Jeff Halper in Canada Nobel Prize Nominee and Israeli Peace Activist Speaking on the Siege of Gaza

Thursday, January 22nd, 1:00 pm - Free admission
Ryerson University, Student Centre, Room A/B 55 Gould St.

Thursday, January 22nd, 7:30 pm - $10 / PWYC
The Winchevsky Centre, 585 Cranbrooke Ave. (off Bathurst, north of Lawrence)

Friday, January 23rd, 7:30 pm - $10 / PWYC
Bloor Street United Church, 300 Bloor St. W (at Huron)

Jeff Halper, an Israeli human rights activist, anthropology professor, coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize nominee will be in Toronto as part of a cross-Canada speaking tour.

In August of 2008, Halper arrived in Gaza by sea as the only Jewish-Israeli member of the Free Gaza Movement. _When we finally arrived in Gaza after a day and a half sail, the welcome we received from 40,000 joyous Gazans was overwhelming and moving," says Halper. "People sought me out in particular, eager, it seemed, to speak Hebrew with an Israeli after years of closure._

While in Gaza, Halper received honorary Palestinian citizenship, including a passport. He returned to Israel through the Erez checkpoint. Upon arrival, he was immediately arrested and jailed at the Shikma prison in Ashkelon, charged with violating a military order prohibiting Israelis from visiting Gaza.

Halper will be talking about how Canadians can participate in peaceful resistance against the Israeli siege of Gaza and occupation in the West Bank. He will be visiting universities, churches and Jewish community centres in Toronto, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Victoria.

The tour is sponsored by a national movement of progressive Canadian Jewish groups and others. Sponsors include Independent Jewish Voices Canada, United Jewish People's Order, Yosher -Jewish Social Justice Network, Science for Peace, Canadian Friends Service Committee, Canadian Auto Workers, Kairos and the Canadian Arab Federation.

Bio - Jeff Halper
Jeff Halper is an Israeli human rights activist, anthropology professor, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), a non-violent Israeli peace and human rights organization created to resist the Israeli occupation.

Born in the US , Jeff moved to Israel in 1973. For more than a decade, he worked for the municipality of Jerusalem as a community worker in the city's poor Mizrahi Jewish neighbourhoods. Eventually, having done research among Ethiopian Jews in the 1960s, he became the chairman of the Israeli Committee for Ethiopian Jews.

During his mandatory Israeli military service, Jeff refused to bear arms or serve in the occupied Palestinian territories. In 1997, he co-founded ICAHD to challenge Israel's house demolition policies which have caused the dispossession of thousands of Palestinian families since 1967

An anthropology professor, Jeff has taught at universities both in Israel and abroad. In addition to his many academic and political writings, he is the author of Between Redemption and Revival: The Jewish Yishuv in Jerusalem in the Nineteenth Century (Westview, 1991) and Obstacles to Peace, a resource manual of articles and maps on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, published by ICAHD.

His new book, An Israeli in Palestine (Pluto Press, 2008) describes Jeff's evolution from a young Zionist immigrant into a staunch opponent of the occupation and champion of Palestinian human rights.

In 2006, Jeff was nominated by the American Friends Service Committee for the Nobel Peace Prize, together with the Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Andoni. Last year, he was the only Israeli Jewish participant in the maiden voyage of the two siege-breaking vessels of the Free Gaza Movement

For more information on the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, visit: www.icahd.org/eng