To work for peace and justice for Israelis and Palestinians. As the Jewish New Year, 5771, comes upon us, we invite you to participate in the ritual of tshuvah, or turning, toward a new hope and a new world. Please share your hopes and commitments that will bring an end to injustice. From all of us at JVP, Shanah Tovah. Have a sweet and good year!
I will continue to seek justice for our Palestinian cousins, and encourage Jews to regain the ethical and moral standards for which we have been celebrated.
I promise to be “a light unto myself, open up my heart and let it shine.
As an atheist, i promise to continue to keep an open mind. sometimes we are bombarded with “bad” actions from a particular culture, race or religion, we fall into being prejudicial ourselves and we become that which we hate. i wholeheartedly support “Jewish voice for peace” because it gives me hope that Not all people are alike and that organizations like “JVFP” can someday bring understanding and harmony into this world. Let us respect one another,we are all human beings, we all know what pain is, let us all know what PEACE is.
I would hope that oppressors would remember how it is to be oppressed and instead respond to situations with compassion and caring.
I promise to speak out more about the situations around the world that have one faction stepping on the hope and dreams of another and will work harder to spread the word about what is happening in Gaza. I will try to encourage my legislators to stand up to pressure and push for human rights and justice for the Palestinian people.
I shall carry on speaking, writing, demonstrating against Israeli apartheid and oppression. This summer I went to the annual meeting of Canadian Quakers (yes, there are Jewish Quakers) and helped get a resolution passed on Israel/Palestine.
I shall try to learn to be diplomatic when dealing with mainstream [Zionist] Jews, but it’s gonna be an uphill battle.
I promise to be steadfast in the belief that we are all God’s children and, as such, are all deserving of compassion and just treatment by others. I promise to be constant in supporting these beliefs through my actions with my loved ones, my community and the world.
I promise to continue to expose the truths of the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians even to those who don’t want to know the truth.
I promise to continue to care deeply about the injustices and share them with those who are in a position to make a difference.
I pray that all people are aware that we are all equal and everybody comes from the same source and should live together in Love, respect and justice.
Country borders and religions should play no more role. We all live on the earth.
I will do my best to help make a world where rape camps, occupation zones, DMZs, genocide, starvation, racism, and intolerance are part of our history and not part of our future.
I believe we should love one another and to do that I think we must understand one another so I, a Christian, value “Jewish Voice for Peace.” I know I do very little to support your work and I do not promise to do more but I do promise to keep reading your letters.
I’M A 16 YEARS OLD BOY,AND I FEEL THAT IT’S A NECCETITY FOR ME TO FIGHT FOR JUSTICE,FOR PEACE,FOR FREEDOM….FOR MY DREAMS…I CAN NOT DO ENOUGH FOR ISRAELIS AND PALESTIANS HERE FROM GREECE…I ONLY EXPRESS MY SADNESS ABOUT THIS SITUATION…. BUT I CAN PROMISE THAT I WILL NOT BETRAY MY BELIEFS….
I hope for the continued success of groups like JVP who inspire minds toward equal rights and justice. The United States is home to a protracted culture/political war where justice must prevail. This is my hope for our sisters and brothers in my country, and in the land of Palestine.
I promise to work against racism and discrimination in my own society and work for the human right of all people around the world, we are one, the biggest thing that separate us is poverty, the capitalist system will never bring justice to people, it will only feed its own interests. we need a new system based on equality.
I promise to work for those who suffer and never forget them.
Nina Narvestad
I need to pay attention to the lives in Palestine and Israel and work
for justice and non violence right here in Minneapolis. I need to listen
to complex differing ideas from these two countries and try to lift them both up to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael, that loves
all and will lead us to just action. I also will consider the idea of one
state for the two where they, as we in US , have to live in acceptance and diversity rather than to promote two nations that are estranged, next door to one another.
I hope to work toward transforming my vague fears into tangible actions that assuage those fears, turning my preconceptions and prejudices about others into attentive openness toward others, turn the indulgences of my diet into healthful nourishment, find a proportionate distribution of partaking in society and refreshing my private life. I promise to strive for a better world for my daughter, retard the decay of what I love and support. Befriend myself more and help others to like themselves in the light of others and this world
I will continue to urge the US government to work for peace and justice for Israelis and Palestinians and support the efforts of JVP.
I will continue to teach my nieces and nephew ( as well as all children) the importance of celebrating other cultures as well as their own, resolve conflict peacefully, that people can actually share/collaborate and work towards the common good. I truely believe that only by teaching these loving, peaceful values to children the world can transform.
May the new year bring peace, shalom, salaam!
I promise to continue working for the rights of the oppressed and to speak out against violence and illegal occupation.
Peace without justice is oppression.
To work for peace and justice in Palestine.
To do my best as a highschool teacher to increase my students’ awareness to the other, outside of them and within themselves. To encourage them to speak out their truth without fear, to create safe environment for self expression, for free speech and thoughts exchange, for letting deep emotions and fears coming out to the open. I truely believe that piece begins at home. Big words and ideas can create new reality only as long as people live peacefully with themselves. So i promise to keep trying help young people growing and becoming self-fulfilling and caring human beings.
With Ramadan ending in 2 or days, as a Muslim and a human being I pray that we will see the day when Palestinians can live with dignity.
I will keep fighting against Zionism and for justice for Palestine and to end to Occupation.
I hope to see the day when Palestinians and Jews can live peacefully together like they’ve used to in the past in many parts of the world.
Salam, Shalom, Peace
Eid Mubarak, Happy Rosh Hashanah
May we all live in peace.
How sweet if we could finally see peace and justice and equality for Israelis and Palestinians. I am committed.
Though a secular person, how humans treat one another — which constitutes the simplest definition of morality –is all-important to me. I promise to continue my support for an end to Israeli-Palestinian apartheit in every way available to me.
Peace is a path, violence, a direction, peace is illusional, in nature, though, it’s greatly preferred over violence, which is delusional; peacing on each other pays only exponentially less than warring- whereas, there’s no profit, pleasure in destruction or murder. Until they can’t do war on each other, and peacing on each other, only then, has the possibility of not paying, they won’t even consider a real peace; in reality. The extincton of humanity and large mammals, that can be seen on our horizon, racing towards us, from the future we’ll dictate by following the road we’re on, is increasing in its speed, carpe diem; for, if we don’t take back the day, we and humanity, won’t be- evolve.
I promise to speak out for justice and peace.
I am a Pakistani muslim, and my support for JVP began with my petition for Ezra Nawi. As a former Amnesty International prisoner of conscience, who was sentenced, 7 years RI & 20 stripes in 1981, by a military court for fighting against martial law, religious extremism and the judicial murder of our only twice democratically elected prime minister at that time, I can easily relate with anyone who is persecuted in the name of justice or religion. I pledge to add my voice in support for peace and justice for any individual irrespective of race, religion, caste, colour or creed.
I’m a Turkish citizen,What a nice coincidence while Rosh Hashanah starts, The Ramadan Religious Holiday will also be celebrating by muslim people in all over the world. In my country we have Kurdish Issue having gone on for over 25 years, so many death and pain for people of Turkey.I really want all conflicts and death to be ended in my country as well as in Israel and the whole planet.Please listen to John Lennon and imagine there’s no countries,no wars,no religious conflicts and let the human being construct ” A Brave and peaceful New World”.
You are perfectly right, it is time for reconciliation and building hope for the future. MayI kindly invite you to share a marvelous initiative all over the world : the first “worldmarch for peace and Non-Violence”.
Website : http://www.theworldmarch.com
Here in Brussels where I live, I compromise to do all that I can to promote this march and to continue to work with people who “resist” to this unhuman world with the vision of a new culture, a “human” culture.
all I wish for is peace,and unity, abit of love, am I naive, do I dream the impossible, Another world is absolutely possible, greetings from Wales HEDDWCH nawr ac yfory
Listening to the voices of simple citizens around the world.
The welcome, harbor their voices and needs in my country and in others to be so many, increasingly, to listen and welcome. Accommodate both parties the pain, humiliation, anger, the injustice, not licensed, the atrocious abuses, suffering, the inability to communicate with each other and know each other and directly. The pain is accept and participate, not to judge.
Refusal to consider the other enemy, whoever he is.
I truly believe that the solution should be found among us people simple of the same World: we have to live in the same place or different towns without considering the various different nations. We have to do down the walls within us because those external obstacles, cannot work.
Together we can force our governments to stop seeing enemies who are just different, to stop making wars and perpetuate injustice and silence those who do not enclose aligns their command concerned. I continue: accept, listen, make people come in my country and give them public voice and free life.
I live in Europe, I’m not Jewish and for me the next year become at 1 january but I want cooperate for the ending of injustice anywhere because we are of the same human race and family and we have to stop violence. Happy new year!
I am not a jew, but know much about what happened to jews (and other people) in Germany, in other countries, in different ages. Also I became political since early youth. I personally am a victim of (emotional) brutality, so I developed a deep understanding for victims and know how victimizers act, how they try to intimidate, their brainwashing, their twistings.
On the other hand there have always been some other kind of people, who were helping. That gives hope.
I believe that justice has to be come and with it freedom and peace. People have to stand up for that. The more, the better! I promise, I do.
Many Good Wishes for the Jewish New Year!
Heidi Schenck
Now that I’ve found JVP I won’t stop being involved, I have watched the troubles unfolding in the Middle East from the other side of our planet for most of my life. The older I get the more I wish that peace will come to Palestine and Israel. I will continue to support JVP and include people I know who wish for the same thing. Peace&Joy.
To keep working for economic and social justice for all people – to do the daily work of challenging dehumanizing thought and action in myself, my family and my community and to do so in a loving and compassionate way. To work for a just peace in the Middle East, an end to Occupation EVERYWHERE and to do my part to create a world where we can celebrate each other, Life and all the amazing connections and richness that come from honoring and respecting all living beings.
Jews and Palestinians are of course people brothers. And for me, the Hebrew alphabet seem candles, and the Arabic alphabet, embroideries seem … It is therefore necessary candles for the embroidery is done. Therefore, Jews and Palestinians can never be separated. A track to the other’s existence.
I will try, for the rest of my days, to do what I can to overcome injustices wherever I may encounter them whether they be: political, civil, financial, educational, health, trade, resources, sexual, racial and colour.
I will never cooperate with governments, companies or organizations which support the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
We shall find peace. We shall hear angels. We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.
I pray for peace and justice for Israelis and Palestinians. I pray that I always have the courage to speak out against any injustice that I come across, be it large or small.
I promise that I would never make opinion on someone before I speak with him. That I will always help the smallest in the comunity when needs help. That I will do my best to help rise equality and democracy as much as it will be possible to do. Freedom and liberty of mind is the greatest human wealth and at least it must be respected. Hope one day Earth will be place of Peace, without hunger and violance.
I promise to keep the hope for Peace in the Middle East alive and to promote equal rights and equal dignity for both Arabs and Jews wherever I can.
I promise to remain committed to honesty and integrity no matter what.
I promise not to ignore human suffering wherever I come across the same and to do whatever is within my power to change things for the better.
I joined JVP as a non-Jew and continue to work for its aims together
with Palestinians and Israelis. I do NOT support a “Jewish State” and
(like Noam Chomsky) regard the current State of Israel as a terrorist state
and client/puppet of the US. I do not regard Israel as a democracy at all
but more similar to the US of antebellum times. (There are many works in this
area.) I believe in a Middle East Nuclear Free Nuclear Free Zone one
under the IAEA (opposed
numerous times by the US and Israel). Only with the disarmament of militaristic Israel will there be peace. Of course I oppose the occupation
and its subsidaization by the US (Congress and the Executive).
I have never “celebrated” any “Jewish Holidays”. I mourn the Palestinian
tragedies which have resulted from Israeli policies over the past 60 years.
I am only deeply ashamed —as a “Jew” of heritage–of the crimes and holocausts Israel has caused its neighbors…with American and Western aid and support. (See THE FATEFUL TRIANGLE, Noam Chomsky, THE ETHNIC
CLEANSING OF PALESTINE, Ilan Pappe among others)
I am now reading Khalidi’s IMAGES OF MUHAMMAD to deepen my
understanding.
Faithfully, your non-Jewish member,
Peter Loeb
Member: Progressive Democrats of America
(as “non-Democrat”, not officially a registered Democrat)
Member USW
8th CD-MA (Capuano)
I’m wanting to bring before the UK House of Lords a petition on alleged Palestinian “statelessness”, arguing that the precedents created by the UK and its empire, prove that they are actually not stateless: http://www.petitiononline.com/2HseLrds/petition.html
My hope is that this will help improve the refugees’ position.
I’m also working on an arrangement (hopefully a concerto) of two PNG national songs that talk about unity. The writer of these two songs is a friend of mine, and was born in Kohat, NWFP, British India, just in time for the Kohat riots in 1924. My guess is that it had quite an effect on him.
Dear friends at JVP,
I want to participate in your turning toward a new hope for all in Israel and the West Bank. I hope that all will live in peace and security and I will keep on praying for this. God’s will for all is to have abundant life here on earth and when HE blessed Abraham HE said it is so that the Israelites can be a blessing to ALL nations. My prayer today is that God will move in a mighty way in Israel so that this people can become a fountain of blessings to the nations. Only through God we can have true justice and peace.
Shanah Tovah
I promise that even if I don’t have the energy or opportunity for big political actions, I will try to treat everyone I meet, however different they are from me (in ethnicity, age, class etc) with kindness and respect. (and I’ll keep signing email petitions on all the big issues of peace and justice, in the Middle East and everywhere).
I promise to do my best and spread the word for peace and justice in Israel / Palestine.
Best wishes to all for a peaceful good year.
Erika
I promise to pray for all Israelis and Palestinians.
I am working toward one civil democratic Israel/Palestine through peacefull
demonstrations for equal rights, boycott, divestment, the right of return by:
informing the German population and American and German polititions of
the discusting situation in the region today and what their responsabilities
to their citizens and the international comunity must be.
I will follow my heart whatever the consquences will be for me and try to be as transparent as possible in my contact with people around me. As a little contribution to peace between people.
I will continue to pray for peace in Israel/Palestine and the whole region and worldwide. I am a christian. I think Jews, Christians and Muslims have the same roots and can well live in peace, if they listen to each others sorrows and needs.
JVP is practising the dialog and listening. I wish and pray that you and peacemacers on the other sides may grow and grow and grow.
Ilse Braun