The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day Ceremony
"WE ACKNOWLEDGE..."
Monday, April 24, 2023
10:30am (Pacific Time)
Hosted by Combatants for Peace and The Parents Circle Families Forum

REGISTER HERE!

Join the largest Israeli-Palestinian peace event in history! The Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony is hosted by Combatants for Peace and The Parents Circle–Families Forum, and we are proud that Multifaith Voices for Peace & Justice is an official sponsor again this year.

The Ceremony takes place every year on the eve of Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Memorial Day). In Israeli mainstream culture, the ceremonies that are most often held to honor this day serve to reinforce cultural narratives of pain, victimhood, and hopelessness. Our Joint Memorial transforms this narrative by bringing Palestinians to the Memorial alongside Israelis. Joining together to mourn each other’s pain, we aim to challenge the status quo and set the foundation for a new reality based on mutual respect, dignity, and equality for all. CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CEREMONY.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE each other’s humanity and every human’s right to security and freedom. 

WE ACKNOWLEDGE the oppressive system that fuels injustice, violence, and trauma. 

WE ACKNOWLEDGE our personal suffering, the suffering of our neighbors, and our part in this pain.

WE ACKNOWLEDGE our shared vision of a land where the inherent dignity and equality of all is fully realized. 

WE ACKNOWLEDGE our power to transform, collectively heal, and unite to end the occupation.

Join the multifaith call for a
national day of prayer and contemplation,
this Mother's Day,
to stop gun violence!

Faith leaders, congregations or organizations, and individual members or parishioners are urged to sign on to this letter asking President Biden to make this Mother's Day, May 14, a national day of prayer to end gun violence. Since Saturday, April 15, at least 255 people have already died in the United States due to guns. These tragic deaths affect every community.

The letter states in part,
We appeal to you to declare this Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 14, 2023,
to be a national day of repentance, mourning, prayer, and reflection
to address the culture of gun violence
that is staining our collective soul.

SIGN TODAY!
Faith leaders and congregations or organizations can use this link.
Individual parishioners and members may use this link.

The letter is already signed by more than 400 clergy and lay people, including Dr. Cornel West, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Imam Dr. Talib Shareef, Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia, Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick Gray, Dr. Daisy Khan, Rev. Walter Brueggemann, Sr. Maria Orlandini and many others from diverse faith traditions — including the heads of national denominations and global religious organizations — have already signed this urgent call.

SIGN TODAY!
Faith leaders and congregations or organizations can use this link.
Individual parishioners and members may use this link.

Every voice is needed in this call! Let us join together to address the war taking place in our own schools, places of worship, grocery stores, nighculbs, and more. The gun violence epidemic, intertwined with the racist white "Christian" nationalist movement, is a scourge on our communities and a blaspheme of the divine!

MVPJ is partnering with SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) @ Sacred Heart to offer a TEACH-IN.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

Reimagining Public Safety TEACH IN
Monday, February 27, 7-8:30pm via Zoom

Our first teach-in will be on Reimagining Public Safety - about the CARE FIRST Campaign - which is working for community driven alternatives to policing and incarceration. So much to learn! So many opportunities to work for racial justice!

The TEACH-IN will give us good background on historical and current connections between the work of racial justice and the desperate need to reimagine our understanding and methods of public safety for all! Right now the focus of CARE FIRST is on establishing a direct line to TRUST, an alternative to 911 to provide accessible, transparent, non-police crisis response in Santa Clara County. TRUST is designed to send the right responder for the situation. The TRUST program is a new 24/7 non-police crisis response program for urgent mental health and substance use situations.

Join us in this first SURJ/MVPJ TEACH-IN!
Registration Required.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER!

Help spread the word and invite others by sharing our Facebook Event Page and following the event on Instagram.
Use this png flyer to spread the word and this PDF 1/2 sheet flyer for printing.

This Reimagining Public Safety Teach-in is hosted by MVPJ and SURJ, and cosponsored by:
Action Council of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto;
American Muslim Voice;
Anti-Racism Impact Team of Congregation Etz Chayim;
Bend the Arc: Jewish Action South Bay;
First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto;
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Los Gatos; and
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City. 

George Lakey
talks about his most recent book,
Dancing with History: a life for peace and justice

Click here to watch the video of this event.

Quaker activist and master storyteller George Lakey shared vignettes from his life at the center of history-making events as one of the world’s most effective practitioners and teachers of nonviolent resistance.

As people of faith and conscience,
believing in the sanctity of all life on this planet,
we call for a
CHRISTMAS TRUCE IN UKRAINE.

Inspired by the miraculous Christmas truce of 1914, faith leaders of many diverse traditions petition the Biden administration to push for negotiations.

"In the spirit of the truce that occurred in 1914 during the First World War, we urge our government to take a leadership role in bringing the war in Ukraine to an end through supporting calls for a ceasefire and negotiated settlement, before the conflict results in a nuclear war that could devastate the world's ecosystems and annihilate all of God's creation." 

Signers include Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Jewish Renewal movement; Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); Valarie Kaur, Sikh leader and founder of Revolutionary Love Project; Thay Phap An, Plum Village Buddhist community; Bishop William J. Barber II, Repairers of the Breach and Poor People's Campaign; Rev. Grayland Scott Hagler, Fellowship of Reconciliation; Dr. Zoharah Simmons, National Council of Elders; Mary Novak, Executive Director of NETWORK Lovvy for Catholic Social Justice.

Click here for a full list of signers. If you are a faith leader, add your name here.

Help GET OUT THE VOTE across our nation
(without traveling anywhere)!

This election is crucial for the values of peace, justice and human dignity in our country. Here are two nonpartisan GET OUT THE VOTE (GOTV) efforts that you can participate in from the comfort of your own home -- or with some local friends.

If we ever needed to vote for justice and democracy, we sure do need to vote now!

TEXT: Join the Poor People's Campaign (PPC) Voting is Power Unleashed National Text-banking Program aiming to reach 5 million poor and low-wealth, low-propensity voters across 15 strategic states! Living wages, healthcare, housing, voting rights and other issues critical to poor and low-wealth people are on the ballot. No experience necessary! All virtual gatherings will begin with a training session led by a Poor People's Campaign text bank administrator. Click here to register for an online. (Note that the times listed are all Eastern Times!)

TEXT: Sign up to join a faith voter text bank with Interfaith Power & Light! Reach out to climate-alarmed faith voters who don't vote often in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Each text is sent individually by a volunteer like you from our online system, not your own phone or phone number. It’s an easy-to-use system called ThruText with pre-written scripts, and we’ll walk through all the steps to use it at the event. Click here to see schedule and sign-up.

PLUS the national organization Faith in Public Life has great resources now available, including "Faithful Voting Talking Points," "Bring Voting to Worship," and "Faithful Voter Reflection Guide." Click here to go to their website and scroll down.

The Palo Alto City Council has established a Safe Parking Program (SPP) to assist individuals who are unhoused and sleeping in their cars on city streets with a safe place to spend the night and support for finding permanent housing. Safe Parking provides a safe place to sleep for individuals living in their cars and helps connect them to more permanent housing options.  The Safe Parking Program is set up in a way to protect the safety of all nearby residents while at the same time respecting the privacy and dignity of the people it will help.  Through SPP local congregations can provide safe parking for individuals who have been sleeping in their cars on city streets.  

The First Congregational Church of Palo Alto (FCCPA) has submitted an application to the City which has been approved by City Staff and is on the Consent Agenda for the Council’s August 22nd meeting. However, a neighbor of the church, acting on behalf of a group of Palo Alto residents has filed an appeal, objecting to FCCPA’s plans for SPP because they feel the program will jeopardize community safety.   Two other Palo Alto congregations (The Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto and the Highway Church) are currently participating in SPP.  Neither program has received complaints from neighbors or community members nor have there been any incidents jeopardizing community safety.

Please consider writing to the Palo Alto City Council to support FCCPA's Safe Parking Program application.

See below for more information about the application process, as well as contact information for City Council Members.

Nuclear Prayer Day
August 6, 2022

On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 AM, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Since then, the potential for nuclear catastrophe has grown to an unimaginable scale. This August 6th, on the 77th anniversary of that horrific tragedy, people around the world will be joining in prayer for a future free from the threat of nuclear weapons. You and/or your faith community are encouraged to join this global community of prayer! Prayers and prayer gatherings are invited throughout the weekend of August 5-7. Click here for more information, to add your pin to the interactive global map, event updates, and more!  #NuclearPrayerDay2022 #prayforpeace #nonukes #savetomorrows

One possible prayer for a world free of nuclear weapons is offered by the sponsoring organization VOICES, part of the United Religions Initiative. Click here to download. This prayer is also available in many different languages here on the URI website. (Use the "Select a Language" option in the top right side of the webpage.) Feel free to use another such prayer, perhaps one of your or your group's own designs, and share this prayer when you drop your pin on this interactive map. (If you plan to pray alone and do not know what to put for the required "Name of Organization," feel free to say "Multifaith Voices for Peace & Justice"!)

You may also join with others in this first Nuclear Prayer Day at 8:15am PDT via a Facebook Live Event! Click here for more information. (This is open to everyone, whether or not you are on Facebook.)

9/11 Multifaith Peace Picnic & Prayers
Sunday, Sept. 11, 6:15pm-8:15pm
King Plaza, 250 Hamilton
Palo Alto

We came together to get to know one another and move from fear to friendship!

WATCH PROGRAM ON YOUTUBE HERE.

PERUSE PHOTOS FROM PROBONO HERE.

Hosted by American Muslim Voice in partnership with MVPJ. 

Together we honored the victims and first responders,
as we strive to transform this day into one of peace and community building.

The ability to make our country safe, secure, peaceful and harmonious lies in our hands.

We are excited to partner again with YOUTH COMMUNITY SERVICE and the
9/11 NATIONAL DAY OF SERVICE!

We joined hundreds of volunteers on Sunday, Sept 11 for the National Day of Service!

Sponsored by Youth Community Service (YCS).

Read more about each service site and project and register online here.