The Israeli and Palestinian leaders of a coalition advocating for peace in the Middle East visited a Brookline temple on Wednesday with a message of hope.
Brookline community members gathered at Temple Sinai Brookline to hear from the co-directors of Standing Together, a progressive grassroots mobilization effort based in Israel.
“Politics is not a hobby or a performance,” said co-director Alon-Lee Green. “It is time to move from the symbolics to figuring out what will really solve the reality.”
While the organization has been pushing for political change in Israel since 2015, the current mission of Standing Together is to call for a ceasefire to the Israel-Hamas war to save Israeli hostages still held in Gaza and end violence against Palestinians in Gaza.
A tour across the United States, including the Wednesday stop at the Brookline temple and another at the Old South Church in Boston on Dec. 5, is a part of a multi-pronged approach to publicize the organization’s goals and gain support internationally.
Standing Together’s campaign has gained attention for creating its own media to showcase news that Standing Together organizers say mainstream media does not focus on.
“What we do is we create our own media, our own social platforms that people can follow, listen, see and join us,” said co-director Rula Daood, a Palestinian citizen of Israel. “Since the seventh of October we have been in the streets mobilizing people and demanding peace.”
The organization has also paid for billboards with the phrase “we all pay some kind of price” across photos of civilian atrocities. Additionally, Standing Together has organized aid drives and brought food to the border of Gaza.
For audience members, the speakers provided a bit of hope on a subject that continues to feel endlessly tumultuous.
“I support the work that the organization and the activists are doing,” said Nathan Young, a kosher food supervisor, noting that he was inspired when the co-directors visited last year weeks after the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7 in Israel that ignited the current conflict.
For Sophie Shnaper, a Greater Boston resident for over 40 years, it felt important to show up as an Israeli living in the United States, particularly in light of recent political events such as the re-election of Donald Trump.
“I believe that Bibi [Netanyahu] did not agree to a Biden deal because he was hoping for Trump’s return,” said Shnaper. “We know there is a tight relationship there.”
In addition to volunteering regularly with the local Friends of Standing Together chapter, Shnaper protests the violence in the Middle East by standing with peer organizers outside the Massachusetts State House every week.
The organizers of Standing Together are spread across over two dozen regional and student chapters in Israel. There are approximately 6,000 members of Friends of Standing Together, a network dedicated to supporting the movement around the world, which operates in eight countries.
“People look at us and say we are not doing the logical thing,” said Green. “Us together as partners? That is crazy.”
The organization believes that a mass movement funded by the grassroots is the pathway to peace.
“After the seventh of October it became so hard for people to sit in the same room,” said Daood. “But the common things are bigger than what they don’t agree on”
Correction: A previous version of this article mischaracterized the distinction between Standing Together and Friends of Standing Together. The article has been updated.