities strengthen UU engagement in the movement for Palestinian rights.

  • Internal Structures committee volunteers are analyzing and recommending important processes and policies.

• Continued collaboration with Palestinian and ally groups.
• A strong UUJME presence and coalition at 2025 UUA General Assembly.
  The General Assembly is a powerful opportunity to reach more UUs with our message. We want to ensure a strong UUJME booth. We plan to submit a proposal for a live workshop about the Apartheid-Free Pledge.

Your Support: An Investment in Transformation and Global Justice

Your support is an investment in the mission of inspiring more UUs to collective engagement for Palestinian liberation and a just peace for all people in the region. Thanks for all you are doing to bend the arc of the universe towards justice.

With immense gratitude,

Dana Fisher Ashrawi, President of UUJME

Ways to Donate

Your generous donation will help us to sustain our plans for organizing and programs.
Thanks very much for your support. UUJME is a 501c3 organization.

1. Send a check: Please make the check out to “UUJME” and mail to:
   UUJME, P.O. Box 380355, Cambridge, MA 02238-0355.
2. Donate online: Please go to our website https://www.uujme.org/donation. You can use your credit or debit card to make a one-time donation or a monthly recurring donation. Monthly donations ensure income throughout the year and allow us to predict how much money we will have at some future time. We have Stripe as our current donation processor. If you have been using PayPal, your donation will still process, but we encourage you to donate via our website so we can move all online donations to our new payment processor.
3. Make a bequest: The UUA department of Planned Giving can help with bequests to UUJME. Contact our Treasurer for information about various ways of making a bequest at [email protected]. Please let us know if you make a bequest so we can thank you.
4. Access matching funds from your employer. UUJME is registered with the matching funds site Benevity. Supply the name UUJMECORP and Unique Identifier number 261404531 when requesting matching charitable funds.
5. Share the collection plate. Ask professional and lay leaders in your congregation how to arrange for a sharing of plate collections made for UUJME.

Donation purpose designation. You may designate some, or all, of your donation for a specific purpose such as Organizers or Education or in honor of or in memory of an individual or organization. If donating by check, please include a designation note in the envelope. If donating online, make a note in the box for Donation Purpose or notify [email protected].

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Contact Information Form

If you cannot donate at this time, the information requested below is very helpful to us. Please provide this information online at https://www.uujme.org/join or print and mail to:
UUJME, P.O. Box 380355, Cambridge, MA 02238-0355

Name(s):

Address:

Phone: (______) _______-____________   Email: _________________________________________________________________

Congregation/Fellowship:

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Donation Note:

______________________________________________________________________________________________

With the news of the election results comes the knowledge that the upcoming presidency will have catastrophic impacts for not only people in the United States, but for people all over the world. We care about all these impacts, and especially for UUJME's circle of concern: Palestine/Israel and the wider region. The incoming Trump administration has pledged unyielding support for Israel’s siege against Palestinians and has suggested the idea of striking nuclear sites in Iran. 

As for what policies a Harris administration might have carried out, we know that the Harris/Walz campaign doubled down on refusing to discuss ending military aid to Israel and stopping the slaughter in Gaza and Lebanon. With either election outcome, we would have work to do. With either outcome, we would expect increased repression of protest movements for Palestinian rights. With this outcome, we anticipate broader repression and sooner, along with expanded repression.

And it is not just the Executive Branch that poses a challenge. The sway held by fascist Christian nationalism in the Congress, the Supreme Court, and state and local offices holds severe implications.

Struggles for justice are deeply connected. UUJME sides with all our beloveds who face increased threats. We side with those who have been journeying and will continue to journey forward toward a just peace in Palestine and Israel and the Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA) region - an envisioned outcome that is deeply linked to the well-being of all people and the planet. This journey also demands action against the silencing of voices for solidarity with Palestinians and others in the SWANA region. 

In these upcoming weeks and months, as we face years of uncertainty and potentially violent rhetoric and policy, may we commit strongly in our congregations and organizing communities to build people power and find our bravery now more than ever to demand change and justice for all. It becomes critically important to combine the efforts of social justice movements and guide them to travel in the same direction.  

Let the steadfastness of the Palestinian people inspire you, like the beautiful red Palestine anemone growing amidst rocks in the image above. Let the principled commitment of Jewish and other faiths' solidarity activists serve as a template. Let love for justice fuel your cultivation of hope and courage. Remember that solidarity is love. We hope that Unitarian Universalist congregations and groups will join us in an ever more inclusive collective effort to engage in working for justice in Palestine and Israel, to side with love for all, pushing toward liberation for all.

There is a genocide to stop, apartheid to dismantle, military industrial complex greed and harm to be ended, and domestic human rights to be defended. And it will require involving many more people. Know that there are abundant resources and beautiful human beings that can be the springboard for sustaining movement energy and defending humanity.

And know that it is okay if all you can do right now is breathe and cry. There are abundant people to hold your pain and side with you. Please seek the care that you need at this difficult time.

The UUA and UU groups are offering different processing spaces. UUJME is also here to support you. Reach out at [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].

Resources:

DRUUMM is an organization for BIPOC UUs and UU adjacent people; they have a caucus for people of SWANA heritage. Find out how to join at https://druumm.org/membership/.

UUA's Side with Love is holding a virtual vigil Nov. 6, at 5 pm PT/8 pm ET. UUA President Rev. Dr. Sofia Betancourt will be speaking. Learn more and register.

The UUA has resources for learning about community resilience and mutual aid: https://www.uua.org/safe/community-resilience

We, the Middle East Justice Project, come to you today with heavy hearts and ask that you join us in a moment of silence to mark a grim anniversary: one year of a genocidal assault on the Palestinian people carried out by the Israeli military with the full material, political, and diplomatic support of the United States. Our political leaders have rightfully commemorated the Israeli victims on October 7th, 2023. We humanize the nearly 1,200 people killed and 250 taken hostage; they have names, faces, families, and futures. Their fates are a tragedy. But the lines of what's considered acceptable political discourse have made it glaringly clear that the same level of empathy and human dignity are not afforded to the orders of magnitude larger number of Palestinian victims in the 76 years prior and 1 year since October 7th, 2023.

Our political leaders undermine the humanity and dignity of Arabs and Muslims with one-sided rhetoric in service to US political goals that ignore the horrors of human death, dispossession of land, political oppression, and environmental destruction when they think recognizing those tragedies would be inconvenient. Our principles here at First Unitarian call us to do better. When we say there is a unity that makes us one, we extend that to all people in this world. We stand with those who are dispossessed and suffering wherever they are, sharing in the full grief and joy of the human experience and striving for salvation for all people in this life.

Before we take our silence we ask that you internalize the following statistics not simply as numbers, but as whole human beings robbed of their lives and livelihoods. Since this war began in Gaza over 43,000 people, including over 12,000 children have been counted in the official death toll. Scholarly estimates of the full direct and indirect deaths range from 180,000 to 400,000 due to the inability to accurately count the dead and the continued blockade of water, fuel, electricity, medical equipment, and food. The official count includes over 900 entire families wiped out. The list of the dead includes 13 full pages of infants under the age of 1 year old and over 20,000 children have been orphaned. Additionally, over 170 journalists, 350 healthcare workers, and 200 aid workers have been directly targeted or deemed acceptable collateral damage.

The history of our time has not yet been written, but we are all but certain that it will see this as another genocide that America shares responsibility for. If we are to find the salvation that all hearts yearn for, it requires our shared liberation. We see the encroachment of fascism here at home and so many other countries, and governments inching toward war that threatens to become global. It is easier to look away and carry on with our busy lives, hoping "it can't happen here" but we know we must act, and we must care about liberation and justice not just here, but everywhere. Our own liberation is tied to Palestinian liberation by the actions of our government and by our shared humanity.

We now ask that you join us in silence and hope that you carry forward in your hearts these lost souls, shattered lives, and our call to action.

One Year Plus One Hundred Seven

Board of Directors of UUJME, October 2024

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We mourn.

Exploding pagers. Targeted killing of innocent civilians, demolished hospitals, schools, refugee encampments, water supplies. Delayed and blocked relief convoys.

Genocide in Gaza, brutality in the West Bank, the bombing of Lebanon, and now the great threat of major Middle East war and conflagration.

At the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Rev. Isaac Munther has preached: “In Gaza today, God is under the rubble. He is in the operating room. If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble. We see his image in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble. In every child in incubators.”

For the Netanyahu regime and its US and western enablers, there is no red line – there is no cruelty too great for them in their pursuit of corporate interests. The only winners so far are the skyrocketing profits of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Chevron, and the like. The remarks about a plan to reshape the Middle East are staggering in their arrogance and deadly intent.

It’s hard to remember, sometimes, that Netanyahu is not representative of all Israeli Jews, any more than Trump was representative of all Americans when he was President.

Israelis have suffered, too. From disinformation, displacement, fear of worsening war, concern for their own safety, and grief over the deaths and hostages from October 7th.

Not that we center their loss, because Palestinians are suffering and have suffered unimaginable losses. At least 42,000 are known to have been killed in Gaza and the number could be four times that. Half of the dead are children. Palestinians have also been subjected to terrible losses and trauma the Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917, nearly 107 years ago, when Britain started enabling the eventual dispossession of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948. During the nonviolent Great March of Return in 2018, Palestinians suffered 36,100 injuries and 217 deaths. Mourn with them.

But it’s not a hierarchy of pain.

As Rabbis for Ceasefire say, “Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living.” Each and every life is precious.

Our role as people of faith is to hold onto our humanity. Even in this bleak moral environment, where we need more people to raise their voices, we see millions more than ever before activated for peace, we witness unimaginable kindness in the midst of so much loss, and we know that despite the corruption of governments, people are good. People want peace. 

We are people living in a nominally democratic nation that is providing the weapons being used in Gaza, Lebanon and potentially in Iran. If a ceasefire had been achieved in the past few months, perhaps there would not have been exploding pagers, leveling of apartment buildings in Beirut, displacement of 1 million Lebanese people, and hundreds of missiles fired by Iran into Israel. Every life is precious and has worth. We must insist on siding with love and life.

We must call for our country to desist in its support for genocide in Gaza and members of a world community is to call for our country and others to desist from acts of "plausible" genocide and enabling of these acts in Gaza as demanded by the International Court of Justice. We must stop US support for wars in Lebanon and Iran., as demanded by the International Court of Justice. We must keep advocating for an end to the US supply of aid and weapons to Israel.

These efforts embody solidarity with Palestinians, supporting the Action of Immediate Witness: Solidarity with Palestinians that we helped to pass at the UUA General Assembly in June. We understand that safety is achieved through solidarity, an embodiment of love. 

If a ceasefire had been achieved in the past few months, perhaps there would not have been exploding pagers, leveling of apartment buildings in Beirut, displacement of 1 million Lebanese people, and hundreds of missiles fired by Iran into Israel. Every life is precious and has worth. We must insist on siding with love and life.

Respecting the human rights of every human being is the only path into the future. We keep working toward the world we know is possible. We rise to that vision.