We stand with Palestinians & are adopting additional policies
We would like to inform you about our position on Palestine and how it shapes our work and visitor policies, so that you can prepare yourselves and consider this issue before coming to Tamera as guests.
As a community, we stand for nonviolent liberation from all oppressions. That is why we affirm Palestinian needs for self-determination, equity and return and don’t see them at odds with the needs of Jews or any other group in the region.
We affirm that what’s been happening in Gaza is a genocide that builds on decades of occupation, apartheid and settler colonialism. Given the magnitude of the violence being perpetrated; the fact that Western governments and economies are proactively supporting the genocide and the occupation; the significant number of Israeli (ex-)soldiers that visit Tamera; and the fact that we have Palestinian community members; we’re now choosing to implement further policies in Tamera that aim to cut ties of complicity and create a safer space for Palestinians.
By the Tamera Community, December 18th, 2025
Tamera’s analysis of violence and injustice has focused mainly on the systems of patriarchy and capitalism – with a particular focus on the collective trauma underlying both. It’s from this understanding that we’ve researched into becoming a cultural model for community and healing in love and sexuality.
Our ethical principles
- We’re working for nonviolent liberation. We believe that each life is sacred and that all beings deserve to live in safety, freedom and dignity, independent of their identity. While we mourn that there are situations in which nonviolent action seems hard or even impossible, we believe that cruelty can never bring us closer to peace, justice or security. That is why we’re committed to creating conditions for a nonviolent culture, to supporting pathways for nonviolent liberation and to dismantling systems of oppression whenever possible. We’ve consistently applied this ethical position to this context and many other crisis areas. One example is our statement from directly after October 7, 2023.
- We engage with nuance and complexity: We acknowledge the pain on all sides, that all pain and all grief deserves safe spaces to be expressed, witnessed and healed and that the suffering is generally distributed in a grossly unequal way between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. Acknowledging the systematic oppression and erasure of Palestinians doesn’t invalidate the suffering of Jewish Israelis from the ongoing violence and inherited traumas. However, we believe that this pain must not be compared to the suffering of Palestinians under ongoing genocide, occupation and apartheid or can in any way justify and excuse violence against Palestinians. We emphasize: Our position against genocide, occupation and apartheid isn’t a stance against Israelis or Jews, rather we take a stand for life. See, for example, the statements by Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews Demand Action, Rabbis for Ceasefire or B’Tselem.
- We’re committed to healing and restorative justice. As members of the Tamera community, we are committed to inner peace work; to understanding and transforming the toxic patterns in ourselves, with which we cause harmful impacts on others. As an emerging Healing Biotope seeking nonviolent transformation, we aim to heal harm, to support survivors and to facilitate restorative justice processes. We’re committed to the liberation of all – both oppressed and oppressor, victim and perpetrator. Knowing that those who harm others compromise their own humanity through dehumanization and committing violence, we’ll support them – given their willingness and us having the capacity – to acknowledge and mourn their actions and to commit to repair and nonviolence. Please follow this link for more information about Tamera’s approach.
Our policy and practices so far
- Institutional boycott: We haven’t and won’t ever engage in partnerships with Israeli state institutions, the military, and corporations complicit in occupation. We’re actively avoiding cultural and academic exchanges that normalize state-funded institutions and we have and will not purchase goods or services from companies complicit in occupation and genocide.
- We’re amplifying Palestinian voices, teaching about their history and present reality, and sharing the principles of nonviolent resistance and international solidarity.
- We’re extending material solidarity through financial support and scholarships.
- We’re holding restorative rituals, grief and healing circles that support hearing of impacts, acknowledging and mourning the actions that led to them, while affirming the humanity of everyone involved.
New guidelines for visitors and partnerships
While we will continue with these practices, we’re now updating our visitor policy as well. Facing the unprecedented violence and debasement of humanity which the Israeli state has imposed upon Palestinians, it’s become morally indefensible for us to remain ambiguous on this issue.
Our stance also comes from the understanding that the genocide isn’t over, but has merely changed form since the ceasefire of October 10, 2025: Israel continues to attack and kill Palestinians daily, to block essential aid from entering and to deprive Palestinians from the most basic conditions for life, while the winter has arrived and the world believes there’s “peace.”
- Welcoming people: We’ll continue to host and train individuals of all nationalities. We intend to evaluate Israeli citizens who apply to our programs based on how they show up individually and on their institutional affiliations – not on nationality.
- We don’t tolerate justifications of genocide, occupation and apartheid on our land – just as we reject antisemitism. You don’t need to think like us to visit but using our public spaces to justify the erasure of peoples is something we can’t accept.
- Israeli (ex-)soldiers and employees of complicit institutions wanting to visit Tamera: We welcome those who are willing to commit to nonviolence and to step out of such roles in the future, including refusing reserve duty. We do this in order to create a safer space for Palestinians within Tamera, and because we recognise that our current lack of capacity to accompany visitors without this commitment — in a way that would lead to truth-telling, repair, and a commitment to nonviolence — would make us complicit in normalising genocide.
- At the same time, whenever we have the capacity, we want to support people who do not yet have such a commitment in moving towards one. For this reason, there will be specific programmes in which this commitment will not be a condition of enrolment, and in which facilitation teams will be prepared to accompany Israeli (ex-)soldiers and/or employees of complicit organisations in this way, should they sign up. We will clearly communicate this in advance of enrolment, so all visitors can make a conscious choice about whether or not to participate.
- For those who have been directly or indirectly involved in the genocide and occupation, we strongly encourage engaging in truth-telling, restorative dialogue, mourning of impact, repair and restoring relationships – and we will seek to support them as much as we can. We are considering offering a specific event for Israelis who want to engage with this work.
- We will not host speakers who defend genocide and settler colonialism: We will only invite people to speak at or co-facilitate our events who are aligned with our ethical principles and position.
- Willingness to listen to Palestinian voices. While we aim to offer spaces of encounter in which each person will feel safe to share their experience in vulnerability and trust, we will prioritize Palestinian voices and offer spaces inviting Palestinians to share the impacts of genocide, apartheid and occupation because their voices continue to be silenced, suppressed and distorted in many parts of the world. You’re welcome to Tamera if you’re willing to participate in those spaces. While we recognize the immense suffering and trauma that have led many Israelis to support the current acts of genocide and all that has preceded them, we see demands for a “balanced” view as denying the extreme power differences between Jews and Arabs in that land.
With all this, we hope to create more clarity for everyone involved and to create a safer space in which healing may become possible.