2012 – UNJPPI Gathering

Last updated on January 2nd, 2025

First Conference (2012):  Setting up structure and Agreeing on Mission / Getting Started

Conference Details

Date: October 19-21, 2012

Location: United Church of Canada offices, 3250 Bloor St. W., Toronto ON

Conference Summary:

Supported by worship that engaged our hearts, minds and spirits we accomplished many things.

  1. We reviewed our structure and agreed on the thrust of the mission statement. We wrote General Council Executive to clarify our relationship with the church and to find ways to collaborate.
  2. We built commitment to the work of the network, and have action suggestions related to our four teams.

Education Team: Co-leaders: Kimberly Roy and Pat Mercer

Advocacy Team: Leader: George Bartlett (looking for Co-Leader?)

Partnership Team: Co-leaders: Dianne Baker and Jan McIntyre

Communication Team: Leader: Curtis Marwood with support from Desmond Parsons, Diane Blanchard and Donald Dale.

  1. We built partnerships. It was helpful to have the Moderator with us for 6 hours on Saturday. We heard from representatives of Canadian Friends of Sabeel, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle-East, KAIROS, Muslim Unity. Bruce Gregersen from General Council staff also spoke to us. We continue to benefit from the experience of the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. and appreciated the wisdom of Carol Hylkema. We spent time with Independent Jewish Voices members on Sunday afternoon. And Brian McIntosh spoke at the IJV meeting on Saturday.
  2. We continued our personal learnings. Some of us were able to take in 2 talks at IJV. Yakov Rabkin has an excellent paper entitled “Religious Roots of a Political Ideology: Judaism and Christianity at the Cradle of Zionism”. We watched an articulate and engaging speech by Miko Pelad outlining the history of Israel from 1947 and the conversion of his family to peace-making following the death of his 13 year old niece. (A link to this video is on our website).
  3. We made progress on a strategy for economic action, and hope to mount a limited campaign by late November.
  4. We supported Eva as Jim Manly was taken prisoner by the Israeli government and wrote the Moderator asking for a public statement.

Economic Action:

Our principles are:

  • We will work with our partners on this including IJV, KAIROS, and CJPME.
  • We want to identify a product that is available across Canada. We are leaning towards Ahava which is sold in Rexall. It has also been identified by the Presbyterian Network in the U.S. and by BIAC in Vancouver.
  • In order to have something that people in small towns can do we want to initiate a letter-writing campaign to the federal government to get the settlement products labelled. This is important as the Israel Canadian Free Trade Agreement is being re-negotiated soon.
  • We want solid research behind any call we make.
  • Prior to the Christmas season we want one or two products identified.
  • We want the action to be based in United Church policy.
  • We need to create a many-pronged strategy and that will be the work of the Advocacy Team in connection with the Co-ordinating Team.