A longtime peace activist will share her experiences in the peace and justice movements in Palestine on Tuesday, Oct. 9.
Salmon Arm Kairos and the Shuswap Inclusion Project have invited Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta to talk to us about the peace and social justice movements in Israel/Palestine.
Kaufman-Lacusta recently published a book on this topic, with the title, Refusing to be Enemies.
Kaufman-Lacusta is a Quaker-Jewish activist who lived in Jerusalem for seven years (1988-95), during which time she participated in a variety of anti-occupation and solidarity groups, and took a particular interest in the practice and promotion of active non-violence and joint Israeli-Palestinian endeavours.
One of the founding members of the Action Committee for the Jahalin Tribe (ACJT) and a participant in the Hebron Solidarity Committee, Kaufman was also part of a small collective that offered non-violence training workshops during the early and mid-nineties attended by both Jewish and Druze activists in Israel, as well as one for the ACJT and other interested Jahalin.
She has visited Palestine and Israel 10 times since her return to Canada, most recently in March and April 2012, when she participated in the March 30 global march to Jerusalem and other nonviolent actions, mainly with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
Kaufman-Lacusta is currently a member of Vancouver Women in Black, as well as the Vancouver branch of Independent Jewish Voices-Canada.
She was also active in the local International Solidarity Movement group in its early years and was a part of the Vancouver-based Nonviolent Direct Action Training Collective early in the 2000s.
Although not academically affiliated, Kaufman-Lacusta has written widely on Palestinian and Israeli non-violent activism and related topics and in 2007 presented a paper at the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) entitled The Potential for Joint Struggle, which is an examination of present and future participation by Israelis in Palestinian nonviolent resistance to the occupation.
She also presented an abbreviated version of her book in a workshop session at the October 2010 conference of the Peace and Justice Studies Association.
Kaufman-Lacusta has undertaken extensive speaking tours—in Canada and the US and, most recently, in the UK and Ireland, promoting her book and disseminating information and updates on nonviolent activism in Palestine and Israel.