Sept 11th, 2025, Letter to GreenFaith Boulder County on Starvation in Palestine

From: Lodi Siefer
Date: Thu, Sep 11, 2025 at 3:12 PM
Subject: GreenFaith Boulder County and Starvation in Palestine
To: Current and Most Recent Past GFBC Organizing Committe Members
Cc: Micha K. Ben David 

Hello current and past GreenFaith Boulder County Organizing Committee members,

I hope this email finds you as well resourced as you can be as the intensity of these times is increasingly felt. I so appreciate each of your hearts and dedication to this earth, its peoples (human and otherwise) and your spiritual callings.

I'm writing because of the recent post Bonnie made to the GreenFaith listserv referencing Lifeline for Palestine and People Against Genocide Everywhere that broke through the earlier line I had been part of making - a line in keeping out communications and resources calling for a ceasefire or stopping the Israeli violence toward Gaza - keeping those out of the GreenFaith listserv. 

This line was communicated to Bonnie on Oct 22, 2023 in an email from me, copying Sam, after communication with Sam and Chris Allan, as the three of us were holding the moderator role for the listserv at that time. (The text of that email can be found at the very bottom of this communication.) In October 2023, I had the sense, from being on the newsletters for various local Jewish congregations, that anything in support of Palestine and Palestinians would be received as anti-Israel and therefore anti-Jewish. Our organizing committee, which had no Jewish members, had been working hard to grow relationships with Congregation Har HaShem, Nevei Kodesh and Bonai Shalom and their climate and justice efforts and I was afraid of alienating them.

It is now almost two years later and the conditions have worsened beyond belief, heavily funded and defended by my and our tax dollars. If you haven't been following the situation, here is a well-researched info page to learn more.

Given what has unfolded in the past almost two years, I regret being silent on the GreenFaith listserv as long as I have been, and I regret silencing voices that might have informed people I care about (the people on the listserv) sooner. I was in communication with Bonnie on a personal level but didn't know how to make a case for including Palestinian liberation and stopping the genocide with climate justice.

When I told Micha Kurz, my other half at the Hive and a consultant to the GreenFaith Boulder County organizing committee, about Bonnie's recent post 9/9 and Donna's following apology 9/10, he wrote the following letter (here and below) and asked me to share it with the listserv. 

I am starting with sending Micha's letter to you all with the request that it get shared with the full listserv. Micha would like to be added to the listserv as well (thanks for your help with that Chris - I'll email that request separately as well since it's buried here).

I will add that I am very concerned about what's happening in Boulder around the June 1st attack - that no one has used the word anti-zionist and even our faith clergy in a recent Daily Camera opinion have circled around the term anti-semitic when the person himself called it anti-zionist. 

The distinctions are incredibly important - being against genocide does not mean being antisemitic. That Israel is committing war crimes in the name of Jewish people feels like it would stir anger and resistance in the Jewish community, and yet, I have not seen that happening. I am confused and troubled by this. I would like to understand more. I will be reaching out to people on the listserv that I have built relationship with to learn more. 

I wonder if GreenFaith might have a role here in building understanding. I know Micha would be happy to support such efforts. He's copied here. 

Thank you for your time, love and attention.

With love and solidarity,
Lodi

Micha's Letter to GreenFaith Boulder County Community here and below:

Subject: To GreenFaith Boulder County: Courage Means Speaking Up
Date: 9/11/2025

Dear GreenFaith Boulder County Community,

As an Israeli Jew living in Boulder County, I want to thank Bonnie for her courage in speaking out. Finally, someone within this organizing network has connected the dots that desperately need to be seen together: the genocide unfolding in Palestine, and the systems of violence and erasure that also shape our lives here at home.

I was born and raised in Israel. Growing up on the streets of Jerusalem during the First Palestinian Intifada, and serving in youth leadership and then as a combat soldier during the Second, I have witnessed this conflict from many sides. I’ve gone to my share of funerals following bus bombings. I’ve encountered both violent and nonviolent Palestinian resistance. I’ve stood at checkpoints. I’ve conducted midnight raids through random family homes. I’ve arrested children.

I know what it looks like when a government dehumanizes a population so thoroughly that oppression becomes routine. I know what state-sanctioned violence looks like, because I participated in it- before I understood what it was.

So let me say this as clearly as I can: opposing genocide is not antisemitic. It is, in fact, the most Jewish act of faith I can think of.

And yet, here in Boulder County, we are watching faith-based leaders remain silent- or worse, align themselves with power. Recently, at the JCC, in what was presented as a healing vigil decrying violence, local clergy stood in solidarity with a representative from the most extremist right-wing Knesset in Israel’s history, singing the Israeli national anthem- while Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Palestinian voices calling for a ceasefire were once again excluded from the public conversation.

This is not what solidarity looks like. It is not what justice looks like. And it is not what faith looks like.

If we were truly paying attention- especially in our Jewish communities- we would be deeply alarmed by the rise of violent religious extremism in Israeli politics, media, and the streets. True love doesn’t mean blind support. It means having the courage to hold up a mirror and stop the violence being done in our name.

The silence- or polite avoidance- we’ve seen from faith communities, including GreenFaith, has not just caused irreparable harm to the Palestinian people. It has also done damage to the Jewish people, by allowing us to become complicit in devastating violence, while shielding us from accountability through false narratives of loyalty and fear.

I was especially disheartened to see GreenFaith respond to Bonnie’s message not with reflection, but with a formal apology for naming the truth. That moment called for a deeper conversation- not a retreat.

Environmental and climate justice are meaningless if they do not include racial justice, decolonization, and the liberation of all people. The same systems that destroy the land under the guise of profit are the ones that bomb Gaza, that allowed the NAACP to collapse here in Boulder- a city with less than 1% Black population- that enable ICE to raid mobile home parks in the dark. These are not isolated issues. They are interconnected. The climate doesn’t care about our categories. The violence is structural- and so must be our resistance.

GreenFaith’s silence on Palestine is not just disappointing- it’s a moral failure. Now is the time for leadership rooted in courage, not fear. For faith-based communities to speak with clarity, not caution.

I’m asking, pleading, for faith leaders in Boulder County to, please, step forward. Not just to make statements, but to take risks. To challenge the false narrative that opposing genocide is the same as opposing Jews. To stand up for the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially then.

And to my fellow Jews: it is not antisemitism to demand an end to war crimes. It is a mitzvah. It is a reclaiming of our traditions, from the hands of the governments and ideologies that have weaponized them.

I know I’m not the only one who’s been sitting with grief and discomfort. I believe many in our faith-based communities have felt this deafening silence, and the moral tension it carries, for a long time. So I want to encourage us all- genuinely- to speak up. To move past our comfort. To act. To take a stand for justice- for everyone.  To me- it is what it means to be Jewish. What does it mean in your faith?

I will stand with you. I’m here to talk, happy share what I’ve seen, and to listen. Whether it’s about Palestine, policing, climate, or organizing for what comes next- I’m ready. But I’m not interested in polite avoidance dressed up as interfaith harmony. I want truth, accountability, and community with teeth.

Thank you again, Bonnie—for daring to speak when others wouldn’t. Your voice mattered. It still does.

In solidarity,

Micha K. Ben David
Israeli | Jewish | Boulder County Resident
Former Israeli Military Combat Soldier
Still practicing faith by telling the truth

Communication in October, 2023, from Lodi (cc Sam, Chris) to Bonnie explaining why her posts were not approved:

Sun, Oct 22, 2023
Dear Bonnie,

Thank you for your recent emails - sharing your heart and the contacts as resources. I’m also deeply troubled by the violence and heartbroken at the ongoing suffering of both Palestinians and Israelis and the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in Gaza.

Sam Randall, Chris Allan and I have been in conversation about the posts. 

As moderators for the list, we try to be mindful of the religious diversity of our community, the challenges of political debate in an e-mail forum, and our general practice of keeping content mostly related to climate action. 

This doesn’t feel, to us, like the right forum for your initial email call-to-action given those constraints, however, this offering from Pocket Project seems closer to the typical resource sharing that happens in the group, though it, too, is not directly climate related. 

For this painful and important topic, we’d suggest sending either/both emails directly to people you know rather than to the listserv and asking them to share with their circles. 

I’m happy to talk more about this with you if you would like. Email can be so limiting in terms of tone and back-and-forth. I so appreciate you being part of this community and taking up my invitation to post to the group and hope that for climate-related calls to action and opportunities you will continue to do so. 

Many well wishes,
Lodi