Cathy Hoffman was part of the non-violence training team for the 2024 Gaza Flotilla, the largest attempted flotilla since the Mavi Marmara in 2010 in which Israeli elite forces killed 10 participants. The 2024 Flotilla included more than 400 participants from Europe, the US, the Middle and Far East, and Australia bringing different traditions to bear to challenge the illegal blockade of Gaza. As a long-time nonviolence direct action participant and trainer, Cathy will share some of the inspirations and challenges in nonviolence from her work and this experience and her reflections on non-violence in an international context.

Cathy Hoffman is a Cambridge activist who has been part of liberation movements for social justice, and anti-militarism and US interventionism for decades and a Nonviolence Direct Action participant and trainer for more than 40 years. For 21 years, she directed the Cambridge Peace Commission, connecting local concerns of social justice with global peace-making efforts. She is a Member/Founder of the Cambridge-Bethlehem People-to-People Project and the Cambridge- El Salvador Sister City Project.  

Cathy says: "Living in a country founded on violence and white supremacy, I see nonviolence as a radical re-set – a way to recondition our patterns for a world yet to be. Believing in the power of nonviolence to “grow our souls” and embody our common and uncommon humanity, I have led workshops for youth, unions, anti-intervention solidarity workers, community and faith groups and elders on civil disobedience, nonviolence and direction action and have created a tool box of materials. Among many examples I have been arrested blocking a man camp at Line Three, in the trenches stopping the West Roxbury pipeline and most recently in the federal building in Boston calling for a permanent ceasefire and an end to the brutal US supported occupation of Palestine.

I am delighted to be supporting New Hampshire Peace Action and it’s tradition of this forum on peace and justice."

About NHPA’s bi-weekly Zoom Peace & Justice Conversation Series: 2020’s upheavals brought us to a new moment of reckoning and possibility. How do we want to live in the world? What do we value? How can we make the changes we’ve been yearning for? NH Peace Action has been engaged in working for change for decades. We’d like to bring you into these conversations about issues and options for the future.  There is no charge to attend, but your contributions in any amount are greatly appreciated.