Santa Barbara Friends Meeting (Quakers)

04/19/2026

Quaker Tapestry!

We're thrilled to hear that the Quaker Tapestry will be made available to the public again from 6 May.

We're also thrilled that FWCC trustees from Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, El Salvador, Australia, Aotearoa, Philippines, Germany and the USA will be there on the day of the reopening.

The Quaker Tapestry is hosted by Quakers in Kendal (North West England), but the story it tells us is shared by Friends all over the world.

Thank you to all who help us to keep sharing this common heritage.

See BBC news story here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy411jlk8p8o

Pictured: Final panel of the Quaker Tapestry, representing the world family of Friends

03/31/2026

Congress approved a provision buried in the 2026 National Defense The National Defense Authorization Act 2026 that will authorize the culling of information from other federal databases to automatically and involuntarily register men with the SSS. National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed at the end of last year will make federal Selective Service draft registration automatic for all men aged 18-25 starting in December 2026. The US Government wouldn’t bother doing this if they didn’t plan to use it. Unfortunately, a person cannot file a conscientious objection claim until getting an induction notice once a draft is instated, sometimes giving less than 10 days to respond.

NORTH AMERICA — Event: Quaker author Curt Torell will explain recent legal changes in draft registration and outline steps for conscientious objectors to war to respond. Then the group will self-or…

03/21/2026

Please sign this petition to call for dropping charges against Ukrainian conscientious objector Yurii Sheliazhenko!

Yurii Sheliazhenko has been formally charged by the Ukrainian government with the crime of justifying Russian aggression. The evidence is this statement which explicitly condemns Russian aggression. About Yurii. Please sign the petition below.

02/28/2026

https://fcnl.quorum.us/campaign/131607/?fbclid=IwVERFWAQQJI9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEecgzt_qcENduSF0rZLFIkFcFiMeUBswysQUIPn1b0uG2NR0O3S_T9SdYCsz8_aem_apTpCz9TNkP1ZxqFLDH7Cg

FCNL strongly condemns the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and the dangerous pursuit of a war of regime change. We mourn the lives already lost as a result of President Trump’s unlawful and reckless attacks on Iran– including at least 40 children killed at a girls’ elementary school in Minab.

We hold in the Light all those across the region who now fear what comes next. We call for an immediate end to military strikes by all parties, urgent de-escalation, and a return to diplomacy.

Our full statement: https://www.fcnl.org/updates/2026-02/quaker-lobby-condemns-attacks-iran-and-calls-deescalation-diplomacy-and

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02/03/2026

https://c.org/mCdF4w97X4
Please sign this petition to stop more funding for jails!

LIMIT FUNDING TO JUST ONE HOUSING UNIT AT SANTA BARBARA COUNTY’S NORTH BRANCH JAIL

01/19/2026

If God is love and we are God’s hands, what does that mean for how we should show up in the world?

12/30/2025

“Indeed, the correct concept should be “campaign of annihilation,” not “war.” This is what Palestinian legal scholar Noura Erakat responded to when she warned in February 2024 that Israel did not want peace, but a “Nakba peace.” She described “Nakba peace” as “the establishment of security achieved through the removal of native Palestinians who, by their very existence and refusal to disappear, challenge Zionist settler sovereignty.” Her words prove today prophetic. The so-called “peace plan” that is in place with US support allows only for a “Nakba peace” under whose auspices, as Makdisi writes, “Israel can confine an entire population without any means of subsistence to an utterly desolated wasteland and leave it entirely dependent on a trickle of aid handouts that it can turn on and off at will.”
Opinion piece in The Fulcrum, written by Elisabeth Weber, a F/friend and UCSB professor

Since October 10, 2025, the day when the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was announced, Israel has killed at least 401 civilians, including at least 148 children. This has led Palestinian scholar Saree Makdisi to decry a “continuing genocide, albeit one that has shifted gears and ha...

11/11/2025

Around the world, other nations still observe Nov. 11 as Armistice Day or Remembrance Day. The emphasis remains on remembering the dead and recommitting ourselves to working towards peace.

11/07/2025

09/09/2025

Stop AB 715
AB 715 is an extremely dangerous bill designed to censor any criticism of Israel and any education about Palestinian histories, struggles against colonization, and erasure. Despite the bill being shelved in July because of overwhelming public opposition, and a growing global consensus that Israel is in fact committing genocide, the bill's authors are pushing a last-ditch effort to to skip all proper legislative procedures and pass the bill anyway. Take action by sending an email to your California State Senator and Assemblymember in opposition to AB715 now.

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