The Friend

Pales: a living testimony

A few years ago I went to Woodbrooke, the Quaker study centre, for a weekend run by the Kindlers. I found myself sitting next to Lynda Williams and in our introductions to each other told her I was moving to Shropshire. She told me she was from the Pales. Clearly, I was meant to know what that meant but I was new to Quakers and ignorant of most things.

Interview: Catherine West

Could you talk about your background?

I grew up in Sydney. My parents were Anglicans and I attended a Methodist school for girls in Sydney. But I felt that experience did not reflect the whole circle of views and the world I was living in – the culture and society of Sydney. It was a conservative approach to faith and belief.

My parents were both in education and very committed to learning as a route to freedom. I also think this is what education is about. My first love at school was languages; an ability with languages ‘slipped off the tongue’ for me. My degree was in languages and social work. I wanted to speak different languages and live in different communities. I think speaking a language opens a door to a culture.

Building a movement for peace

On 21 January 2017 unprecedented women’s marches all over the world showed great rivers of hopeful and powerful humanity resisting the ominous growth of exclusive nationalism and the corporate monster eating its own capitalist tail. How, though, can Quakers contribute to a global grassroots movement for peacebuilding, and sustainable human life with justice?

Friends with Jewish connections

A few years ago, at a Holocaust memorial meeting in Brighton, I told the woman sitting next to me that, although Jewish in origin, I was a Quaker. She looked at me disapprovingly and announced that Quakers were anti-Semitic. Needless to say, I found this shocking. I was then told that there had been an article in the Jewish Chronicle under the title ‘How Quakers turned Spiteful’. According to this article, Quakers used to be friendly to Jews, but the new generation of Friends with their constant criticism of the state of Israel changed their attitude. The minute from the 2011 Meeting for Sufferings, concerning a boycott of goods produced in the Occupied Territories, and the later statement of Yearly Meeting in 2014 held in Bath, on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, increased this antipathy.

From the archive: Prisoners

In its 8 June edition the Friend reported that Yearly Meeting 1917 had sent a message ‘To Our Friends Imprisoned for Conscience Sake’. It read:

We thank God for the faithful witness you are bearing to the truth, and to Christ’s Gospel of love. We rejoice that strength has been given to you to bear all hardship cheerfully and bravely. We stand by you, and long that you may know how closely we associate ourselves with you. We know that the sacrifice you are making will not be in vain, but will be richly rewarded both in your own souls and in the service and help of mankind. Such was the price paid by our forefathers, in their more bitter day, in their great struggle for religious liberty. We rejoice to know that many of you have been able, like William Tewksbury, to enter ‘prisons as palaces, and to esteem their bolts and locks as jewels,’ and that you have been upheld by the presence of One whom no bars can keep out.