Dear UUCM community,

We have been asked by our sister congregation in Danbury to sign on to an anti-apartheid pledge with the UUA and other faith communities. A Congregational Conversation was held in July to start discussing this. People expressed a need for more information showing various sides of the issue. Some also expressed a desire to place some limits on the amount of time we spent on this issue because we have so many other things to attend to in the following months. This letter is an attempt to follow through with those requests. The plan is to share some information I have gathered in the attachments to this letter. In a week or so after this goes out we will be sending a letter to active members for a straw vote. Please take the time to review some of this information and if you are a member please take the time to participate in the straw vote that will follow. If it is clear that we have a strong leaning in one direction or the other we will put a formal vote on a business meeting we plan for September 7. If there is a fair amount of disagreement from members on how to proceed it may require an additional Congregational Conversation first.

There is quite a bit of information below. You can delve into it as much as you choose to in order to come to a decision on where you stand. I do suggest you at least look at the first four attachments. Some of the attachments are short and some are quite long. You can also explore on your own. There is quite a bit out there.

  1. Solidarity with Palestinians, UUA statement
  2. Apartheid Fact sheet - This was compiled by a UU Danbury congregant who is an anthropologist and psychologist who has spent a good deal of time in Lebanon and worked with some Palestinian refugees.
  3. Overview of Citizenship laws - This is a summary I put together from the internet that is AI generated. I tried to pull out the issues that were important for our deliberations.
  4. Press Release from UU Danbury
  5. JDL statement re: accusations of genocide
  6. Jewish Leaders in US - What does it mean to be pro Israel - This an article with many leaders of the US Jewish community sharing their thoughts on this issue. There is a wide range of opinions expressed. 
  7. NPR transcript The History of Zionism-a link to the podcast is below. Long but very informative.

Two podcast links:

The Historical Perspective Behind the Latest Israel Hamas Conflict - 7 minutes

A History of Zionism - 51 minutes. This is long but quite informative. However when I listened to the podcast it cut out before it was over. The transcript for it is complete and #7 on the list above.

There is a lot here I know. I expect some will delve deeper than others but I wanted to answer the expressed needs for more information as well as I could.

Thank you for your time and attention to this very important issue.

Nancy Burton

President, UUCM

president@uucm.org