The Unitarian Church of Montpelier - VT Says No Deportation of our Neighbor Mohsen Mahdawi 8/9/2026

We will continue until everyone is free. Yes. >> Let's go. THE FIRST SONG WE'RE GOING TO SING JUST WHILE PEOPLE ARE COMING in is to the light of mine with birds from the Highlander Center. We're going to sing to the tune of the light of mine. Laura, do you want to sing with me? To birds from the Highlander Center. It goes like this. I've got the light of it. OH, I let it shine. I'm going to let it shine. LET IT SHINE. LET IT SHINE. Let it shine. >> Let's see. I've got the fire of justice. Okay. YES. >> DO YOU HAVE A FIRE OF JUSTICE? OKAY, LET'S SING IT OUT. >> JUSTICE. Let it shine. Let it shine. Maybe you look in someone who you don't know yet, someone you're sitting next to you've never met before, and then thank them with your eyes for being here together and being willing to try to do something together. Look at each other and acknowledge we're here. We're making time to talk down. One more time. I must freely shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. >> Thank you and welcome. >> Welcome everybody. Can you hear me from the microphone >> and from the recording? You can hear me as well. Thank you very much. My name is Eric Levy Jacobson. I'm a professor of philosophy and Jewish studies and the director of the Vermont Center for Social Research. And I have really the great honor and pleasure to welcome you to this discussion tonight which is a show of support and a fundraiser for our friend and our neighbor of many years Mosawi. That's right. That's right. Thank you. This event began with a set of words shared by two verters, one with Jewish and one with Palestinian roots coming together over a common sentence shared by all of us here as self-evident. That common sentence is Vermont says no to the deportation of our neighbor Mosa Madawi. Could I ask you for a round of applause also to the author and illustrator Dan Alto whose work has brought us together tonight. I want to mention some uh structure to tonight's events. I have the pleasure and honor of serving as the MC. We have a terrific uh safety team in place modeling a different uh form of safety. And I just want to let you know that we've been assured by Mosen's legal team that Mosen is free to be here and safe while his appeal is pending before the US uh federal court of the second circuit. And I want to thank Orca Media for reporting tonight's proceedings. There's a section of the uh of the uh commonly here that's not recorded. So if you don't want to be in the recording, please find that spot. May I also uh take this opportunity to thank my friends and partners in the social action committee of the Beth Jacobs Synagogue for pioneering this event and for navigating the challenges. It's been very challenging and I extend a special thank you to the members of the board and the custodians of the synagogue that have come in for unconscionable tasks simply for exercising their beliefs in the right of Jews in this country to freely practice their Judaism. Our Judaism here, those of us here, is a search for truth and justice in the tradition of the prophets. In that same vein, I'd like to thank the congregation of the Montilar Unitarian Church and to the brilliant kindness of Reverend Joan Kier Dubara. That's right. Who partnered with us to have a sizable turnout here. And to that ad, may I ask for a simple round of applause first and foremost for everyone that has come out to join us tonight. Thank you for being here. Thank you for bearing with us. Thank you for turning out in such tremendous numbers. I don't even know if we have any more space. Um, and thank you for not being afraid. So, I'm a scholar of anti-semitism, Holocaust, and German Jewish philosophy. I did my PhD in Germany uh in Jewish studies and I've lived and taught in England, Austria, Germany, Israel, and the United States. But I've also been concerned with the ArabIsrael conflict for as long as I can remember. A turning point for me was when I left Vermont for Jerusalem to bear witness to the first inifat, a young Goddard student under the guidance of my dearest inspiration and friend, Professor Barbara Johnson, who's here tonight. From what I saw with my own eyes in those years in 1988, 1989 shook me to my core. And I have since dedicated a portion of my life to the search for a peaceful and meaningful and substantive resolution that would follow the principles that we all cherish here in Vermont. Equality, freedom, town meeting democracy, and what I would call neighborly mutual aid. I've wanted these Vermont ways of life to be experienced by those Palestinian friends that welcomed me like an honored guest to their homes under occupation and their universities that were open and closed like a light switch under military decree. Me, an 18-year-old shaggy, long-haired, skinny dipping vegetarian from Goddard College. Tonight, we're focused on an extraordinary person who's been ruthlessly persecuted by an authoritarian regime, who is being tried without charges, prosecuted without a crime, and whose legal defense we wish to learn about, and hopefully come to support. Tonight, we'll hear from a distinguished group of speakers that will address the legal issues in Mosan's case, which concern civil rights and first amendment rights that we uphold in Vermont. We will hear from scholars of Jewish studies that reject the equation of Judaism solely and only with Israel and with Zionism, which will help begin the process of unraveling the past and looking towards a future. We will hear from Palestinian friends that will tell us about their experience. And we will hear from Verters who have been touched by Mosen's work in peacemaking and nonviolence and his deep appreciation and understanding of the Vermont way of life. May I now introduce to you Reverend Joan Javier Dubalo with words of welcome. Good evening everyone. Wow, so wonderful to see all of you here. Um, just for hospitality, I'm going to ask if you are sitting um towards the edges and could move in a little bit. There are lots of people who are still looking for a seat. And if you have a seat near you that's empty, would you raise your hand so folks can come and find a seat if they'd like to be seated? Because for fire safety, we must keep the exits clearer than any standing bodies. Thank you. So, I want to welcome you all warmly. That's not meant to be a joke. Sorry. Um to the sanctuary of the Unitarian Church of Montpillar. Um as Eric said, I'm the Reverend Joan Javier Duval. the minister here have had the pleasure of serving for 11 years this community. And I am so glad that the social action committee of Beth Jacob Synagogue reached out to ask if they could hold this event here at the Unitarian Church. We consider Beth Jacob a friend within our larger faith community. And though we have different theological beliefs, we share a commitment to compassion, to peace, to knowing and loving our neighbors. And it's a joy and an honor to welcome Mosen Madawi back to our sanctuary. Mosen was with us for our worship service in October and shared from the heart as he always does about what it means to live with integrity in the face of immense challenge. So welcome back. And so I want to share my hope that today we can listen and engage with open minds and open hearts knowing and showing one another and especially our speakers the dignity and respect that we all deserve. There may be differences of opinion among us on a variety of issues, but this event has been organized to affirm the human and constitutional rights that we all have and to offer support to one among us whose rights have been disregarded. And what I love about this community is our commitment to find our way to one another, especially in our most difficult moments. So again, welcome to the Unitarian Church of Montilier for this special event. And I have just two logistical notes. This event is being recorded by Orca Media for later viewing. And there are photographers documenting the event. The last three pews of the sanctuary, which are now full, um are designated as off- camerara seating. So, if that's important to you, if you prefer not to be recorded in any way, you might find your way to the back three pews. And for privacy and safety, please do not record this event in any way unless you have been designated to do so. Thank you and welcome. Reverend Joan, we're touched by your leadership and um we want to thank you for your tremendous service to this community and to us in particular. It's really true. I now have the great pleasure of introducing to you a friend that I've known for many years, also a Verter since the Hion days of the Grateful Dead, now Harvard Divinity School professor of modern Jewish studies, Shaul Magged. Shaul is the author of The Necessity of Exile, which uh was featured in the New Yorker is one of the best books of that year. His latest work is called Jewish anti-ionism is political theology which is a translation of the writings of Rabbi Yoel Titlebound the spiritual leader of an anti-ionist Orthodox group known as the Satna. Shaul is also the uh author of the partner volume which just appeared called the scourge of uh Jewish nationalism Rabbi Yoel Tidlebound's anti-Zionist thought which both appeared with um University of California Press series in Jewish history and culture and to our great pleasure um also is um professor and Rabbi Ari Cohen whom uh is just because Vermont is so wonderful this summer is also here and uh show will share his time with him. So may I welcome to the podium rabbi, professor and dear friend Sha Mar. Thank you. Thank you, Eric. And it's it's it's a pleasure to be here. I will say the mountains are much higher in Montpillar than they are in Theford Riley. Um, I want to uh offer a few minutes of a kind of Jewish perspective on this moment and I want to do it in honor of Moshe and his plight and our plight for justice and for equality in Israel, Palestine and across the world. So um many of you might not know that this Thursday begins a new month in the Jewish calendar and the name of the month is called Eli and this is the month that immediately precedes Rashashana which comes at the first day of the next month. One of the interesting things about this month is that almost every other month in the Jewish calendar has some holiday or commemoration or some market event except one which I'll put to the side for now. The month of El also there's nothing in the month of El there's no holiday, there's no commemoration, there's no marking event. The reason is given that because Elul every day is a market event because it is all in the preparation for the Jewish new year and rash. The month of Elul is the month of repentance in a way comparable to Lent, comparable to Ramadan. The point of the month of Elul is to look at oneself, look at the world, look at the other, look at one's adversary and begin a process of reconciliation, begin a process of repentance in in Hebrew is called choua. How does one actually do that? How does one repent from anything? What is the kind of existential posture that we as human beings can create in in order for us to truly truly repent. So a famous late 18th century rabbi named Nakan of Bratz offers one interesting point that I think will speak to this moment and that is he says that a person should always look for the goodness the good point in the other. Whether the other is a lover, whether the other is a friend, whether the other is an adversary, there is no pure good and there is no pure evil. Goodness pervades in even the most adversarial actions. And alternatively, one has to see oneself as also containing something unsavory even in our good intentions. And unless we're able to see the good in the adversary and the bad in ourselves, repentance is impossible. And I think that the world that we live in and the world that regrettably Moshe is being subject to is a world that is unwilling to see the goodness in the other and also unwilling to see the deficiency in the self. And when that doesn't happen, it's very easy to slip into a friend enemy dichotomy where the only thing that is an other is an enemy and not an adversary and not somebody that one dis disagrees with. It's a very very easy thing to fall into. It's a very slow thing to fall into. And once you get into that friend enemy dichotomy, all is lost. I think that you more than anyone in this room has been subject to that friend enemy dichotomy. The unwillingness to see that in what you do and what you believe in, even for those who may disagree with you, there is an element of goodness. There is an element of justice. There's an element of a desire to build a better world. And to live within that kind of disagreement where one doesn't have to agree with you to see the goodness in you. One doesn't have to see oneself as fully justified, but that my intentions are also egotistical. My intentions also have something about them that needs rectification. So we stand here, we sit here today honoring you, praying for you, and praying for those that will pass judgment on you that they will be able to see the goodness in you. Because only then will they be able to see the justice that needs to happen. and only then will they be able to really embody the Hebrew month of Elul which is the month of repentance. So I wish the best for you and I wish the best for us as a civilization as human beings that we can overcome the propensity to fall into the friend enemy binary and see the goodness in the other and also the things in us that need to be fixed. I want to introduce one of my oldest friends. We met in Jerusalem in 1984. He's a professor of rabbitic and Talmud at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He's one of the leading voices of Jewish progressive activism on the West Coast. Ari Cohen So there are no coincidences. I happen to be visiting SH today and I heard about this event and I couldn't not come. This also explains why I'm wearing my dress shorts instead. But it is truly an honor to be here to listen to you and to speak out for you and for who you are. The patriarch of three religions, Abraham, Ibraim, Abraham in our in the Jewish tradition is known as one who put his tent at the intersection of the roads with four flaps open so that he could welcome all who passed by. He was the original one who would welcome anybody regardless of race, creed or color, regardless of need and offer them food and offer them sleep and nourishment. In this way, since there are no coincidences, he also happened to one day run into an angel of God. And those two things are not disperate. They're not different. Opening ourselves to others, to refugees, to those seeking refuge from violence, from poverty, from war is opening ourselves to God. One year ago, our country invaded my city. And in June of last year, the the National Guard and the Marines came to Los Angeles to demonstrate explicitly what they had been doing undercover previously to that, which was to say, "No, we are not that city. We are not that city which welcomes refugees." And so thousands of us, Jews, Christians and Muslims, Buddhists and others, those of other faiths and no faiths, went out to the streets to say, "No, that is wrong. We are we are actually we can be that city." And then all across the country in Minneapolis, in Chicago, New York, here in New England, we prove them wrong. But they still continue to go underground subtly in subtrafuge, arrest and kidnap our kin, our relatives, our friends. And so we come out again tonight here to say Mosen, we are standing with you because you are one of us. Not only because of your own great characteristics. YES. Even if you were not the great nonviolent peacemaker, the person who we all aspire to be in one way or another, even if you were not that person, you deserve refuge. You deserve to be able to live in peace with your family here in our cities. So we hope that tonight we send this message that we will not stand by as our country tries to destroy these places of refuge. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was very moving. We're particularly aware of what Mosen's case means to us personally as Jews and to us all as Vermonters. That's why we've also invited uh him and his team to provide you with an opportunity to contribute to the costs related to his case. There are slips in the pews that give you details about the website to make a donation to his legal defense fund. may also relay the message that I've relayed to the other political figures that are participating that the principal purpose of the funds that will be raised at this event of course will not be used to conduct election activity. Our next speaker is Mark Hage, a longtime Palestinian solidarity activist. He's a friend and an ally, a resident of Mielar, a person you can count on, and a member of the Vermont and New Hampshire Jewish Voice for Peace. Please welcome Mark. HELLO again and good evening. Thank you for being here. And if you will indulge me before I present my remarks tonight, keep this URL busy. Donate whatever you can, whatever you can afford to Mosen's legal defense fund. I'm told there's a basket here somewhere that you can write a check for. There it is. There's the basket. you'd like to make a check out to Mosen, please do. Anything and everything is welcome. The Trump administration tells us Mosen is a dangerous person, and they're right, but not for the reasons they claim. Moses is being persecuted not only for what he says and how he says it, for his resolve, for his compassion, but because he is an unwelcome and potentially destabilizing role model for the rest of us. Silence Mosen, they hope, and they will silence us. And they are wrong. We must prove them wrong. The late historian and activist Howard Zinn said, "The great crimes against humanity, war, slavery, genocide, are not the product of disobedience, but of obedience to those who do not deserve our obedience." My friends, we will live, many of us, the rest of our days by what has unfolded in Gaza. And to varying degrees will be haunted by this. Tens of thousands of innocent souls have been slaughtered. More than 21,000 of them are children since the so-called ceasefire was entered into last year in October. More than 300 Palestinian children alone in Gaza have been killed. The Israeli newspaper, however, says on average, since the ceasefire was declared, Israel has killed one child per day in Gaza. And that does not include the scores of children who have been gunned down by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank, where an Israeli general recently said, "We are killing like we haven't killed since 1967." When you kill a people's children, wantingly, deliberately, you are killing a people's future. We are here tonight to say unequivocally that we will not surrender the future of Palestine's children to the architects of genocide, colonization, and ethnic cleansing in Tel Aviv and Washington. And we will not surrender the future of the children of Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish, to those same killers and masters of domination. Omar Bto, one of the world's leading scholars of the Nazi genocide, said recently in an interview that he does not believe the ideology of political Zionism can be reformed or sanitized. But he believes and I agree with him that Israel can still be changed. We could not sanitize or reform apartheid in South Africa or American Jim Crow here in the United States, but we could change our society. And we stand with Mosen tonight committed to changing what happens between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River for every person who calls that region home. It is a dry white season. That is one of South Africa's most prominent poets wrote during some of the darkest years of the apartheid regime in South Africa. But he closed the poem with these words. But seasons come to pass. this season of genocide, of ethnic cleansing, of colonization, it must and it will come to pass because of people like Mosen Mandawi who we stand with in solidarity, because of us in community working together. We must not be afraid to disobey and we must continue to move forward with ending the horrors that are now unfolding in Israel Palestine. Thank you again for being here tonight. A round of appreciation for Mark's longtime service to us Vermonters in helping us understand and appreciate the occupation of Palestine. a long-term service to our commanders. Um, appearing today in the Jewish Daily Forward, one of the uh, foremost scholars of Jewish history, Professor David Meyers of UCLA in his piece, Why Jews must support Mosen Madawi put the case for Mosen in the following words. Mos Madawi has committed no crime. The government has not even bothered to accuse him of doing so. The sad reality is that Madawi, like his fellow Colombia student Mahmud Khalil, is being persecuted for the crime of being a Palestinian. >> Jews of all ideological stripes can and should agree that it is wrong. They don't need to go far back in time to recall that such tactics have been used against Jews themselves in the Soviet Union to suppress refusnix in the US during the McCarthy era and most ominously during the dark age of Nazi totalitarianism. To help us understand Mosen's legal case, I have the great pleasure of introducing to you one of Mosen's attorneys, the Honorable George J. Mitchell, professor of law and public policy is at Georgetown University and law school and the former national legal director of the ACLU, Professor David Clark. Uh thank you. Thank you all for uh coming out uh tonight. Um about 40 years ago, a group of Palestinian students in Los Angeles uh were woken up in early dawn raids by immigration, FBI, and police. um uh uh and taken into custody and put into deportation proceedings for their affiliations uh and support of a a PLO organization, not for any illegal conduct they had engaged in, not for any terrorist activity, but because they were advocates for Palestinian self-determination. Uh I took that case on 40 years ago. Uh and a mere 20 years later, we won. UH I'm very much hoping that uh that Mosen's case does not take uh 20 years uh to win. Um but Mosen's case is very similar. Like them, he was a student activist. Like them, he was speaking up for Palestinian self-determination. Like them, he was engaged in nothing more than the rights that we as citizens all fully expect and rely upon. The right to be able to speak your mind. the the charge against Mosen, the only charge against Mosen, a permanent resident who has a green card has the right to live in this country permanently. The only charge against Mosen is that the Secretary of State Marco Rubio has determined in his uh in his expertise uh that Mosen's speech presents potentially adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States. Not again, not that Mosen did anything illegal, not that Mosen even advocated anything illegal, but simply Marco Rubio has labeled Mosen uh uh contrary to our foreign uh policy. The the question in the case will be whether the government can get away with doing that to Mosen when it couldn't do that to any of the citizens in this room. Marco, if Marco Rubio believes that my speech threatens our foreign policy, has adverse foreign policy consequences, there is nothing he can do because I have the first amendment right to engage in that speech. The claim that we are making in Mosen's case is that all of us in this country have the right to speak freely. And if you look at the first amendment, it doesn't say uh the citizens shall have the right to speak freely. It says Congress shall make no law infringing uh the the freedom of speech. That's what it says. It doesn't identify who the speaker is. And indeed, because it doesn't identify who the speaker is, the Supreme Court has said in a decision that many of you probably don't like said that corporations speech rights are protected. And the reason is because the first amendment protects speech. We all have an interest in hearing that speech. It doesn't matter. The Supreme Court said who the speaker is. Well, that's the argument we made in the LA8 case. we made to argue that if corporations have speech rights because we all have an interest in hearing what they say, then surely live human beings who live among us and are our neighbors have that same first amendment right and and in the LA8 case we prevailed uh on that ground and the court struck down a a now invalid provision of the McCarron Walter Act that allowed immigrants to be deported for communist uh affiliations. But that issue has never yet gotten to the Supreme Court. This case is very likely to take it uh to the Supreme Court. And I think the reason I'm involved in this case, the reason I'm proud to be involved in this case with the ACLU and a number of other uh organizations and private counsel um is that we are judged by how we treat the most vulnerable among us. >> That is how we are judged. And and we know what how Trump treats the most vulnerable among us. He bullies them. He sees a target for bullying and he goes after them because that's who he is. But that's not who we are. That's not who the people of Minneapolis were when they stood out to perform the women's. And that's and that's not who the people of Vermont and Montpelier are in coming together to support. Thank you very much. Thank you, Professor Cole again for an illuminating presentation and a moving moving talk. And now I have the pleasure of introducing Rabbi Grace Odell to you, an aspiring rabbitical leader in the Burlington area, a member of the Leim Collective, and also the director of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, and a wonderful uh singer as well. Uh Rabbi Grace will lead us in a song of support, sustenance, and spiritual strength. I do see some Farmers Against Fascism in the house tonight. So, give it up. I'll just briefly say I first met you, Mosen, when you were being released from detention on Elmwood. And you Yeah, that was a good one. And you're often quoted as saying bravely upon your release to Donald Trump, I am not afraid of you. But the words that followed that and are not quoted as often and feel free to correct me if I get this wrong, but they went something like, "Because no one can take away from me the power of love that I have for the world." MY GOOD FRIEND, THE REVEREND Steven Green, who I met on a march to end the genocide in Palestine, who leads Faith for Black Lives, calls that plugging into the ultimate power source, the power source that can never run out. Just yesterday, there was an ICE raid here in Vermont in Cornwall that stole several fathers from their children as they went to work. We're here tonight to commit to Mosen. And we're also here to commit ourselves to the teachings that Mosen is offering us, that solidarity is intersectional, that we will not limit our commitment to justice to only a certain few. There's only the path of love and removing all that stands in the way of it. YES. In 1960, the student non-violent coordinating committee, SNICK, wrote their statement of purpose. Nonviolence seeks a social order of justice permeated by love. Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear. Love transforms hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice. and hope ends despair. Love is the central motif of nonviolence. I see Moenu standing not only in the struggle for justice in Palestine, but also in the struggle for democracy for all here at home. And so standing here tonight with Mosen, we are doing what the Reverend Doctor calls justice. Justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands in the way of love. And I imagine that tonight we are helping each other to move from a place of fear to a place of care. From a place of nationalism to imagining a world beyond borders and prisons, from a place of safety for the few to a place where all of God's children will thrive together. And so now I'm going to ask us to join together in a timehonored tradition of song that helps us move out of fear to love. move from our individual experience to the collective. And I want to bring in a song that was written for the Minnesota legislator Melissa Hortman of Blessed Memory. Melissa Hortman was assassinated for doing reproductive justice work just over a year ago. And from friends who worked with and knew Melissa well, they shared that it was not that Melissa did not understand the risks. It was that she knew she was at risk and believed the work was worth doing anyway. This is how I see you, Mosen. A dear human being committed to the dangerous work of being rooted in love. And when my friend and fellow song leader, Serena Partridge, was asked to lead a song at Melissa's funeral, this is the song she wrote. And I think I saw Mora and if you're here, if any other song leaders want to come up, there's no microphone in the middle. And I'm definitely not singing on this thing. So, >> it's call and respond and you have it in your program and we'll sing it all together. Some of you have song sheets. I hope you can share them. >> The first I'll sing the whole thing. We'll sing the whole thing and then we'll call it back to you. Okay. So, it goes like this. Our love is the fear. Our love is stronger than the fear. >> We're going to sing it to you once they come in. >> Our love is stronger than the fear. We see the path before us and we are not afraid. We are a mighty forest and we are not afraid. Our love is our love. >> All together we're going to sing it together. >> Our love is stronger than the fear. We see that we see the power for US >> AND WE ARE >> WE ARE not afraid >> because we are >> we are mighty for us and we are not even our love is our love is our is stronger than the power. >> Are we afraid? >> We are not afraid. >> We are mighty. >> Yes, we are. >> We are not. >> Our love is stronger than we. Our love is stronger than the fear. >> Our love is stronger than the fear. The power. >> We are not afraid. >> WE ARE. >> WE ARE MIGHTY FORCE. We are not afraid. Thank you, Rabbi Grace. That was very beautiful and moving. Now I'd like to introduce a few verters to speak to the contribution that Mosen has made to Vermont or to their life to the teaching of nonviolence to the struggle for freedom and justice for the Palestinian people. May you may Oh, you guys are already here. I'll let people introduce themselves. >> Thank you all for being here. My name is Sue Mter. I live in Waterberry and I want to say thank you to Mosen. Thank you for standing up for your inspirational courage, for your commitment to peace and nonviolence. I first met Mosen just days after he was released from detention at a press conference. We were announcing the launch of the Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund. Some of you were there. Rabbi Grace was there. Our state treasurer Mike Pichek was there. He's here tonight. And on his own personal capacity, Mike Pichek launched this effort because we saw a gap. And in spite of the danger that it caused Mosen just days after his release to be in such a public position, he spoke to us. And I experienced and everyone in that packed Cedar Creek room experienced being in his presence. It's never left me. He Mosen, you are a bright star in our orbit. You are a true prophet for peace. I had the chance a few weeks later to spend an afternoon with Mosen. He didn't talk about his case. He talked about his experience in our Vermont jails where while he had the savvy and the support team, the legal defense team of the ACLU and others, his cellmates did not and they didn't speak the language. And when he met with our senator, Peter Welch, he told of their plight and their plight changed. They began to have translators. They began to be told where the food was. Mosen, you are such an inspiration and because of your leadership and over 3,000 people, most of whom were Vermonters, but also donors from 13 other states and four other countries. The Vermont Immigration Legal Defense Fund raised over a million dollars in one year. And now, because of this leadership, this bright light, we have nine trained legal attorneys doing legal defense in our systems of justice right here in Vermont, as well as 100 proono trained ally attorneys, so that all verers in detention have access to justice, that they weren't denied, and that when they have access to justice, they can win. Which is why we know Mosen can win. That's right, >> I just want to say thank you. We We are with you. You have been our north star and we will continue to be the wind in your back. Thank you. Hello. Thank you for being here. I'm um Ellis Silverman. I'm a closer. >> Yeah. >> Hello. Better. I'm a representative from the Beth Jacobs Social Action Committee and part of the organizing group and I've been invited to speak um a letter sent by dear friends of Mosen who could not be here today. And this is from Musa Ishach and Kristen Peterson Ishach. Dear Mosen, we extend to you our warmest greetings and very much wish that we could be present in person to wish you well. We clearly remember the first time that we met you. It was at the Palestinian violin concert held at Our Savior Lutheran Church in Hanover, New Hampshire in 2015. We met your adopted family, Don and Susan Foster, at the same event. We will never forget how proud the Fosters were of you and everything you had achieved. In 2021, Don Foster contacted us, sadly Susan had passed away, to invite us to participate in a Zoom event during COVID 19 at the First Universalist Society of Heartland at which you were to speak about your experiences as a refugee and your hopes for justice and peace for all. We were honored by the invitation and read the poem Just Lemons and Limes in Arabic and English during the service. We remember how moved we were by your words about peace and justice as you spoke to the congregation on that day. We have watched your recent traviles with mounting disbelief and horror. You have contributed greatly to Vermont and the wider US society ever since your arrival here. In speaking out for Palestinian human rights, you have exercised your First Amendment rights as the Constitution guarantees to us all. It is our fervent hope that the appeals court will uphold this principle in the ruling that is to come. With our sincerest wishes for an outcome that allows you to remain free in the country you have chosen as your own, Musa and Kristen Ishach. Good evening everyone. My name's Amanda Janu and I was born and raised a couple towns over from the place that Mosen now calls home. And every time I've heard Mosen speak, I'm always struck by his courage, his warmth, and his wisdom. And how he shows us how to meet this moment by speaking truth to power from a place of universal compassion rather than righteous anger. As what's happening to Mosen right now is not just about one person. It is about all of us and how we will show up in this moment in history. As history has taught us, that the standard fascist playbook has always been to scapegoat immigrants and the most vulnerable in our society for the pains and insecurities brought by corporate globalization and the seeming helplessness of our democracies to do anything about it. As fascism does not arrive overnight, it advances when people do not feel valued, seen, or secure. When governments begin deciding that some people have fewer rights than others, when disscent becomes grounds for punishment, and when mass agents are allowed to take our neighbors away, but most of all, when the rest of us become too afraid, too exhausted, or too divided to stop it. As our federal government advances this technofascist agenda, this is a moment when we need states like Vermont to stand up and to fulfill our promise of being a bull work against authoritarianism and a living laboratory of democracy. Now is the moment when we need states to band together and to use our collective economic power to stop the tech billionaires, the corrupt politicians from driving this mass surveillance and the military state. That will not stop until we stop it. as we are the ter territories and we have much more power than we know. And now is the time when we need our political leaders to be brave and to say if you come for our neighbors, you'll have to come through us first. But I also know that no politician alone is going to fix this. It's going to take all of us as the only antidote to tyranny is unity. So let us refuse to give into fear, hatred, and division. To do what Vermoners do best and look out for each other, to follow Mosen's example and heed his wisdom and to hold compassion in our hearts and to advance a vision that is liberatory for both the oppressor and the oppressed. Let us stand together and to tell every Vermonter that regardless of your race, class, religion, gender, immigration status, political party or ideology that you are not alone. You belong here and we will fight for your freedom as we fight for our own. And so in this moment, let us do what Vermoners do best and be aggressively generous to look out for each other and to help Mosen continue this fight so we can show him and this country that together we have everything we need to lead. Thank you. Good evening everyone. My name is Jason Hirs. I live in Burlington and I'm honored to have been asked tonight to bring to you Mosen and to all of this gathering greetings from the Vermont and New Hampshire chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace. Jewish Voice for Peace is the world's largest Jewish organization supporting Palestinian freedom and we work to free our own people from the grips of militarism and nationalism as well. Tonight, Musim, we greet you as comrades in the struggle for Palestinian liberation. And in this spirit, I want to channel some words of greeting sent by by ancestors of mine decades ago, sent to the Polish citizens of Warsaw from the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto in the midst of their uprising. Poles, citizens, soldiers of freedom. Amidst the smoke of fires, dust, and blood, we prisoners of the ghetto send you sincere fraternal greetings. We know that with heartfelt pain and tears of sympathy, you are looking on. The battle is being waged for your freedom and ours. For your freedom and ours, these ancestors of mine recognize that their fight for their own survival was never for themselves alone. In their darkest imaginable hour, they knew that the only way through was solidarity. Mosen, we Jewish Voice for Peace recognize that the charges that have been laid against you are a canard. They are the tired effort of a fascist government to scare people into quiesence. We have seen it before. We recognize their malicious attempt to turn my people against yours, to make us think that our safety should come at your expense. for us in Jewish Voice for Peace. They could never, they will never because we know from our own history that the safety of any people is only realized alongside the safety of all peoples. That is as true in Palestine as it is in Vermont. >> That's right. And so we are here with you tonight, Mosen, in solidarity. And we pledge to you our ongoing solidarity for as long as it takes. And that is for your freedom and for ours. Thank you very much for your testimony. Mosa Khamemed Bakir is a Palestinian and a verander since 1989. Hamemed was born in a refugee camp near Ramala to survivors of the Nagbar from Abesia in the Jaffa district. He grew up in Ramala. He did his undergraduate studies in Jordan and his post-graduate work in the UK where he met his spouse from Vermont. Huh is a public health and environment specialist. His international development career spans 35 years with the United Nations. He worked for the UNHCR, UNICEF, and the WH. He retired to Vermont when the Israeli authorities denied his American spouse a residency permit in Palestine. May I welcome to you to the podium, Hamemed Baky. Thank you very much for being here for Min. M you are not alone. Um, we want you safe and we want you here in Vermont. We come today to stand with you, Men, as you fight deportation proceedings ordered by the government, by the political establishments, by the corporations. Not because of you, not because of you as a person, but because of your identity, because of what you stand for, because you dare to speak for your people. You did not commit any crime. You did not violate the Lord. But you spoke. You screamed in pain as you saw your people being massacred in Gaza in the most horrific seas of brutality that can be brought about by some people against other because you supposed to gain the genocide of our people in Gaza. They wanted to make an example of you and people like you like Mahmud Khalil as well. They wanted to silence everybody who speaks for Palestine. For the Palestinian people right to life, the Palestinian people dignity, the equality and the freedom. And this is where free speech starts when you speak about Palestine. Ladies and gentlemen, Min as many thousand Palestinian young women and and men travel overseas for education mostly for postgraduate education and they get into the most prestigious universities. It's an Ivy League in the case of Muslim Colombia the place that prides itself in being the place for free expression and debate. the place that says we allowed the fight against Vietnam war. We allowed the fight against anti-abaride uh South Africa but not anti-abat Palestine. At times some of the Palestinian students find a new home in a country they go to and they are surrounded by love and care like they do in like they are in Vermont. Like many new Americans, they contribute tremendously to the country they go to and they contribute to this country advancing knowledge, advancing science, advancing medicine, advancing engineering and space exploration. Just to mention a few things, but at times they are confronted with anti-Palestinian racism. Very painful and very hurtful. Surely that was my experience in Europe in the 80s. Somebody would ask me where are you from and I would say Palestine. They would say Israel. Palestine never existed. But when we come and when Palestinian people come to universities here, they come come carrying with them home, carrying them carrying with them their culture, carrying with them the pain inflicted upon their people for the last 100 years by European settlers who decided to create a home in Israel, a home of Israel, the state of Israel in 1948 as a home for the Jewish people at the expense of the Palestinian people. They carry the pain of their greatgrandparents, grandparents, their uncles and aunts, their parents, their brothers, their sisters, and their cousins. They carry the pain of the brutality of the Israeli military occupation and oppression for 59 years and counting. They come from the land of appetite and suppression to the land of a free speech and equal rights for all in front of the law. They come to the western civilized countries where free speech is granted unlike the univilized third world. And then comes the news of the genocide, the live stream genocide, the most horrific scenes of depraved and brutality and mass killing in human history. Some people did not want to see it. Some people saw it and turned away and some people deny it. And some people falsely support it up until today. Some hated it and did nothing about it. But some saw it and said, "No, this is not right. This is not right. And we will do anything in our power to stop it." I see many people in this room who did that. I don't know which part of that spectrum you fit in, but for Palestinians like, like me, like Wii, like Samya, I don't know if Samya is here, we scream in pain. We screamed in pain when we saw what's happening in Gaza and what's happening in the West Bank right now. And millions of people in this country, in this state, and around the globe screamed in pain with us, protesting the genocide. They were shocked by what they see. People unlearn the narrative and the the lies told to them by the media, the by the political establishment and the education system of all. And they see the truth as they explore for themselves. And once you see the truth, you cannot unsee it. Losing the narrative is an existential threat to the oppressors. And that is why the establishment goes full force against those who dare speak against the genocide. Based and Mahm are lawabiding citizens, residents, newcomers. They got imprisoned for deportation. Others were denied their degrees for which they worked hard for four years. Professors lost their tenures and some of them lost their jobs and many people in corporations lost their jobs because they dare to speak about the genocide and against the genocide. Today is here fighting for staying safe and we want him to be safe and we want him to stay in this state. The government wants to send him to Jordan where he has no roots, where he has no connections. And if the government succeed in sending him to Jordan, Jordan will hang him to Israel and he will not be safe. You already know what the Israeli torture camps do to the Palestinian political prisoners. You already see that the rape the the torture to death. You already saw that. I don't need to tell you more about it. So tonight, let us help Minim fight his legal battle against deportation. Let us be generous. But let us not stop at making this a charitable contribution and cause that we feel comfortable about and we feel good about. If we truly want to help Muslim and people like Muslim, we need to carry their message forward. We protect them by normalizing their message. Speaking against the genocide is a good human cause. SPEAKING speaking against appetite is a noble is a noble human cause and speaking for humanity and equality and equal rights is a good human cause. This is how we defend Muslim and those who are victimized by the government oppression. It's beacon for the rights of people to live and the right of people to dignity is not a call to undermine other people's right to life and other people's right to dignity. Speaking for the life of Palestinians is not speaking for the deaths of the Israelis. I hope that the last three years, the 1,000 days of genocide still continuing have given us a clear lens to see the truth about Palestine, the Palestinian experience. I hope we have gone through deep soulsearching and I hope that moving forward we will not allow the genocide to be buried in the archives of history and we will insist on accountability for those who defended it and those who promoted it in this state. Some of them are running some some of them are running for the state government. In Vermont, we take a pride being a progressive place, a progressive community that fights for protecting democracy, fights for immigrants rights and protects the environment, protects the LGBTQ rights, women rights, etc. But being progressive often stops at Palestine. This is sudo progressive. This is sudo progressive. If you cannot draw a line on genocide on a time and 80 years of war crimes against humanity, how can you draw a line against the destruction of the American democracy? How can we protect the America from the cle fascism? Genocide and apart are fascism in action. I hope we align our acts with our values whether you are in a community of faith or not. I will end up with a quote from the Unitarian Universalist Association web page on Basin Mdaw's courage and I quote, "Now more than ever, we know that hard work lies ahead and that people of good faith cannot stop while war rages on. and until all those who have unjustly have been unjustly denied their rights have their rights restored. And thank you very much. Thank you for a very speech. And now I have the pleasure of introducing our last speaker, a Palestinian organizer and advocate for human rights, a person who builds bridges across communities through empathy and nonviolence. His interest in Vermont's life and culture, the civil rights tradition, and his vision for reconciliation is truly extraordinary. May I welcome to the podium our honored speaker, our friend in Vermont for over a decade, and the person who has touched many of you with his life message and his story, our neighbor Mosad. Heat. HEAT. I have to remind you that the more you clap, the warmer the room would become. But what an honor. What an honor and a great joy to be with you, my people. And when I say my people, I reference Khalil Jubal Jibran. When he says whom is where you feel safe and loved and those who surround you, there are your people. And you are my people. You're my people, not only because of the safety and love, but also the healing that I experienced here in Vermont, the healing from the trauma of childhood, the healing of my inner child who saw his best friend Hida getting killed, shot and killed by an Israeli soldier in front of his eyes who saw his uncle on his 11th birthday laid dead saturated with blood. who collected people's body parts with his own hands at the age of 12 after explosions and who suffered many series of trauma including getting shot in my own leg at the age of 15 and many series of horror of explosions of bullets that just whistled around my head as a child. I come to this country from a refugee camp in a place I never imagined that anybody would ever think of me outside of the refugee camp. I come here with broken wings, with deep wounds. And the moment I arrive in 2014, those wounds started to surface. And who did I find around me? I found verters who welcomed me in their homes. And many of you I see here welcomed me in your homes. Healers who healed me through trauma therapy, through listening sessions, through hearing my story, through crying with me, through helping me to dream and to see a different world. When people ask me, "How could you how could you face all of this and stay rooted and calm and at peace and not be angry?" I tell them, "This is Vermont. Without that healing, I would have been reacting from a place of hurt, a place of anger, a place of fear. But that anger that I had when I was a child, the wounds, the resentment, the sense of revenge for all of the injustice that I saw as a child turned into compassion, into empathy, and into healing. So the way how I see you, I see you as an exemplars to the rest of the world. How humanity would look like a person who came with no language. I could not speak English well. I could not read actually a menu at a restaurant. A person who is a different color than the majority of the people here. a person who came with a different religion, a different experience, a different background. And what did you do? You welcomed me. I was homeless and you gave me home. I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me water. I was imprisoned and you visited me. The words seem familiar. This is love. Love is what you show and love what our worlds need to heal. To heal from this deep level of injustice. Love is to be here at this church that exemplifies who's in this room. Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, non-believers. This is a humanity because it comes in different forms and the message is one. a delusion and illusion that we are separated and we can be okay with that separation that the pain in Palestine is disconnected from the pain that we feel in our hearts when we go to bed when we watch the TV or when we read a story is just a lie. If one of us is hurting all of us are hurting. So this event tonight is organized and very grateful for my brother in in the struggle Eric and and the Jewish community and the Christian community and the Palestinian community, uh social action group of Beth Jacobs. I feel so touched having a Jewish thinker, a professor to coordinate this for a Palestinian refugee and to hear Jewish rabbis opening and speaking and drawing on their traditions and to be able to see Vermonters from every part, politicians and social justice advocates. It's rabbis as well and also my amazing legal team and David Cole when he came into the team I felt so empowered. I can just share with you how much it means to me. So what is what is this message sending to the world? It's not only a message of resistance. It's not only a message that we would not be silenced. It is also a message that our healing is shared. the healing from the deep pain of anti-semitism and the harm that was done to Jews over the years and over the centuries and the healing of the Palestinian people from the harm that is being done by Israeli Jews is not accepted and Israel does not represent Judaism because there is nothing Jewish about what Israel has The theme, the theme is love and healing because the ocean refuses no river. The open heart refuses no part of me. Even the parts that are causing us harm. Only through love we can convert people and bring them to change their perspective on the world. I hear earlier the issue when we think about enemies. It triggered something so deep in me that I realized early on after I started opening my eyes after all that fog of fear and pain and suffering and trauma started getting clear. And one of the first one of the first things I came to say and I did not understand it fully until recently that the human being is not an enemy. If there is an enemy, it would be that's my old saying, fear, segregation and ignorance. And the moment we break through fear, the truth will appear so simple, so clear. And the moment we break through segregation and we learn, we connect with the others. But recently, I redefined this understanding. In fact, there is an enemy. And the enemy is the systems that continues to entrench supremacy and inequality and injustice and uses one people, one group against the other. because because the oppressed and the oppressors are hurting and the system continues to blind us and to weaponize humans against the humans and to dehumanize everybody. So our path when we think about what's happening to me and to many others and when we think of this just like theme that the Trump's administration used there is myself there is Mahm Khal there is Dr. Consuri from Georgetown. There is Salah Salour. And now they're using it over and over. And what they're doing to the immigrants here, they forget that all men are created equal. They forget the humanity and the human rights that this country advocated for and started weaponizing and using in double standards. And they forget the ambition that humans us here and everybody around the world is waking up and asking for equal rights. So when we stand together and you've already given me so much love before that I know that I have it to sustain myself through the fight from here until victory until justice because justice is going to happen in this country and in PALESTINE >> when there are when they are weaponizing the systems here and causing injustice in America against anybody who disagrees with them. when they come after the most important amendment in the constitution, the first amendment that is called and named the first amendment for a reason and it guarantees the rights to express yourself whether it is speaking or praying or demonstrating. They are coming after our spiritual practice because how could we know and how can we form our ethics and our mo moral standards if we don't have access to the truth and the truth that I speak it's a personal experience that I went through and they try to silence it and what is going to happen if they win and they will not win and I trust that in my Because our love is much stronger than the money and the fear that they are holding to control us. They will not win. But what they are trying to do with this whole direction is to suppress our spiritual intuition that all humans are created equal and they have equal equal life and they deserve and they have equal dignity and that killing a Palestinian child worth not anything less or more than an Israeli child and a Palestinian human, a Palestinian person worth no more less or more than a Jewish or anybody else. And this is the truth that we say. We say that the colonial structure that has entrenched this apartheid, continued the genocide that has not stopped yet. 73,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza and more than 1,200 Palestinians killed in the West Bank, including four of my cousins since October 7. We're saying no to the system of supremacy and no to the system of violence and killing them hard. And when we see Jewish communities coming together to march for justice, to support justice, to support my case, the form of healing is related to the larger understanding that MLK has shared before. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Whether it's anti-semitism or anti-Palestinian rights or anti-lack or anti-immigrant, all forms of injustice are intermittent. And their attempt to silence us and their attempt to put us in fear and in to intimidate us is only creating more fire. A fire that brings us together, brings this warmth of the hearts and the and the weather too and brings our collective will that we will create a world in the 21st century to take this the prototype the Palestinian Israeli case and create a future that would become a model for everybody in the for a future of equality, a future of love. So, I'm here to reassure you that we will not give up and we will not surrender because this is a fight for humanity, the fight in America for justice, for democracy is the same fight for justice and liberation in Palestine. And I will close by saying that you've already given me your love. You don't need to give me my money or your money. This fight will affect millions of people in this country. 13 mill 13 million green card holders and millions of people immigrants on visas. And if they succeed with me or with the others, they will be able to create the tears, the two tiers of rights, which is a system of supremacy and discrimination. Don't be afraid. Don't surrender to fear. Reach to those who disagree with you and always treat them from a place of love. Love for justice, love for humanity. and love for peace. I see you. I hold you in my heart and I'm very grateful for you. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming tonight. Thank you for supporting Mosam. Please consider making a donation. Uh I want to thank again the social action committee of the Beth Jacob synagogue and our safety team that has done a wonderful job and for all of you for coming and Rabbi Grace will lead us out in an outgoing soul. >> We're going to sing as you leave. will be singing the song that we sang when Moses came out of imprisoned in loud time and that we'll keep singing as we shall over the long tradition of knowing that the world that we're building may take a long time but we will get there we shall over someday. Oh, deep in my heart. I believe that we shall overcome someday. We'll walk hand in hand. >> We'll walk hand in hand. We'll walk hand in hand. We'll walk in somewhere. in my heart. I do believe that we shall overcome someday. >> We are not afraid today. >> We are not afraid. We are not araid. We are not araid in my heart. I do believe that we shall overcome someday.