Bringing a Just Peace to Israel/Palestine: A Jewish American's Journey

Mark Braverman was raised in the Jewish tradition, which included a strong commitment to Israel as a Jewish state. Following a career as a clinical psychologist, he currently serves as the Executive Director of KAIROS USA, the American support group for the Palestinian Christian movement for justice for Palestinians. Mark has published numerous articles and two books: Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land, and A Wall In Jerusalem.
Mark “fell in love” with Israel when he first visited Israeli relatives at age 17. “But though those relatives warmly embraced me,” he writes, “I noticed the fear and sense of superiority in the way they talked about 'the Arabs.' It was the way white people talked about black people in the pre-civil rights era in which I had grown up. It was then that I saw that there was a fundamental flaw in the Zionist project.”
When he went to the West Bank in 2006, Mark’s view of Israel changed entirely. He “saw the hillsides denuded of trees to build concrete Jewish settlement cities” and “saw Arab houses leveled and gardens taken to make way for a 30 foot-high concrete wall cutting through Palestinian cities and fields and taking Palestinian land in violation of international law…I saw that the role of occupier was leading Israel down a road of political disaster, and the Jewish people down a road of spiritual peril.”
Mark will talk about his personal journey and about the growing global grassroots movement for Palestinian liberation, relating it to other struggles in the world today and to the larger questions of racism, income inequality, neocolonialism, and globalization.
Event is free, but donations will be accepted.
Event is cosponsored by the Resource Center for Nonviolence, the Palestine Justice Coalition, Peace United Church of Christ, St. Stephens Lutheran, S.C. Jewish Voice for Peace, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Presbyterian Peace and Justice Task Force, and the Progressive Christian Forum