Letters - 01 May 2026
From all aboard to the new book of discipline
All aboard?
Paul Hodgkin (‘Prometheus, Moloch and Gaia’, 17 April) imaginatively helps us understand our response to the climate crisis, citing myth, Freud and TS Eliot to find understanding and hope. Insightfully drawing upon a range of sources, he makes his case that we have to give up our long-held belief in the powerful role of humanity on Earth. Many authorities, including Christian, have for centuries asserted our dominant rights. An ideal of progress has been a western cultural force for a long time.
We are, as Paul says, all afloat on the same blue planet. But we are not all in the same boat: the majority have no flotation aids at all, and a greedy few have palatial mega-yachts and private jets. We certainly need to find out what love demands of us to help counter this massive imbalance.
Gillie Bolton
Antisemitism
The issue in Israel/Palestine is not one of antisemitism or anti-Zionism, it is one of legitimacy. Israel is a legitimate state with a right to its peace and security, but the Palestinians have never accepted this, instead posing as victims of ‘settler colonialism’.
The Palestinian Quaker Jean Zaru advocates nonviolent resistance to ‘occupation’. By this she means not just the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 war, but the whole of former British Palestine, ‘from the river to the sea’. We know this because she has resisted Israel since 1948 when as a youngster she organised a boycott of the newly-created state.
The prospect of a settlement was remote even before the attack by Palestinian paramilitaries on 7 October 2023. Now it is completely out of the question and the blame rests with the Palestinians, their intransigence, and their false narrative of victimhood.
Mark Frankel
In the News section of 17 April, Rebecca Hardy’s ‘Friends join march against the far right’ presented the demonstration as a broad, inclusive stand against extremism. But this event deserves far more scrutiny than it has received. The coalition behind it has a troubling convergence of illiberal causes.
Among those participating were groups openly calling for the elimination of the state of Israel. This goes far beyond legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and into the territory of endorsing national destruction, strongly opposed by Yearly Meeting’s minute on Gaza. Alongside them were factions expressing sympathy for the Ayatollah regime in Iran, a government responsible for the imprisonment, torture, and killing of tens of thousands of its own citizens in this year alone
Equally concerning to me is the presence of trade unions and women’s organisations that support the inclusion of men in women’s spaces, and even on women-only shortlists, eroding hard-won protections that address sex-based inequality.
What binds these disparate elements together is not a coherent vision of justice, but a shared tendency to label dissent as ‘far right’. This flattening of debate has profound consequences. If liberal politics is to retain credibility, it must recover its commitment to open debate and principled consistency. Otherwise, it risks becoming a banner under which reactionary ideas march unchallenged.
Ol Rappaport
Food for thought
In the February edition of the Friends Quarterly, Alison Morgan suggests that eating meat might be ‘Quakerly’. As a vegan farmer of forty years who shared his land with some rare breed cows, I fully understand the arguments regarding carbon and soil health.
But those few of us who cannot live by killing others are not the problem.
Just as Britain outsourced industrial production and carbon discharge, we have outsourced meat and milk production to poorer countries. The demand for cheap meat, rather than the tiny number of Quaker vegetarians, is the cause of the decline of cattle in our fields. Do not let the imperfect be the enemy of the good.
John Myhill
New book of discipline
Further to the discussion of the proposed title to the revised book of discipline, it is the ‘our’ that, to me, does not accord with the testimonies of truth and of equality, and is more simplistic than simple.
In Mary Woodward’s article on the Quakers in Britain website (www.quaker.org.uk/blog/a-new-title-for-a-new-book) she parses the ‘our’ thus: ‘It’s “Our” way because it’s not the only Quaker way – other Yearly Meetings do things differently.’
This rationale is not at all clear from the proposed title. Partly, that is syntax: there is an ‘in Britain’ at the end of the subtitle, but the two need to be closer to make it clear that Britain is the context.
I’m not against this revision. In fact it would be good because, in our current book, ‘Britain’ is also at the very end of the title, and in very small print. This is in contrast with books of discipline from everywhere else, which put their location front and centre. This suggests that Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) still has the core text, which is not right – it will be resonant of Britain’s colonial past to the many readers around the world who still read the BYM book much more than we read any of theirs.
But that was not my first thought. That was: how does the ‘Our’ read? ‘Our’ as a first-person plural is a ‘clusive’ term: it either includes or excludes. As a title, it co-opts the reader – until they realise they’re from a different Yearly Meeting? Or maybe it immediately excludes the reader, because they aren’t a Quaker so the book isn’t theirs?
And worst of all, it is a rhetorical device. It is an emotional appeal. It serves to skate over differences within a group. That is both implicitly not how groups work, not even religious groups – there is as much variation within a religion as between them – but, further than that, explicitly not how Quakers work, who have no creed or dogma.
And more to the point, this is overtly not how Quakers approach difference. We consider we may be mistaken, and hope that revelation is ongoing.
There is not only one way per Yearly Meeting.
Eliza Howarth
I share Neil Morgan’s reservations about the proposed title for the new book of discipline. The word ‘Our’ suggests an inward-looking organisation resistant to new ideas and new blood, the very reverse of what we need to be doing.
The adjective ‘Our’ also has a sinister history of exclusion and secrecy, perhaps best expressed in the title of the Italian Mafia cosa nostra, which means ‘our thing’.
What could be more innocent and meaningful than that we have a shared faith, and try to express that faith in practice?
Clive Ashwin
I have been saddened to see the recent letters on the proposed name for the new book of discipline. The Friends tasked with the revision have worked hard, in careful discernment, as will BYM when the draft finally comes before us.
I myself was delighted to see the new title. Our Quaker Way is short, simple, and not off-putting to enquirers And, Friends, we have not lost faith! It will be there in the subtitle, still on the cover, an expansion of the short title, just as the text itself will expand on the many expressions of our faith, as well as our practices.
I know that it can be difficult to let go of names and passages that are dear to us. It was so with the last revision and I’m sure with all those before. But a living body embraces change, otherwise it gradually becomes obsolete. I hope that when we see the full text in the autumn, we will do so with open minds, knowing that it can never be exactly what any one of us would choose ourselves. Our current Quaker faith & practice will still be with us for use personally and in our Meetings as we feel moved, even as, I hope, we embrace Our Quaker Way as a book – our book – for the twenty-first century.
Jennie Osborne
Comments
I read Jennie Osborne’s letter with interest . What is “obsolete ” about having Faith in the title of our book ? ( “A living body embraces change ,otherwise it gradually becomes obsolete ” . I don’t understand this . what is obsolete about this ?
By Neil M on 30th April 2026 - 14:28
I need to point out that both the letters published under the title Antisemitism are un-Quakersly, offensive and not about Antisemitism.
By Phil Laurie on 1st May 2026 - 9:23
Phil Laurie. The editor decided the title under which he chose to publish our letters. I may not be a Quaker as you are a Quaker, but I am nevertheless a Quaker.
By Ol Rappaport on 1st May 2026 - 11:59
Ol Rappaport’s letter is not only unQuakerly about a march where there was a great deal of joy, moderation, and support for the internationally recognised government of Iran against an unlawful and unjust attack, but also unQuakerly in that he calls trans women “men”. This is clear from the context. Ol, apart from cleaners, maintenance staff, etc, which I hope you would have no objection to, there is no support for “men” in women’s spaces. What there is is recognition that trans women are women. Quakers, apart from Ol and a few other loud and disruptive voices, recognise that when we transition trans people express our inner light. Unions recognise that trans people after transition are expressing our true selves, who we really are. So, many unions, and as Ol says women’s organisations, recognise that trans women are women, trans men are men, and nonbinary people exist.
As well as repeated, rebarbative, sententious and questionable accusations of antisemitism in letters and comments, Ol repeatedly expresses prejudice against trans people. I am trans. Why should I open The Friend and have to endure Ol’s ignorant, false claims that trans women are men, week after week after week?
Abigail Maxwell
By katemackrell@mac.com on 7th May 2026 - 12:53
On “Antisemitism” (1 May), I have met Jean Zaru, resident Clerk at Ramallah FMH) thank you a QVA Retreat in 2019. I have also read her book “Occupied with Nonviolence”, which I recommend to all.
I believe Ms Zaru is better qualified than Mark Frankel to comment on antisemitism.
I remember Jean Zaru telling us that a particular source of frustration is those, mainly from the USA who call themselves Christians but believe that violence against Palestine will help bring about the day of judgement, when they will be swept up to heaven in The Rapture. I have heard that the US vice-president is sympathetic to that troubling viewpoint.
By DilysCandler on 8th May 2026 - 10:33
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