Call Info

• When: Thursday, February 17 at 12 noon EST
• Phone number: 1.800.920.7487
• Code: 92247763#

There will be a question and answer period during the call.

Join us to listen to leaders young leaders, willing to speak up for justice:

• Rae Abileah, leader in Young, Jewish, and Proud
• Mirit Mizrahi, leader in Young, Jewish, and Proud
• Michael Deheeger, young Jewish professional and community organizer

In November last year, several young Jews disrupted the speech by Prime Minister Netanyahu at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. Their courageous action focused attention on a generation of young Jews who think very differently about Zionism, Israel and their Jewish identity.

This call is co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace and Shomer Shalom.

About Our Speakers

Rae Abileah is a national organizer with CODEPINK Women for Peace and coordinates CODEPINK's Middle East campaigns, including its "Stolen Beauty" boycott of Ahava products. She is also a founding member of Young, Jewish and Proud, a group of young leaders from Jewish Voice for Peace that gained international prominence withits protest during PM Benyamin Netanyahu's speech at the Jewish Federation GA in New Orleans last November.

Rae graduated from Barnard College at Columbia University with a dual degree in Environmental Science and Human Rights. She has co-led American Jewish World Service youth delegations to El Salvador and has participated in a regional peace and sustainability initiative with the Foundation for Self Sufficiency in Central America. Rae has visited Iran on a delegation with the Fellowship of Reconciliation and has been to Gaza with the Gaza Peace March in December 2009.

Additional information about Rae Abileah:

Listen to a radio interview with Rae.

Read Rae's piece on Mondoweiss.

Mirit Mizrahi is an Israeli-American poet, artist, and peace activist. She is pursuing a degree in women's studies and cultural anthropology, but is currently taking a break from school to focus on activism. She has been working with Jewish Voice for Peace for the past two years, and most recently participated in the Young, Jewish, and Proudactions in New Orleans. When she is not teaching art classes, she is working with JVP;or sharing her poetry and artwork on her blog, mirit writes.

Michael Deheeger is a political and community organizer who graduated from Colby College with a degree in Government.

He was the Campaign Manager for Patrick for Illinios and has organized volunteers and grassroots campaigns for the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. He has also spent time teaching English in Ecuador and volunteering as a translator to coordinate mobile health clinics in the Dominican Republic.

Information about Mairead Maguire and Yonatan Shapira

Internationally known peace activists, Mairead Maguire and Yonatan Shapira, have both sailed on boats attempting to break the siege and bring symbolic amounts of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza.

Maireed Corrigan Maguire

On August 10, 1976, two of Mairead Maguire's nephews and one of her nieces, all little children, were killed on a Belfast street corner. Her sister, Ann, was also injured in the incident. In response to this personal tragedy, Maguire joined with Betty Williams and Ciaran McKeown to organize weekly peace marches and demonstrations that instantly brought out over half a million people throughout Northern Ireland, as well as in England and Ireland. They also co-founded the Community of the Peace People, an organization dedicated to nonviolence, to continue their peacemaking initiatives. Maguire and Williams won the Nobel Peace Prize for their extraordinary work.

Maguire is an advocate for peace around the world and helped found the Nobel Womens Initiative, a group of six women Nobel Peace Laureates devoted to strengthening women’s rights and being a voice for justice and peace around the world. She helped organize the recent visit to Israel and the Palestinian Occupied West Bank by the Nobel Women’s Initiative but was denied entry to Israel. After several days in detention, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld the decision to deny her entry and she was deported from Israel earlier this month.

Maguire has sailed on three boats to Gaza, in October 2008 when they reached Gaza, and then in June 2009 and then on the MV Rachel Corrie in June 2010. On both occasions in 2009 and 2010, the boats were intercepted by the Israeli Navy and she was arrested along with all the passengers.

"If we want to reap the harvest of peace and justice in the future, we will have to sow seeds of nonviolence, here and now, in the present."

You can read a profile of Mairead Maguire here.

Yonatan Shapiro

From Rabbi Brant Rosen's Blog:

Yonatan Shapira was an officer in the Israeli Air Force and flew hundreds of missions over the Occupied Territories in a Blackhawk helicopter squadron during the course of his eleven year career. Following a targeted bomb assassination of a Hamas leader that killed fourteen civilians in Gaza, he became a prominent Israeli “refusenik,” authoring the Pilot’s Letter – a 2003 statement signed by 27 Israeli pilots who publicly refused to fly missions over the Occupied Territories. Since that time, Yonatan has gone on to co-found “Combatants for Peace”.

This is an excerpt from an inspiring blog post by Rabbi Brant Rosen, co-founder of Taanit Tzedek – Jewish Fast for Gaza. You can read the complete post about Yonatan Shapira here.

Earlier this month, Yonatan was one of the passengers on the “Jewish Boat for Gaza.” You can read his account of the experience on the boat here.