Richard Forer is a Jewish American author and activist based in New Jersey. He is the author of Breakthrough: Transforming Fear Into Compassion – A New Perspective on the Israel-Palestine Conflict (2010) and Wake Up and Reclaim Your Humanity: Essays on the Tragedy of Israel-Palestine (2020), which won the New York City Big Book Award. In a podcast appearance, Forer discusses his journey from being both an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPIC) member and a believer in Zionism to a supporter of Palestinian rights. He speaks on issues of global suffering, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and how to achieve justice for all.
In Wake Up and Reclaim Your Humanity, Richard Forer tells the story of a lifelong supporter of Israel who underwent a remarkable spiritual awakening in which he realized he was as much Palestinian as Israeli or American. The book encourages readers to look at the history of the Israel-Palestine tragedy and offers a path that leads to freedom from false beliefs, enemy images, and the illusion of identity to equal rights for all people and a just peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
Writing about the book, American businessman Sam Bahour describes Forer as “the second person who has come my way who is Jewish American, a former member or employee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and educated themselves on the Palestine and Israel that their upbringing consciously hid from them…. Richard chips away at his journey of being re-educated as an adult on Palestine-Israel. The book intertwines the author’s personal story, with news stories of the time, along with a dose of the history of the issues being discussed, all to shed the light that showed him the truth.”
Museum curator Steven Feldman conversed with Richard about his books and experiences in these two interviews: https://promisedlandmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Forer-1-zoom_0.mp4
Watch these two videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dRhBlwmlFI
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rich-forer-4b6312a
Learn more about Richard Forer at the Promised Land Museum.
