Program DC Conference Oct 2009

Thursday October 1

5:00 pm

6:30 pm

Art on display: "Peacemakers".  Conversation with the Artist, Lee Porter.

Opening Interfaith Service
Rev. Wallace Charles Smith (invited), Rev. Naim Ateek, Imam Yahya Hindi, Rabbi Brian Walt and Ms. Ruba Estephen, Cantor, Antiochian Orthodox Christian tradition.

7:10 pm

Opening Plenary
Dr. Richard Falk, UN Special Rappporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Plenary Territories

Friday October 2

8:00 am

Bible Study - Rev. Dr. Derrick Harkins, Senior Pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, Washington, D.C.

9:00 am  

Understanding the Present, Framing the Future

Jeff Halper, Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Jerusalem

Nadia Hijab, Senior Fellow, Institute of Palestine Studies, Washington, DC

10:15 am

Parallel Workshops

11:45 (Box Lunch)

Dr. Ghada Karmi (invited) Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, author of Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine, and In Search of Fatima

1:30 pm

Panel: The Exodus, the Promised Land and a Promised Peace: Are Religious Texts Holding Back our Voices?

Dr. Rosemary R. Ruether, theologian and scholar, visiting Professor of Feminist Theology at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University

Rev. Bea Morris, Womanist thealogian, UCC minister, Ph. D. candidate  

Dr. Andrea Smith, assistant professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Riverside

Rabbi Brian Walt, Co-coordinator, Ta'anit Tzedek - Jewish Fast For Gaza

3:15 pm

Parallel Workshops

5:00 pm

Book signing with authors

6:00 pm

Dinner

Rev. Naim Ateek, President and Director of the Sabeel Ecumenical

Liberation Theology Center, Jerusalem

8:15 pm

Najla Saïd reading her play, Palestine

Saturday October 3

8:00 am

Bible Study- Bishop Forrest C. Stith.  Bishop in Residence at Ashbury United Methodist Church, Washington, DC

9:00 am

Lessons from the Civil Rights Movement, Intifada and the Anti-Apartheid Movement

Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Civil Rights Movement activist, co-founder of Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee, currently Distinguished Senior Scholar at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia

Dr. Mary King, Distinguished Scholar with The American University Center for Global  Peace, a Rothermere American Institute Fellow, University of Oxford, U.K., and author of A Quiet  Revolution

Speaker (TBD)

10:30

Parallel Workshops

11:45 (Box Lunch)

Three Women Speak – Partners for Peace

1:45 pm

Raising Voices of Conscience

Dr. Rosemary R. Ruether
Dr. Tyrone Pitts (invited), General Secretary, The Progressive National Baptist Convention

Jim Fine (invited), Board Chairman, Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP)

Rev. Richard Toll, Chair, Friends of Sabeel - North America

2:45 pm

Parallel Workshops

4:00 pm

Where do we go from here?

Phyllis Bennis, Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, and author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer

George Rishmawi, Coordinator of Siraj, Center for Holy Land Studies, Beit Sahour; co-founder International Solidarity Movement

Ali Abunimeh, co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

5:00 pm

Closing  Rev. Naim Ateek