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This multi-episode series features voices of speakers, leaders, and activists working for peace with justice in Palestine and Israel, recorded during my May 2025 trip to the West Bank and Jerusalem. Among them is Jeff Halper, a 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who offers thought-provoking insights into what a path toward peace might truly require.

Through these conversations, you’ll hear the compassion and dignity that people—especially Jeff—bring to the sacred land we call the Holy Land. Many dismiss peace with justice in the Middle East as impossible, citing history, conflict, and deep divisions.

Yet alongside those realities, there is also hope: hope rooted in the belief that we are all God’s people, called to trust in something greater than ourselves, and to risk a holy vulnerability that makes room for compassion, respect, and understanding—even toward those we might once have called “other.”

For more information on Jeff Halper, the books he has authored, the non-profits he helped to found and the activism he works for justice, compassion, and peace, visit:

www.ICAHD.org

Common Table Podcast UMC is produced by Rev Dr Robin Blair. This series of episodes was blessed with the engineering talents of: Will Russell, Sandy Hey, Andy Malcolm, and John Bagale.

The Common Table Podcast UMC is supported by the Creation Justice Team (part of the UNY AC UMC General Board of Global Ministry) and Peace with Justice for Palestine/Israel (also UNY AC UMC). Our focus is on Creation Justice, Creation Care, and the urgent need for peace with justice—recognizing how climate change and war disrupts the health of the Earth and all living things. We seek to prayerfully respect and love the creation we were born into, caring for all that lives.

We invite you to join us for conversations rooted in justice and compassion. Every episode is produced by volunteers, and we publish as often as we are able.

Our mission is to lift awareness, foster education, and encourage faithful action within the human community—in the name of Christ.

Hosted by Rev. Dr. Robin Blair.

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In our May 2025 podcast series recorded in the Holy Land, we had the privilege of sitting with award-winning journalist Gideon Levy, who shared with our group profound truths from his decades of reporting. As a seasoned writer covering Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, Levy offers a perspective that cannot be ignored. He speaks plainly about what he has witnessed and challenges listeners to look beyond the narratives shaped by commercial Western media. He does not spare his Israeli colleagues, criticizing their silence in the face of colonial realities unfolding at the expense of Palestinians. With conviction, he asks how any of us can live with ourselves if we remain passive in the face of genocide.

This series of episodes has been supported by Peace with Justice in Palestine/Israel of the UNY AC UMC

Sandy Hey, Andy Malcom, Robin Blair, engineers

The Common Table Podcast UMC is supported by the Creation Justice Team (part of the UNY AC UMC General Board of Global Ministry) and Peace with Justice for Palestine/Israel (also UNY AC UMC). Our focus is on Creation Justice, Creation Care, and the urgent need for peace with justice—recognizing how climate change and war disrupts the health of the Earth and all living things. We seek to prayerfully respect and love the creation we were born into, caring for all that lives.

We invite you to join us for conversations rooted in justice and compassion. Every episode is produced by volunteers, and we publish as often as we are able.

Our mission is to lift awareness, foster education, and encourage faithful action within the human community—in the name of Christ.

Hosted by Rev. Dr. Robin Blair.

Send us a text

Rev. Ashraf Tannous is a young Christian Palestinian pastor, recently installed at the congregation of Christmas Lutheran church in Bethlehem, with a deep passion for the Lord, a powerful gift for preaching, and a compassionate heart for the people of the Holy Land. As one whose faith roots and historic lineage reaches back to the first Pentecost (Acts 2), he believes it is God’s desire for all people to live together in peace in this sacred land.

He is keenly aware of the vulnerabilities around him and lives in the tension of watching the international community — and the global church in particular — remain silent while people are murdered, dismissed, and beaten. He has seen olive groves, cared for through generations, burned to the ground — not only by military forces, but also by civilians known as “settlers” who illegally seize land legally owned by Palestinian farmers and families who are offered no legal recourse in the Israeli legal system. As he says, "living is very hard right now", but that, "we are to love everyone", and he is asking for our help in prayer and purpose.

Rev. Tannous calls us not only to pray for peace but to take part in the sacred work of building it — for Palestinians and Israelis alike — for all human beings created in God’s image and worthy of God’s grace.

https://christmaslutheran.org

The Common Table Podcast UMC is supported by the Creation Justice Team (part of the UNY AC UMC General Board of Global Ministry) and Peace with Justice for Palestine/Israel (also UNY AC UMC). Our focus is on Creation Justice, Creation Care, and the urgent need for peace with justice—recognizing how climate change and war disrupts the health of the Earth and all living things. We seek to prayerfully respect and love the creation we were born into, caring for all that lives.

We invite you to join us for conversations rooted in justice and compassion. Every episode is produced by volunteers, and we publish as often as we are able.

Our mission is to lift awareness, foster education, and encourage faithful action within the human community—in the name of Christ.

Hosted by Rev. Dr. Robin Blair.