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AJ Juraska
July 6, 2025
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org
At the 2024 General Assembly, UUs adopted an Action of Immediate Witness titled “Solidarity with Palestinians,” yet many UUs have remained relatively quiet on the subject of Palestine. What do our values tell us about what is happening in Palestine? Join AJ Juraska as they explore how our UU values help us move past silence into solidarity.
Chalice Lighting
This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.
Call to Worship
THIS FAITH
By Heide CottamLet us be a faith that gathers, reaching for one another
through the walls of hate others build,
through the cages of ignorance and arrogance,
and through the fear that burns city streets.
Let us be a faith that sees a vision of a better world:
More compassionate, more just, more holy,
And with more love.
There is a faith that binds up the broken,
cauterizes battle wounds with the balm of peace,
sings longer and louder than the trumpets of war –
let us be that faith, too.
Let us be the ones who do not tread lightly in this world,
but light it up with our love,
who hold up the mirror of worth and dignity,
who are the sanctuary others seek.
But first:
Let us be a faith that worships together.
Here.
This morning.
In this space.
At this moment.
Let us be a faith.
Affirming Our Mission
Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.
Reading
I SIDE WITH THE PEOPLE
Rev Drew PatonIf ever they ask you,
“Which side are you on?”
Tell them, plainly,
“I side with the people.”
With the precious ones, all, the integral,
the soft and the fierce, irreplaceable,
the beloved, if only
by God and trees, who were born,
who breathe and survive;
Say I side with those who keep watch,
beneath the bright screaming arc of bombs;
with those who hide in dark doorways
or who through the moonlight flee;
with those who stay and fight,
and with those kept up all night,
by hunger and grief and terror and rage,
by desperate, unruly hope;
who are good and green at the root;
who are more than the worst that they’ve done;
who do their best to love, and still pass on
the hurt in themselves that they hate.
But what
when they take sides ‘gainst each other?
The people – against even themselves?
Side with whatever is human in them,
what is fragile and feeling and flesh.
Side with the truth of our stories.
Side with the fact of our pain.
Side with defiant insistence on freedom
Side there again and again.
Side there today and tomorrow.
Side there the rest of your life.
Side there together, until we belong
each one to every other.
If ever they ask you,
“Which side are you on?”
Say, “It doesn’t work like that.”
Tell them you side with the people.
And abide where the people are at.
Sermon
I don’t know about you, but I have been told to avoid politics and religion at the dinner table.
Israel and Palestine is high on that list of things we learn not to talk about.
In middle school I did learn about the Holocaust in social studies. I had wonderful teacher who was himself Jewish. One of the things he taught us was how easy it is to create the conditions that happened in Germany leading up to the holocaust. How easy it is to be on the side of oppression.
I took a class in college on genocide, and that professor also pointed out how easy it is to fall in line when someone asks you to do something. We are trained to be people pleasers. We don’t like going against the grain.
In other words, I learned at a young age how any of us could fall prey to compromising our values and ultimately harming others. It’s one reason why I’ve tried to speak out when I see injustice – I refuse to be completely subsumed by systems of oppression like patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, ableism, etc.
Because even when it’s difficult, we need to stick to our UU values.
I learned about Judaism growing up, but I didn’t learn much about Israel and Palestine. My earliest memory of anything to do with Palestine was when I was with some Jewish friends and we saw a group of people protesting for Palestine. My friends reacted with disgust. I didn’t know what to make of it, because it was my first experience even learning about Palestine.
I didn’t think much about it until a college class was offered on Israel and Palestine, and it piqued my curiosity.
It wasn’t until that class that I heard a perspective from Palestinian people. I learned about the Nakba, which happened in 1948 and was the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from their land. 750,000 people were violently forced from their homes.
It was in hearing a balanced history – one that included both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives – that I became more concerned about the conflict. But for a long time I didn’t know what I could do, so I did nothing. When the topic came up, I occasionally shared my perspective, but I was typically not the one to initiate conversation.
To be honest, it wasn’t until October 7th that I started to think more about how I could personally do something. As soon as I heard about the attacks on Israelis, I felt terrible for those who were hurt, killed, and taken hostage. And for all Israelis and Jews who felt the impact of that attack, whether they were directly affected or not.
But I also knew that this could mean devastating things for the Palestinians in Gaza. And I feared for what was to come.
I started to learn more about the Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, or UUJME, which has a mission that states that they work to, quote, “counter inequality and injustice in Palestine-Israel.”
UUJME has practical ways for people to get involved – some of which we’ll talk about later – and I started learning more from people locally and nationally about how I could help make a difference.
Because even when it’s difficult, we stick to our UU values.
I know we all come here today with different information. So I’m going to share some background.
Let’s start with who we are as UUs. Because we have a long history for taking a stance, even when it is difficult. During World War II the Unitarian Service Committee was committed to humanitarian efforts to help those escaping Nazi Germany. Martha and Waitstill Sharp started the Unitarian Service Committee in mid-1940, well over a year before the US entered the war. They did this difficult and dangerous thing because it was the right thing to do.
During the civil rights movement, when many white people were unwilling to participate or even speak out, many UUs got involved, putting their lives on the line because it was the right thing to do.
Because even when it is difficult, we stick to our UU values.
There’s not enough time today for a long history lesson, but what is important to know is that the Israel Palestine conflict has its roots in white supremacy, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. World powers like Great Britain and the US actively fueled this conflict from the beginning. These world powers supported Zionist efforts to establish a state in Israel because they did not want to have to accept more Jewish refugees in their own countries, a not-so-thinly-veiled form of antisemitism.
But let’s not lose focus on today. Because depending on the source, anywhere from an average of 100 to 250 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza every day since October 7th.
And the violence is not limited to Gaza. In addition to the 2.1 million Palestinians living in Gaza – which is approximately the geographic size of Austin – there are around 3.3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
I’m going to use the word apartheid today to describe what is happening to Palestinians. I’m going to use that word because it means segregation plus violence, which is an accurate description of what is happening on the ground. For example, in the West Bank roads are separated into those that Palestinians can drive on and those Israelis can use. Schools are segregated. Israelis have access to clean water, while Palestinians are collecting water on their roofs. Garbage collection is segregated – with East Jerusalem having no or inadequate trash collection as compared to other parts of Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is 61% Palestinian compared to other areas that are predominantly Israeli.
And beyond the segregation there is also violence against Palestinians whose livelihoods, homes, and lands are regularly attacked. Bulldozers knock down houses of Palestinians who are still living in those houses. Livestock are stolen. People are disappeared.
Settler colonialism is another term used to describe what the Israeli government is doing in Palestinian territories. Settler colonialism is not new. In fact, we Americans know it well. It’s what happened when Europeans came to Turtle Island, saw land that they wanted and took it, without regard to the fact that people were living here already.
The Zionist plan has been settler colonialism because the earth was already pretty well populated when they set about creating a Jewish state. It’s one of the reasons that people like Albert Einstein were for Jews to move to Israel but were against the creation of a Jewish state. Einstein and others knew that there were indigenous people living there already. People we now call Palestinians.
Even as I say all of this, I feel some fear because I know that I may be criticized or told that these are exaggerations, even as I know I stand on firm ground as to the truth of what I am saying. And using words like apartheid, violence, and settler colonialism is scary in part because we know that people have been targeted for using such words.
So what does it mean if we don’t talk about this issue? Does our silence make it go away?
How do we support Jews being free from persecution while at the same time advocating for Palestinians to have their human rights respected?
How do we hold that by using words like genocide and settler colonialism to describe what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza and the West Bank, some would claim antisemitism?
Is it better to be perceived to be “good” for not speaking out, or would we rather stick to our principles and speak out for those who are most marginalized? I would suggest, that when we are dealing with complicated questions, we must turn to our values for answers.
Because even when it’s difficult, we stick to our UU values.
What do our UU values say?
LOVE – we can love all our Jewish and Palestinian neighbors. It’s not a zero sum game where we can only love certain people – love exists in abundance. As Adam Serwer wrote for The Atlantic, “It’s not antisemitic to want equal rights for all in Jerusalem, in Tel Aviv, in Gaza, in Ramallah.”
Love means we see people’s worthiness and dignity. We see everyone’s right to live safely, with ready access to food, water, health care, and other things they need to survive and thrive.
Love also means that being anti-genocide is not the same as being antisemitic. Love calls us to speak out against genocide and hold our Jewish siblings in love at the same time.
JUSTICE says “We work to be diverse multicultural Beloved Communities where all thrive.” Where all thrive. We want Jews, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Israelis, and Palestinians to thrive. What is happening right now is not thriving – for anyone involved. And it is not just.
EQUITY says “We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” People are surviving despite the blockade on water and food, but it is hard to flourish under those circumstances. Apartheid is dehumanizing. We can hold people in compassion and take action to make the world a more equitable place, including when it comes to Palestine. We’ll talk more about how to do that in a moment.
PLURALISM – we honor both Jewish and Muslim people, and Judaism and Islam as religions. Apartheid breaks pluralism down; apartheid inherently separates.
We remember that there are Christian Palestinians and that no group is a monolith. We also remember that there are a plurality of viewpoints among Jews, including both Zionist and anti-Zionist beliefs, but Zionism has taken a hold in America, in part because of Christian Zionism which says that Jews must go back to Israel in order for Jesus to come back. In other words Christian Zionists see Jews as a pawn in their work to ensure Jesus comes back. Not to put too fine a point on this, but Christian Zionists believe that Jews have to die for the second coming to happen, and then, they believe, Jews would go to hell. Sounds pretty antisemitic to me.
Christian Zionism is also a component of Christian Nationalism. So the Zionism that we are seeing from Christians is tied to the efforts we’re seeing to get the Ten Commandments in classrooms and to couple church and state together.
INTERDEPENDENCE – we remember that we are interdependent with what happens around the world. Suffering continues whether we pay attention or not. The genocide in Palestine is on our hands, whether we like it or not. Also, if anyone in the audience needs another reason to care, genocide is ecocide. The land in Gaza is being destroyed. Additionally, the carbon released by the bombs being dropped is accelerating the climate crisis.
Last but not least, GENEROSITY – this says “we cultivate a spirit of gratitude and hope.” Let’s start with gratitude. For those of us in this room who have been doing this work a little longer, please have patience with and gratitude for those who are just now joining us. Hold space for those who are struggling with harmful beliefs and remember that you once may have struggled too.
Generosity talks about both gratitude and hope. Just because what is happening in Palestine feels intractable doesn’t mean we lose hope. There are ways to help. So let’s talk about what some of those things are.
Because even when it’s difficult, we stick to our UU values.
To learn more about the actions I’ll be sharing, we will have a table of information in Howson Hall after the service. I encourage you to take at least one of the following actions.
First, pay attention to what fuels the military actions and boycott those groups. There’s a group called Austin Against Apartheid that has a website that is austinagainstapartheid.com/boycott, but you don’t have to scramble to write that down because you can get more information about Austin Against Apartheid after the service in Howson. Their website will give more information about what products to boycott, including Chevron, Texaco, Coca Cola, Sodastream, McDonalds, and more. You can also sign on as an individual to commit to being apartheid-free.
Individual actions are good, but organizations boycotting is even more impactful. Consider helping us explore whether First UU could join 234 faith-based communities around the country in becoming an apartheid free zone. This would mean that First UU would commit to not supporting the businesses named in the boycott. Consider whether your business or organization might become apartheid free as well. Talk to Rev. Carrie or I if you want to get more involved in what is happening at the church.
Pay attention to what is happening. Read diverse sources of news, and not just American news sources which often soften what is really happening. Follow our own Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, also known as UUJME for more information.
Contact your congressional representative to express your concern about the genocide and ask that the US stop sending military aid that fuels the conflict. Call on the US to play a larger role in stopping the conflict. Speak out about your concern about the blockade of all food and water aid which has been going on since March 2 and is leaving Palestinians in Gaza on the brink of famine.
Donate to American Near East Refugee Aid, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and other charities to help get aid to Gaza.
Because even when it’s difficult, we stick to our UU values.
We learned the wrong lesson if “Never Again” after World War II was limited to certain groups.
And we do disservice to our UU values if we stay silent or do nothing out of fear. If we want to lead on social justice, this is how we do it – even when it is unpopular and we fear retribution.
It becomes safer if we do it together. The more people who speak out, the safer it is, especially for the people most impacted (immigrants, college students, Palestinians, etc.)
What would it look like if we all told the military industrial complex involved in this genocide, enough is enough. No more killing, no more land grabs, no more apartheid.
Many who were involved in ending the system of apartheid in South Africa thought that it was going to take much longer than it did. Even when it felt impossible, change was happening, and enough change made a difference.
Let’s imagine a world with peace, even when peace seems impossible. It won’t be possible unless we try.
Because even when it’s difficult, we stick to our UU values.
Extinguishing the Chalice
We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.
Benediction
May we see a vision of a better world.
May we side with the people.
May we stick to our UU values.
And together, may we build the beloved community.
Amen and blessed be.
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