Face-to-Face

Are you interested in building connections with a Bedouin community in the West Bank? Face-to-Face meets monthly with a local contact and friend in Umm Al-Khair village. During these calls, Face-to-Face members meet on Zoom with community leaders from Umm Al-Khair. They provide poignant accounts of what day-to-day life is like in their rural village in the occupied West Bank. The community is subjected to frequent raids, home demolitions and attacks from nearby settlers and police.

Like other Palestinian communities in the region, the village lacks basic necessities such as electricity, water, education and health facilities. Residents are prevented from building permanent homes, so they live in makeshift tin shacks and tents. From time to time, convoys of bulldozers, jeeps and police vehicles descend on the village to destroy these humble homes.

In the 1980s, the Israeli government began to build the settlement of Carmel just a few feet from the village. While the Palestinian families have little access to water, the Carmel settlement is a green oasis with playgrounds, parks and a chicken farm. The Palestinian villagers report they are frequently attacked by the settlers, who are protected by Israeli occupying forces.

As members of Face-to-Face, we educate ourselves and bear witness to the horrific crimes Israel inflicts upon Palestinians because they are Palestinian. These actions are done in the name of the Jewish people. We engage in acts of solidarity by providing financial and emotional support to our Palestinian friends in the West Bank and by advocating with our representatives to pressure the Israeli government and Settlers to stop committing these crimes. One of the community leaders, Eid Suleiman, has shared that he appreciates that we stand and stand with Umm Al-Khair.

Face-to-Face was formed in the fall of 2021 inspired by Rabbi Burt Jacobson’s vision for Jewish reparations and an alliance with progressive Israelis and Palestinians. Originally a project solely of Kehilla congregation in Oakland, CA, Beyt Tikkun is excited to partner with Kehilla in this project.

Face-to-Face meets on Zoom the second Sunday of each month with Eid, our local Palestinian contact, usually at 10:00am PT / 1:00pm ET. We also meet on the fourth Sunday of each month for our business meetings at 6:00pm PT / 9:00pm ET. If you’d like to get involved or learn more, contact facetoface@kehillasynagogue.org.

You can learn more about Face-to-Face here and about Umm Al-Khair here. Here is a March 2023 article about Umm Al-Khair.

To donate to Face-to-Face and support our solidarity work click here.

You can learn more about our approach on Palestine/Israel and find links to resources here.