Crouch End Chavurah is raising money to support the Friends of the Bereaved Families Forum.

The Bereaved Families Forum was started by Yitzhak Frankenthal in 1995, a year after his 19-year-old son Arik was killed by Hamas. He declared that as a religious Jew he could not justify seeking revenge for his son’s murder. Despite his pain, he said, the only ethical response to the loss of his son was to try to prevent further deaths and suffering.

So he set about contacting other bereaved families, both Israeli and Palestinian, and persuading them that reconciliation was a better objective than revenge.

The Forum has now grown to 650 members, who have found a common purpose in sharing their stories and working to break down the barriers between their two communities.

In 2004, Forum member Aaron Barnea, whose son Noam had been killed in the Lebanon war in 1999, spoke at a meeting in London and some of his audience were inspired to set up a support group, the Friends of the Bereaved Families Forum (FBFF).

The FBFF is committed to supporting the Bereaved Families Forum (PCFF), a joint Israeli and Palestinian organisation made up of more than 1,000 bereaved families, all of whom have lost a close family member to the conflict. Instead of seeking revenge, they have chosen the path of reconciliation.

The Bereaved Families Forum believes that reconciliation is an essential first step towards a lasting peace.

Members of the Forum conduct educational, public and media activities to promote reconciliation between the Palestinian and Israeli communities.

For more information, please visit: https://www.familiesforum.co.uk/

Crouch End Chavurah is also raising money this High Holy Days for the chavurah itself to cover the costs of our activities and social justice work: https://www.justgiving.com/page/crouch-end-chavurah-hhd-2024