UUCD Votes to Join Apartheid Free Pledge
At the Annual Meeting on June 1, 2025 the congregation voted to endorse the Apartheid Free Communities Pledge. There was no opposition. This is the press release put out by UUCD President Margaret Henderson:
In a vote at its Annual Meeting on June 1 the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Danbury joined the “Apartheid-Free Communities Pledge”. There were no opposition votes.
The Apartheid-Free network is a coalition of communities who pledge to work together to end Israeli apartheid. This coalition formed in 2022, following the emerging consensus among the international human rights community that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people amounts to the Crime of Apartheid.
Margaret Henderson, President of the Board of Trustees of the Danbury UU congregation, said, “As of May over 600 faith and activist communities have signed the pledge. We took a close look at the pledge after the Act of Immediate Witness (AIW) ‘Solidarity with Palestine’ was adopted overwhelmingly by several thousand delegates to the national Unitarian Universalist Association's General Assembly in June of 2024. The Act urged local congregations to sign the pledge and work to "end unconditional military aid to the State of Israel and affirm Palestinian safety and self-determination." Israel's unspeakable violence and human rights abuses against Palestinians over the last 600 days, of course, spurred on this consideration.”
The Apartheid-Free Pledge reads, “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."
Henderson continued, “The UU Congregation of Danbury decries violence and all anti-Semitism. We work for peace with justice, and our Palestine Solidarity Committee will help direct the congregation's work to end support for the Israeli Apartheid regime while distinguishing between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.”
The Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Danbury, Connecticut, is a direct descendant of the First Universalist Society of Danbury organized on December 9, 1822. It is the second oldest church in the Unitarian Universalist District of Metropolitan New York and among the earliest UU churches formed in the state of Connecticut. It is located at 24 Clapboard Ridge Road in Danbury.
Palestine Solidarity Committee of the UUCD
We're a Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation
Our group dedicated to advocating for human rights and promoting awareness of issues affecting Palestine.
Scroll down.
We Start with the Unitarian Universalist AIW
In June 2024 the Unitarian Universalist Association adopted an Act of Immediate Witness expressing solidarity with Palestinians. Click here to see it.
Things We've been Doing
Sponsored the play reading "80 Years After the Holocaust in Hungary" just before International Holocaust Day [see below]
Our visit to the Palestine Museum US in Woodbridge, CT. Scroll to bottom to see a few of the artworks at the museum. This is the museum's website.
We have a table with flyers at every Sunday service and we engage as the congregation goes by.
One service this summer was entirely about Palestine complete with slides and music.
Upcoming
Study group on Palestine. Readings and discussion. If interested contact us.
Feb. 5, 2025 Community dinner sponsored by our committee
Articles recommended for reading by committee members
Adam Shatz - After Nasrallah - Israel’s Forever War (London Review of Books):
Torture in Israel’s Prisons by Aryeh Neier (New York Review of Books):
Rashid Kahlidi audio New Yorker Radio Hour (scroll down)
"The 1948 Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" by Ilan Pappe, Journal of Palestine Studies, 2006
FACT SHEET ON ISRAELI APARTHEID
"The Case for the One Democratic State Initiative as a Counter-hegemonic Endeavor" by Alain Almaddine June 11, 2023
"A Two-State Solution that can work: The Case for an Israeli-Palestinians Confederation" by Omar Dajani and Limor Yehuda
"Return Plan, 2023" by Dr. Salman Abu Sitta
(Implementing the Palestinian Right of Return, with detailed maps illustrating its feasibility)
"The Shoah After Gaza" by Pankaj Mishra
"Memory Failure" by Pankaj Mishra (re: Germany's relationship to Israel)
"Israel's Descent" by Adam Shatz
2025 News about the "Non-Profit Killer Bill"
New 1/22 article about the likely revival of the bill in 2025
The US House passed a bill that would effectively give the president the power to declare any non-profit "terrorist supporting". That would immediately suspend its tax exemption and leave it open to claims that the group itself was made up of terrorists. The immediate target is groups supporting Palestinian rights, but even climate groups are sounding the alarm. In the Senate the bill is Sen. Bill 4136. To contact the office of CT Senator Chris Murphy call here: (202) 224-4041 . For Richard Blumenthal call here: 202-224-2823.
update: the bill was not brought up in Dec. in the Senate, but will surely be revived in 2025
Contact Us
Come by our table after services on any Sunday at the Congregation at 34 Clapboard Road in Danbury
Contact us by email at palsol2024@usa.com
Our Play Reading as Holocaust Remembrance Contribution
On January 25 we held a reading of the play "80 Years after the Holocaust in Hungary" in the Fellowship Hall. It was a discussion of the heroic actions and also the awful responses in Hungary in 1944. Relevant to this committee there was a focus in the play of the generally bad collaboration of Zionist leaders in Hungary and the coverup of their treacherous conduct in Israel in the decades after the Holocaust.
One focus was about Rudolf Kastner, who Eichmann allowed to pick 1700 Jews to leave for neutral countries BUT at a price. Kastner was required to keep 800,000 other Jews calm as they were "resettled", sent to Auschwitz.
Another focus was about young Zionists like Kraus and Gur who forged documents and hid Jews as did foreigners like Wallenstein and Lutz. They saved tens of thousands of Jews.
New 1/22 article about the likely revival of the bill in 2025
The US House passed a bill that would effectively give the president the power to declare any non-profit "terrorist supporting". That would immediately suspend its tax exemption and leave it open to claims that the group itself was made up of terrorists. The immediate target is groups supporting Palestinian rights, but even climate groups are sounding the alarm. In the Senate the bill is Sen. Bill 4136. To contact the office of CT Senator Chris Murphy call here: (202) 224-4041 . For Richard Blumenthal call here: 202-224-2823.
update: the bill was not brought up in Dec. in the Senate, but will surely be revived in 2025
Contact Us
Come by our table after services on any Sunday at the Congregation at 34 Clapboard Road in Danbury
Contact us by email at palsol2024@usa.com