PUTNEY-The Putney Friends Meeting invites the community to attend a presentation and discussion of the Apartheid-Free Communities campaign to promote peace with justice in Palestine and Israel. The event will be held Sunday, March 8, noon to 3 p.m., at the Putney Friends Meetinghouse on Route 5.
Quakers have long played an important role in peace and justice movements around the world. Steve Chase, a Quaker educator and activist, will speak about his personal journey from holding a Zionist perspective to developing “moral clarity about how the seemingly intransigent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians can be resolved peaceably,” wrote organizers in a news release.
Chase’s presentation will highlight the principles of the American Friends Service Committee’s Apartheid-Free pledge. More than a thousand organizations, businesses, faith communities, educators, artists, and musicians around the world have adopted the pledge, including six towns in Vermont and Western Massachusetts.
The pledge has four parts: “We affirm our commitment to freedom, justice, and equality for the Palestinian people and all people. We oppose all forms of racism, bigotry, discrimination, and oppression; and we declare ourselves an Apartheid-free community. And, to that end, we pledge to join others in working to end all support to Israel’s Apartheid regime, settler colonialism, and military occupation.”
Chase currently serves as the outreach coordinator for the Apartheid-Free Communities Quaker Affinity Group. He was a member of Putney Friends Meeting and a professor of Advocacy for Social Justice and Sustainability at Antioch University New England in the early 2000s. After moving to Washington, D.C., he worked at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and served as a Quaker ally on the Steering Committee of the DC Metro chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.
In 2017, he published the booklet Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions? A Quaker Zionist Rethinks Palestinian Rights. In 2024, he wrote an essay, “The Struggle for Unity on Israel/Palestine: Reflections on AFSC’s Apartheid-Free Pledge.”
This event is free. The meetinghouse is accessible. Additional parking is available across the street in the former Basketville lot. There is no need to RSVP. All are welcome to join the meeting for worship at 10:30 a.m., socializing and lunch at noon, or just come to the afternoon program starting at 12:30 p.m.
This Town and Village item was submitted to The Commons.