Joint Memorial Day Ceremony: grieving together, fighting for a shared future
The 21st annual Joint Memorial Day Ceremony took place on 20 April. UK Friends of Standing Together branches throughout the UK cosponsored screenings of the event. Here, we republish reflections from Standing Together's national co-directors Rula Daood and Alon-Lee Green.
Yesterday [20 April] brought us to tears and filled both of us with so much hope at the same time. We held over 30 screenings of the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day ceremony hosted by the Parents Circle – Families Forum and Combatants for Peace in locations across the country, with rooms full of Jews and Palestinians in Nazareth, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Hod Hasharon, Rosh Pina, and so many other locations. Our community spaces, called Purple Houses, were completely full and in Tel Aviv there were so many signups that we had to rent out an additional space to fit them all.
Even though the ceremony was available for streaming at home, thousands of people showed up to watch it together in person, and they told us how meaningful it was for them to be in these shared Jewish-Palestinian spaces. Our Purple Houses offer people a political home as well as a place to build solidarity and partnership and are so important in creating community. Help us continue to offer these spaces as activist and community hubs by donating now:
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Not only was the evening powerful because it brought out thousands of people to grieve together and to commemorate the lives lost on this land, it was also a way to transform pain and sadness into solidarity. Acknowledging our shared grief is important, and it can move people to action. Because we know that the only way forward is a shared fight of Jews and Palestinians, together, against the occupation and for real Israeli-Palestinian peace. This is the alternative to the unbearable reality of forever war we’re in.
No one, not Jews or Palestinians, is benefitting in this reality. Palestinians face deepening occupation and an ongoing humanitarian crisis, and Israelis are not getting any safer as our government continues its forever war. All of us are concerned for our future.
But none of this is inevitable. Last night showed us how many people crave the kind of society we’re building everyday – a society in which we live together with dignity and safety in a shared homeland.
This is the future we’re fighting for, and it’s the future we will achieve. There’s no other way forward.
Posted 25 April 2026