Build the Movement: Support Achvat Amim!

Co-resistance projects led by Palestinians and Israelis face growing repression. At the same time, Jewish activists worldwide are seeking meaningful ways to engage through education and solidarity. Amid rising polarization in Jewish communities and anti-war movements, there's an urgent need to equip these activists with tools to show up in principled, informed ways - grounded in relationships with those directly impacted and committed to justice for all peoples. Here at Achvat Amim, that's what we continue to do, even when it gets difficult.

In the Fall, we’re expecting 10 participants from across the UK and USA to join us on the ground.

We urgently need your help getting these participants on the ground by building our scholarship fund to supplement their tuition

Here's what one incoming participant has to say:

While I have been involved in peace work for the entirety of my adult life, this past year has strengthened my conviction and my dedication towards this work more than any other. I have watched my friends grieve and be isolated from Jewish community. I have also been personally targeted and had my employment threatened for publicly supporting a ceasefire and peace. While these experiences are painful, they have pushed me to take greater strides in my pursuit of justice. For this reason, I applied to Achvat Amim, not only to be part of this amazing program for four months, but also to explore the possibility of remaining in the land. As an educator, activist, and organizer, I believe that Achvat Amim would give me the invaluable experience and community support to help me develop my skills as an advocate and leader.

Your support has helped us welcome 46 participants over the past year who are busy supporting co-resistance projects on the ground and leading educational work across the diaspora.

Making sure our programs are accessible is crucial. Educators, organizers, and journalists, are at the core of anti-occupation activism. Achvat Amim alumni are teachers and writers, non-profit workers across crucial Israeli-Palestinian NGOs working towards peace, they're leading activist campaigns and spearheading groundbreaking reforms in Jewish institutions, and emerging as the progressive rabbinical leadership our community needs. By supporting this program, you're helping grow the next generation of Jewish leaders committed to ending the occupation.

War may not be ending anytime soon, but we remain committed to the work of movement building and critical education as the only program of its kind: offering transformative learning and community building that resists polarization and joins Jewish-Palestinian partnership on the ground. Partnerships that resist the occupation, even as they are criminalized by it.

This work is urgent. It is essential. And it cannot continue without your support.

This summer brought with it unbearable violence - faced with impossible choices and closed airspaces - we were forced to cancel the Summer Program. In spite of all the careful planning in the world, war and occupation will always force us to pivot our work.

So we pivoted.

We made a promise to stand alongside our partners in Masafer Yatta, and when our cohort couldn't join us, we ran English language workshops for children in Umm al Kheir and enlisted our community of alumni and others to join.

The most urgent demand from communities in Masafer Yatta is to support sumud (resilience) by joining them on the ground.  When you step into these relationships, you can no longer watch displacements as if they're happening far away from you, separated by screens, walls, language, and distance. You take it on as your own struggle, happening to your friends and kin less than an hour away, to a place that's welcomed you like home. 

“International support is one of the most important factors helping these endangered communities stay put. English classes in the South Hebron Hills aren’t a cute co-existence effort - they’re a crucial way to help the youth of the community share their struggle with the world" - Eliana Padwa

We don't deny the grief that solidarity carries, but we won't stop committing to partnership and the struggle to end the occupation. We still find each other, carry each other forward, from Umm al Kheir, to Jerusalem, to New York.

We will continue to work towards the vision people like Awdah Hathaleen believe in: Freedom and abundance for his children. Land unmarred by checkpoints and soldiers and endless degradation and dehumanization. And solidarity that has constant love and life is poured into it.

We're excited to announce that Becca Strober, our cherished friend, mentor, and long-time Oversight Committee member, is joining us as Interim Executive Director. For over a decade Becca has been a community organizer, educator, and political strategist, working with organizations like Breaking the Silence, Sadaka Reut, Gisha, ORAM, and Mahapach-Taghir, combining community building, accessible learning, and anti-occupation activism. This work is a lighthouse to the organizing we strengthen through our volunteer placements, learning days, and solidarity work, and the connections we build across our movement, so we're incredibly grateful for Becca to be joining us, and for their expertise and vision to strengthen this work. Becca is also the co-founder of our sister organization Midreshet Dror.

Your support makes it possible for us to adapt, grow, and continue offering accessible, justice-driven programming in a moment that calls for nothing less. Thank you for your commitment to this work. It means the world.