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Solidarity & Action for Palestine

Online Course & Community of Engagement

Facilitators: Eleanor Hancock & Chris Crass

Guest teachers: Huwaida Arraf, Sumaya Awad, Rabbi Alissa Wise, Jen Kiok, Rama Ali Kased, Jonathan Brenneman, Zue Jernstedt, Greg Stoker, Zaid Khatib and Aisha Nizar

Cosponsors: USCPR, Adalah Justice Project, Jewish Voice for Peace, Rabbis for Ceasefire, Catalyst Project, Highlander Center, SURJ, About Face: Veterans Against the War, Christians for Free Palestine, FOSNA, DSA International Committee, Labor for Palestine

“This course surrounded me with a community of caring people invested in thoughtful reflection and action. … If you want to move from isolation, overwhelm, and helplessness in this historical moment, take this workshop."

“As a result of this course I went out and found local activists who organize to take actions together. Each step brought me into more groups and relationships of camaraderie, and now I amtaking what feels like meaningful action nearly every day.”

- Study & Action for Palestine participants

The pressure to permanently end the genocide in Gaza, and the entire nightmare of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, is mounting. Cracks in the power structure are showing.

Now is not the time to relent. Now is the time to escalate & sustain. Join us!

Guest Teacher line-up:

Monday Nov 17 - kick off

Rabbi Alissa Wise w/ focus on organizing & basebuilding

Zaid Khatib of Palestinian Youth Movement w/ focus on AIPAC petition initiative

Monday, Dec 1 - focus on flotilla movement

Huwaida Arraf - Freedom Flotilla Coalition, International Solidarity Movement

Zue Jernstedt - About Face, Global Sumud Flotilla Veteran’s Boat

Sunday, Dec 7 - “bonus” session focused exclusively on history & analysis

Sumaya Awad - capitalism, socialism & Palestinian liberation struggle

Jen Kiok - historical Jewish resistance to Zionism

Monday, Dec 8 - local campaigns / People’s Arms Embargo!

Rama Ali Kased - member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine at SFSU

Aisha Nizar of PYM w/ Mask Off Maersk & Oakland People’s Arms Embargo

Monday, Dec 15 - organizing within your spiritual community, political home & workplace (+labor power!)

Jonathan Brenneman - Palestinian-American Mennonite, co-founder Christians for Free Palestine 

Muna Abhari - Palestinian artist, trade union organizer with the BDS movement, Africa & West Asia division member of the DSA International Committee.

  • Entering a third year of genocide in Gaza (slowed but not stopped under the pretense of a ceasefire,) our movements are responding to this moment with strength and conviction. Rather, we are making connections across continents and liberation struggles, calling out supremacy ideologies across the board and demanding an end to imperialist / fascist violence at home and abroad.

    In order to support the groundswell of organized, people’s actions for a liberated Palestine; inspire and gather together concerned individuals from all walks of life; strengthen the connective tissue between diverse movements & strategies; and act in direct solidarity with Palestinians on the ground who persevere in the face of all odds - Comrades Education is offering the following, five session Solidarity & Action for Palestine course as a continuation our Study and Action for Palestine series that began in 2024. 

    Facilitated by Eleanor Hancock of Comrades, with the support of beloved anti-racist educator & author Chris Crass, this course will once again host a diverse array of guests representing decades of cumulative experience confronting the genocidal machine of Zionism and fighting for the full liberation of Palestine.

    This season’s offering will place a special focus on strategic action, mobilization, base building and campaigns that participants can plug into and/or learn from in real time. 

    Primary guest teacher interactions will be held across four Monday evenings, keeping the time commitment short and accessible. In addition to these sessions that are focused on action, connection and camaraderie, Comrades will also host one longer Sunday session with an exclusive focus on a historical and political analysis of the circumstances surrounding the occupation of Palestine, the genocide in Gaza and the conditions that have made it possible.

    While the full guest teacher line-up can be viewed below, we are excited to welcome back: 

    New co-sponsors and collaborators this time around include the Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, About Face: Veterans Against the War and FOSNA (Friends of Sabeel North America).

    New guest teachers include Zaid Khatib and Aisha Nizar of Palestinian Youth Movement and Jonathan Brenneman of Christians for a Free Palestine.

    We look forward to serving you and your community by making connections; holding space for the cross-pollination of strategies and information about powerful, immediate campaigns; and providing support and camaraderie to keep all us nourished and engaged in this movement long term. 

    The pressure to permanently end the genocide - and the entire nightmare of the Israeli occupation of Palestine - is mounting. Cracks in the power structure are showing. Now is not the time to relent, but to escalate & sustain.

    May Palestine be Free … May the Liberation of Palestine Free us All.

“These times require each and every one of us to step up. Whether you’re new to activism or a seasoned organizer, this course provides a powerful community for learning and support for individual and collective action. I encourage everyone to take advantage of this resource.” 

- Huwaida Arraf

Course Details

Four Monday sessions:

Nov 17, Dec 1, Dec 8 & Dec 15

8:00-9:30pm eastern time

+ one Sunday session:

Dec 7 from 4:00-6:30pm eastern time

Live attendance is not mandatory.

Sessions will be recorded. 

Register now

Suggested registration fee: $75-325

No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Comrades Education is a US-based organization. We love having folks join us from outside the US, but you will need to do some translating between the work of this course and its application to your location.

Guest Teachers

Huwaida Arraf

is a Palestinian-American human rights attorney, activist and organizer who co-founding the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated International Solidarity Movement (ISM)

  • She has been involved in legal and grassroots initiatives for Palestinian rights for the last two decades, including co-founding the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and leading the Free Gaza Movement, which organized sea voyages to Gaza to confront and challenge Israel's illegal blockade of the strip. Huwaida was a 2022 House of Representatives candidate for Michigan's 10th Congressional District.

Rabbi Alissa Wise

was a staff leader at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) from 2011-2021 and is currently the Lead Organizer of Rabbis for Ceasefire.

  • The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) is a grassroots, independent movement that organizes Palestinian and Arab youth to struggle for Palestinian liberation. PYM draws from Palestinian revolutionary history, where the participation of youth in the national struggle has been central in leading and sustaining our struggle. We believe that Palestinian youth have a right and responsibility, even in the far diaspora, to be active participants in working to liberate our people and land from the river to the sea.

Jonathan Brenneman

is a Palestinian American Christian and Co-founder of Christians for a Free Palestine.

Sumaya Awad

is a Palestinian writer & organizer, and is the Director of Strategy and Communications with the Adalah Justice Project

  • SUMAYA AWAD is a Palestinian writer and organizer focusing on Palestine, anti-imperialism, Islamophobia, immigration, and labor. She is the Director of Strategy and Communications with the Adalah Justice Project, a Palestinian-led advocacy organization based in the U.S. that builds cross-movement coalitions to achieve collective liberation. Sumaya is also a cofounder of the Against Canary Mission Project and the co-editor of Palestine: A Socialist Introduction, released by Haymarket Books in December, 2020.

Zaid Khatib

is an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement and is a member of its DC, Maryland, and Virginia chapter.

Rama Ali Kased (EdD)

is an Associate Professor in Race and Resistance Studies in the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University.

  • JONATHAN BRENNEMAN is a Palestinian American Christian and Co-founder of Christians for a Free Palestine. He is a graduate of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, has worked in multiple countries doing Palestine advocacy, human rights monitoring, grassroots organizing, and challenging anti-Arab racism. Jonathan’s work connects the Palestinian decolonial struggle with those of other indigenous peoples, and challenges theologies of domination.

Jen Kiok

offers spiritual leadership within the context of grassroots community organizing efforts rooted in a commitment to collective liberation.

  • JEN KIOK is a queer white Ashkenazi Jew of Polish and Lithuanian descent, co-conspiring with her ancestors on the path to collective liberation. Jen is a mother, a daughter/caretaker, an ancestor in training, an educator, a community leader, a dancer and an ordained Kohenet. Jen served as ED of Boston Workers Circle, Center for Jewish Culture & Social Justice from 2015-2021. You can learn more about her current, spiritually focused work on her site Tending Sacred Portals.

Aisha Nizar

is an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement Bay Area and steering member of the Mask Off Maersk and Oakland People’s Arms Embargo campaigns.

  • AISHA NIZAR is an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement Bay Area and steering member of the Mask Off Maersk and Oakland People’s Arms Embargo campaigns. Through an internationalist framework Aisha specializes in dockworker and labor struggles, working to revitalize a grassroots global struggle against war, militarism, and occupation.

Zue Jernstedt

is a US military veteran and anti-imperialist activist organizing with About Face: Veterans Against the War who recently sailed on the Veteran’s Boat with the Global Sumud Flotilla.

  • We are Post-9/11 military members and veterans organizing to end a foreign policy of permanent war and the use of military weapons, tactics, and values in communities across the country.

    As people intimately familiar with the inner workings of the world’s largest military, we use our knowledge and experiences to expose the truth about these conflicts overseas and the growing militarization in the United States.

Muna Abhari

is a Palestinian artist, trade union organizer with the BDS Movement and a Africa & West Asia division member of the DSA International Committee.

  • The International Committee is guided by the DSA Political Platform and tasked through DSA convention resolutions and the NPC, DSA’s highest elected leadership body, with a mission to help DSA and its membership connect in solidarity with like-minded activists, workers, movements, and parties worldwide.

    Within DSA membership, we hope to contribute to international political education and to support the growth of international solidarity work in local chapters across the country. We additionally aim to support national campaigns for international justice and to help provide a network for internationalism for membership across the country.

    Internationally, we seek to serve as a conduit allowing comrades and interested parties from abroad to connect with DSA, either at the national or at the local level. We also hope to assist DSA leaders and membership to connect to movements and parties struggling abroad for racial, social, economic, and climate justice.

    Through this work, we aspire to present DSA to international comrades, both in the U.S. and abroad, as the pluralistic, multi-tendency, democratic socialist organization that it is, and to represent it on this basis.

Course facilitators

Eleanor Hancock

built Comrades Education (formerly White Awake) from a small website to an organization of national significance. As founder and director of the organization, Eleanor holds a strong vision for Comrades Education’s work, and has built a supportive team of leadership to guide it. Her leadership grows out of years of experience as an activist, academic, artist, educator, and mother of a multiracial young woman. For more on how Eleanor frames her work, you can listen to this interview on Upstream Podcast.

Chris Crass

is one of the leading voices in the U.S. calling for and supporting white people to work for racial justice. He works with community groups, schools and faith communities to develop leadership and momentum for social justice action. He was a founder of the anti-racist movement building center, the Catalyst Project, and helped launch the national white anti-racist network, Showing Up for Racial Justice. He is the author of Towards Collective Liberation and Towards the “Other America”. 

What participants have said about our courses

  • “I am so grateful for the language, the love, the empowerment, and the honest respect shown by the facilitators for everyone's experience. This is the kind of work I've been looking for. You have helped me feel so much less alone.”

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  • “This course helped me to feel more motivated to work in community and at a community level - that there could actually be meaningful change that comes from that kind of action."

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  • "Many of the activist spaces I have been in used shame tactics to bring people into the movement, and it was really meaningful (and healing!) for me to be in a space that instead focused on what we can do starting now and what our individual and collective capabilities are."

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This course is actively supported by our Advisory Council Members:

Katrina Messenger

Betty Burkes

Bonnie Duran

"Why do you charge for your work?"

We believe the work that we do is significant, and we want to do it well. To this end, we charge a modest fee for our online programs, and solicit donations from participants and supporters, in order to meet our financial needs. This allows Comrades Education staff and instructors to focus their time and energy on the educational work this project promotes, for the benefit of all.

Comrades Education and our instructors support a transition away from capitalism, imperialism and white supremacy; we support reparations to historically targeted groups, communities and Peoples; and we make our work available to all regardless of financial means.

If you have further questions, please contact: info@comrades.education