Sumud

We are church for the sake of the world. Sumud is the ELCA Churches response to occupation and injustice in Palestine and Israel.

In Jesus Christ all of life — every act of service, in every daily calling, in every corner of life — flows freely from a living, daring confidence in God’s grace.

Freed by the transformative life of Christ, the ELCA is committed to accompaniment, advocacy and awareness-raising with our partners in the Holy Land and in the United States. For the past two decades that work was organized through the ELCA Peace Not Walls campaign. In October 2023 the ELCA announced that, following an in-depth review by ELCA staff and leadership from the Palestinian Lutheran church, Peace Not Walls would be renamed and reconfigured as a new initiative, Sumud: For Justice in Palestine and Israel.

Sumud is an Arabic word meaning “steadfastness.” The term is widely used by Palestinian theologians and others to signify Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and people. That resistance takes the form of nonviolent advocacy for political change as well as “resistance through existence,” embodied in education, social work, the arts and one’s relationships with the land and community.

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