Editor’s note: Post From Community is the place for community announcements and event postings. If you have a community-oriented event you feel our readers would be interested in, please submit here.
By Eleanor Harris
Milwaukee Friends Meeting (Quakers) is organizing the Ride for Gaza fundraising concert July 30, 2025 featuring Milwaukee singer-songwriter Yonat Piva. The funds raised will support the American Friends Service Committee’s Emergency Response in Gaza program which includes a team in Gaza delivering humanitarian relief.
The concert is timed to coincide with the July 30 Milwaukee visit of Bob Sanders, founder of the Ride Against War on Gaza, as he rides cross country raising awareness of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, raising humanitarian aid, and lobbying Congress to end support for the war on Gaza.
Fundraising concert for Gaza
Milwaukee musician Yonat Piva is a singer-songwriter guitarist who performs under the stage name Dovekeeper. Her songs vary from introspective acoustic tracks to new blues rockers to indie soundscapes. She performed around the San Francisco Bay Area before returning home to Milwaukee and has shared the stage with artists such as post rock musician Fink and singer-songwriter Foy Vance. Her songs are held together by a message of reflection and empowerment which also communicates her journey from being a veteran in the Israel Defense Force to her vision for justice and peace in Palestine. She returns to the stage to share new music along with her well-loved songs written over a decade ago. Speaking of Sanders’ Ride for Gaza, Piva said, “I am inspired and encouraged by Americans and especially Jewish folk who are speaking out against the Israeli government’s destruction of Gaza, killing of Palestinians and the erasure of Palestinian culture and identity. I was raised here in the Milwaukee Jewish community on the values of equity, justice and tikkun olam (repairing the world). The music I find myself writing now speaks to the responsibility we have to see past our own pain and trauma and build a bridge to envision a future where fear and vengeance are uprooted on both sides of this horrific conflict.”
Bike-ride for Gaza
Sanders, a 70-year-old retired journalist, is on a solo ride fifty years after he accomplished a similar feat when he was in college, memorialized in his first published piece in Newsday. After leaving May 28 from San Francisco, CA, Sanders will arrive early September in his home state of New Hampshire after biking 4000-plus miles on this Ride Against War on Gaza (RAW-GAZA). This is RAW-GAZA’s third tour after two bike rides through New England and down to Washington DC, but the first solo ride. (Update: Sanders suffered a concussion after accidentally being hit by a car in Idaho. He hopes to pick up his ride in mid-July in Minnesota. Either in person or via zoom, he will join in the concert.)
After retiring in 2023, Sanders became an activist and brushed up on his long-distance biking skills. He founded Not in My Name-NH, a diverse group of New Hampshire Jews who advocate for a just solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, one that recognizes the rights of all to live in dignity with self-determination and security. “I feel compelled as Jew to speak out considering what the Nazis did to us,” Sanders said. “How can I then remain silent when a Jewish nation is systematically destroying and starving an entire population of two million people with my tax dollars?”
Event details
What: Concert for Gaza with Dovekeeper and meet Bob Sanders
When: Wednesday, July 30, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Milwaukee Friends Meeting, 3224 N Gordon Place, Milwaukee, WI 53212
$25 donation is suggested but any amount is welcome.
Sponsors
National sponsors of RAW-GAZA include American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action and Veterans for Peace. In addition to Milwaukee Friends Meeting, local sponsors include Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition, Peace Action WI, Jewish Voices for Peace-Milwaukee, and Veterans for Peace-Milwaukee,
American Friends Service Committee was founded by Quakers in 1917, AFSC works with communities worldwide to challenge injustice and build conditions for lasting peace. They are steadfast in their commitment to nonviolence and belief in the transformative power of love to overcome conflict and oppression. The 1947 Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to AFSC and the British Friends Service Council, in recognition of the work of all Quakers worldwide to heal rifts, tend to the wounded, and oppose war. AFSC started working in Israel and Palestine in 1948 when the organization was asked by the United Nations to respond to the needs of those displaced during the 1948 war. Today, from their offices in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Gaza, AFSC works to realize a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis while addressing urgent humanitarian needs on the ground.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
