Apartheid-Free Communities from a Quaker Perspective Discernment & Action

Sunday,  3/8, at 12:30pm 

Organizer: Putney Friends Meeting 

Location: Putney Friends Meetinghouse, 17 Bellows Falls Rd, 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 on Sunday, March 8, 12-3 pm, at the Putney Friends Meetinghouse.

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.

Chase’s presentation will highlight the principles of the American Friends Service Committee’s Apartheid-Free pledge. Over 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.

Steve 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, DC, 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 and open to the public. 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 12 noon, or just come to the afternoon program starting at 12:30 p.m. This is an opportunity for Friends and the community at-large to hear Chase’s story, engage with the Apartheid-Free Communities campaign, and discuss how to broaden the movement for peace and justice in the Middle East.

Contact: Francie.marbury@gmail.com