Tag Archives: Palestinians

What are you doing on October 15th?

We are excited to announce that Rabbis for Human Rights’ Olive Harvest Project, protecting Palestinian communities in the West Bank will begin on October 15th!  In partnership with 5 Palestinian communities we will be bring volunteers every day of the Harvest to join Palestinian farmers and their families in picking olives, and ensuring a peaceful harvest by repelling settler violence.

We have recently released our volunteer sign-up form and hundreds of people have already signed  up to be volunteers at one or several of the harvest opportunities. If you are in the region of have friends and family who would like to join, we would be so pleased to welcome you to the Harvest!

You can find the sign up form here: מסיק הזיתים השנתי – הרשמה לימי פעילות | The annual olive harvest – activity day registration (google.com)

It is also not too late to support the Olive Harvest with a donation, our fundraising campaign has received donations from over 200 donors from Israel and around the World, click below to make a gift!

Support the Olive Harvest today! Continue reading →

Escalating Jewish terror is forcing Palestinians from their homes

As we have been reporting, there is a worrying and escalating trend of strategic Jewish terror in Area C, aimed at small Palestinian agricultural communities.

Escalating Jewish terror is forcing Palestinians from their homes

Communities of Rashash and Wadi a-Sik have requested a round-the-clock activist presence to provide some protection.

We are committed to this effort, but desperately concerned as we see members of these communities packing up and leaving.

The settler strategy is to empty vast swathes of Area C and stamp Jewish sovereignty through their violence.

Read more in this article published in +972 written by Tash Lever of Rabbis for Human Rights. Continue reading →

In the Name of Judaism – Thoughts on Parshat “Chayei Sarah”

Rabbi Lana Zilberman Soloway shares testemony from a soldier in the IDF as well as her own observations from a visit to the historic city of Hebron in the West Bank where up to 800 soldiers are stationed to protect settlers.

Many things happened to our mother Sarah during her lifetime, but the the greatest impact she had on the Jewish future was in her death.

“Sarah died at Kiryat Arba, that is Hebron, in the land of Canaan, and Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her”. (Genesis 233, 2) Continue reading →

Kolot: Voices of Hope – A Different Judaism

This essay is the latest in RHR’s series of ‘Kolot: Voices of Hope’ profiles of Israelis and Palestinians furthering the cause of peace and equality and is also presented as part of their END THE EXPULSIONS matching grant campaign from June 1 to June 30. With only one day left in RHR’s campaign, please help them to reach our goal and double the impact of your gift by giving now. 

On the 21st of January 2022, Palestinian and Israeli activists gathered together at the West Bank Palestinian village of Burin to plant olive trees. Roughly corresponding with the holiday of Tu B’Shvat, olive tree planting in Palestinian villages as well as participation in the Palestinian olive harvest are longtime Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR) traditions. While the activists were working, settlers from the Givat Ronen settlement descended down the hill, threw rocks at them, attacked them with clubs, and torched a car. This attack was carried out in the name of Judaism—or, should we say, in the name of a distorted version of Judaism that, among other things, subscribes to the belief that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews, and the Jews alone.

Education – RHR’s Education program brings Israeli gap year students to Jerusalem to learn about
human rights & Judaism on the ground. Credit: RHR

Continue reading →

Tree Planting Met With Terror: We Will Not Be Intimidated

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you following the events of this past Friday, January 21st, that took place in the village of Burin. We were engaged in a tree planting activity together with our friends from the Olive Harvest Coalition, side by side with Palestinian farmers. Suddenly, we were set upon by a group of masked, messianic attackers. There is no other way to describe this attack other than an act of terror. They stormed down from the nearby hill, from the illegal outpost called Givat Ronen, and began to beat activists with their clubs, to stone them and to set a car ablaze.

Continue reading →

Be With Us: From the Harvest, To Planting and Accompanying Palestinian Shepherds

Following a successful harvest season, in which volunteers went out to harvest with Palestinian over 700 individual times in the Northern West Bank. There, on the ground and in the olive trees the truth of solidarity was revealed. Standing together for justice, peace and human rights is the only way that each olive harvested will grow again into another tree that can be harvested in peace and with equality.

Unfortunately, the harvest this year, while it was a success in terms of how many people we brought out, the solidarity and awareness we raised, we cannot help but be profoundly disturbed by the frustration, anger, pain of the farmers. Continue reading →

PRESS STATEMENT: RHR Volunteers & Staff Attacked During West Bank Olive Harvest

// Press Release – 25.10.2021 //

Volunteers and employees from Rabbis For Human Rights were attacked not long ago by settlers from the Itamar settlement, while the volunteers were assisting Palestinian farmers harvesting their olives in the village of Awarta in the West Bank.

The attackers who arrived on foot and on “tractoronim” (small tractors used for racing) sprayed pepper gas at the harvesters. One of the employees of RHR was hurt and needed medical assistance. Volunteers with RHR reported that there was an army presence at the time but that the soldiers barely intervened. Continue reading →

The 2021 Olive Harvest is fast approaching

The 2021 Olive Harvest with RHR and Palestinian Olive Farmers is fast approaching. We look forward to our 19th year leading volunteers into the West Bank to help Palestinian farmers harvest olives and to stand with them in solidarity against settler violence, against interference by the military and against the indifference that allows for their rights to be trampled year after year. Continue reading →

Bringing the Torah of Human Rights to the Field

RHR Begins Its Palestinian Shepard Accompaniment Project in the Jordan Valley with a Fact Finding Tour, led by RHR’s Human Rights in the OPT Department Director, Rabbi Elhanan Miller.

In a new project for RHR we will now regularly bring teams of rabbis to the northern Jordan Valley to work with Palestinian shepherds regularly under threat of harassment and violence by settlers and the security forces as they eke out their traditional livelihood of tending to theirflocks.

In order to engage with our growing membership and to learn more about the increasingly untenable situation for Palestinians in the Jordan Valley we conducted this fact finding tour and look forward to contributing to the protection of Palestinian human rights in Area C via activism in the field and through advocacy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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