Tree of Life

Profile

Country/TerritoryUnited States
Websitehttp://www.tolef.org/
In their own words“a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation… established by The First Congregational Church of Old Lyme [Connecticut] to provide cross-cultural and transnational travel experiences, interfaith conferences and educational opportunities to help participants to become more enlightened and more engaged in making this a more just and peaceful world in which to live.”

Funding

  • In FY 2019-2020, total income was $139,502; total expenses were $123,989.

Activities

BDS Activities

Staff

  • Many of Tree of Life’s Board of Directors and Board of Advisors have documented histories of anti-Israel activities.
  • Mark Braverman
    • Braverman is the Executive Director of Kairos USA, an Advisory Board member of Friends of Sabeel North America, and board member of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions USA (ICAHD- USA).
    • Braverman has compared the Nazi Holocaust to the State of Israel, called Zionism a threat to Jewish identity and has “criticized the exploitation of Christian feelings of complicity in and guilt for the Holocaust to promote Zionism.”
    • Repeatedly refers to Judaism as “tribal,” “isolationist,” “exceptionalist” and to contemporary Jews as “paranoid.”
    • While speaking at a Sabeel conference, Braverman “claimed that Zionism is killing the soul of the Jewish people and that ‘some day we will be on our knees in contrition.”
    • Advocates supercessionism: “Christianity came to take Judaism, what was wonderful and revolutionary about Judaism – you know monotheism, one God, ethical monotheism – pull it out of its tribal framework and make it universal.  It’s obvious, that is where Judaism was supposed to go… the Jews said ‘thanks very much, we’re going to stay with what we have, we’re the Chosen People, we’re the Elect, thank you, thank you.’” (Statement at 2014 Friends of Sabeel-North America Workshop:  Toward a Post-Nakba Theology: The Urgent Role for Faith Communities to Bring About Peace Based on Justice). Click here to read quotes from Braverman’s speech at the workshop.
  • Allison McCracken Jarrar
    • McCracken-Jarrar, member of the Board of Directors of Tree of Life, is Amnesty-USA’s North American Campaigner, and formerly served as the co-director of CODEPINK – a leading BDS organization in the US.
    • In September 2016, McCracken-Jarrar was scheduled to speak at a Capitol Hill briefing titled “What is BDS?” The event was cancelled following the withdrawal of congressional sponsorship.
    • In September 2015, McCracken participated in a US Campaign for Palestinian Rights conference, giving a workshop titled “BDS 101: Building a Campaign.”
    • In October 2014, McCracken-Jarrar called for the US to stop funding Israel’s military stating, “Under President Obama, we’ve actually increased US military aid to Israel, up to $3.8 billion every year…we’re giving it to Israel, which is using it to buy weapons, mostly from American weapons manufacturers, to kill people in Gaza.”
  • Hassan Fouda serves on the of Board of Directors of Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD-USA).
  • Board of Advisors includes Ilan Pappe, Barbara Lubin (Middle East Children’s Alliance), Ann Wright (CODEPINK), and Mazin Qumsiyeh.
    • Ilan Pappe, is an academic at the University of Exeter and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. He is a supporter of BDS and violence against Israel, stating: “I support Hamas in its resistance against the Israeli occupation.”  Pappe’s article “Genocide in Gaza” refers to the “Palestinian resistance” and uses terms such as “imprisoning Gaza,” “massacres,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “genocide politics” to describe the actions of the Israeli government. In a 2014 lecture, Pappe claimed that a two-state framework is “just a tool where [Israel] maintains control over the [Palestinians].”
    • MECA founder and Executive Director Barbara Lubin wrote, “I think that the Jewish State is racist to the core.” Lupin refers to the 1948 “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population” and wrote that “[t]he concept of ‘Jewish morality’ is truly dead. We can be fascists, terrorists, and Nazis just like everybody else.” In January 2013, Lubin was a signatory on a statement titled “Jews for Palestinian Right of Return,” which stated that “relentless ethnic cleansing continues- armed and financed by the U.S. and its allies,” and discussed how “Israel inflicts particularly brutal collective punishment.”
    • Ann Wright is an activist with CODEPINK. Wright “was a boat leader on the 2015 Gaza Freedom Flotilla and…the Zaytouna, the Women’s Boat to Gaza in 2016.” In 2007, Wright was denied entry into Canada due to her participation in anti-war-in-Iraq protests. In February 2018, Wright spoke at an event sponsored by SabeelCODEPINK, and Jewish Voice for Peace in favor of BDS and the Freedom Flotilla.
    • Mazin Qumseyeh is the co-founder of the Al Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition and member of the steering committee of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Qumseyeh has engages in Holocaust-denial when he writes “in ‘democratic’ Europe there are countries were you can examine and challenge any historical event except the Zionist version of WWII history” (emphasis added). Qumseyeh has also written about how “the Zionist controlled media does not dare publish reality: what is happening on the ground to people.  The popular resistance is all but ignored by the self delusional right wing Zionists and their managed media outlets” (emphasis added).

Partners

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