REFUSING TO BE ENEMIES is
the cover story of the Detroit Jewish News this Friday, July 11, 2003, we learn
from Professor Irene Butter (ibutter@sph.umich.edu), one of 12 women -- 6 Arabs
and 6 Jews -- in Zeitouna, Ann Arbor's almost-year-old
Dialogue that she spearheaded.
While "pain brought Zeitouna together,"
these Semitic women are committed to one another and to co-creating their
shared future.
What helpful news, as the First Global Day of Arab
Jewish Dialogue approaches on Sunday, July 20, 2003, as described at:
http://peacecafe.net/
Learning listening skills,
they have found a way to discuss the Middle East, including their own personal
stories and the politics of peace.
"We use dialogue, not debate," says a
Jewish participant.
To build trust, they first talked about their personal
stories, their "individual narratives, those of our people."
When once a month didn't yield the headway they
wanted, they started meeting every other week.
Palestinian Wadad Abed, 54, (W.Abed@cimdata.com)
says: "There is anger, impatience, tears and laughter. And we
really try to be respectful of each other and make this a safe space.
Sometimes we have to remind each other, with a nudge or a look, to
listen. But it's important that we hear each other, even if we don't
agree with what someone's saying."
Members, ages 29-72, include a Holocaust survivor
whose daughter and her family live in Israel and four Palestinian immigrants
from the West Bank and Haifa.
Both Arab and Jewish women have complained about
pressures from their own groups.
Laurie White (lonawhite@aol.com) lived on a kibbutz
in Israel explains: ". . .we're perceived with some sense of suspicion or
threat when we're open to hearing the stories from all perspectives.
White adds that "it's always easier to establish
a person-to-person connection and find the common ground than it is to struggle
with the more entrenched institutional framework. . . This group creates
optimism about the Middle East situation by refusing to be enemies."
Palestinian Randa Nasir Ajlouny, 29, whose parents
live in the West Bank: "We're very open with each other and we're
not afraid to speak our minds." It was important to her for the
group to hear her family's story.
Benita Kalmowitz (BenitaK@aol.com), 68, grew up in a
Zionist family. "With these women, I feel an optimism for a situation
that for so long has been very painful to me. . ."
Wadad Abed, from Nablus: ""My humanity
is restored here. We meet at each other's houses, eat each other's food, meet
our families. We discuss difficult issues but we also celebrate life. . . I
refuse to indulge in hatred. . . It's important not to lose my humanity.
And both Palestinians and Jews have become so dehumanized."
Johanna Epstein, 47: "We even look alike.
It's very nice and comfortable to be in a room with all Semitic women."
Jewish participants are beginning to understand that
what was Israel's celebrated Independence Day as a Jewish state was The Nakbah
-- a catastrophe -- for the Palestinians who became refugees from their
indigenous land.
In return, Palestinian Wadad Abed says of
Holocaust survivor and Zeitouna founder Irene Butter, 74: "I love
this human being who has this horrendous experience and comes out the other end
with so much love and wisdom. She represents a person who has dealt with
ugliness and turned it into beauty and hope."
"The future of peace will fall upon people like
us," says Laurie White.
"We are each other's destiny.
Neither Arabs nor Jews are going away. Our futures are so intertwined. .
. ," says Abed
"Women are doers, the key to peace," says
Rabia Shafie, 57, a Muslim from Nablus. "Zeitouna can be an example
of how people can share and live together."
Palestinian Wadad Abed dreams of many Zeitouna groups that eventually form a
solid base for peace.
Zeitouna is hoping to help other groups form.
Take heart from their example. Let them help
you.
Begin a new Dialogue where you live.
-- L&L
Cover Story in the Detroit Jewish News - Friday, July 11,
2003
The full story and PHOTOS are on the Web at:
http://detroit.jewish.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=542
Refusing To Be Enemies
Personal connections promote understanding and
support across the Arab-Israeli divide.
SHARON LUCKERMAN
Staff Writer
Ann Arbor - As 12 women arrive at a comfortable Ann
Arbor home, arms swing open to embrace and hug one another. The buzz of
conversation and laughter fills the air. Some gather in the kitchen to whip
cream and scoop gifts of food into bowls for the beautiful table already topped
with platters of spinach pies, baba ghanoush, salads, fruit and cakes.
It would seem a usual gathering, yet this group is
composed of six Arab and six Jewish women from Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti. All are
American citizens. They are a dialogue group and, over the past year, have
found ways to discuss the Middle East, including their own personal stories and
the politics of peace.
Unlike the American Arab and Jewish Friends in
metropolitan Detroit, which is a social and education group whose members avoid
political debate, these women have set up ground rules to allow them to tackle
tough topics like Israel's defensive actions in the West Bank, anti-Semitism
and Israel's right to exist.
At last week's meeting, they practiced dialoguing and
listening skills in preparation for upcoming discussions on such charged topics
as a "right of return" for Palestinians to Israel, a Jewish and
Palestinian state side by side and suicide bombings.
Early on, when once a month didn't yield the headway
they wanted, they started meeting every other week.
They named their group Zeitouna, Arabic for olive -
both the fruit and the tree. And the group is a collaborative effort - a peace
offering they hope will spread beyond its immediate membership. Word of mouth
and their group presence at local peace demonstrations prompted other Arab and
Jewish women in the Ann Arbor area to inquire about membership. Though their
group is closed, Zeitouna is hoping to help other groups form.
Hard Work And Chemistry
Their process is not always easy.
"We are starting to get to a place where people
share deep emotions," says Laurie White, 48, an Ann Arbor Reconstructionist
Havurah member. "There is anger, impatience, tears and laughter. And we
really try to be respectful of each other and make this a safe space. We are
careful in building our process."
Wadad Abed, 54, of Ann Arbor, a Christian Palestinian,
says, "Sometimes, we have to remind each other, with a nudge or a look, to
listen. But it's important that we hear each other, even if we don't agree with
what someone's saying."
They may have expressed sadness over another suicide
bombing or a breach of peace during "check in" before their meetings
begin, says member Irene Butter, 72, of Ann Arbor, a Temple Beth Emeth member.
But once their meeting begins, they have an agenda and refuse to be derailed,
she says.
Their ages range from 29-72. Members include a
Holocaust survivor whose daughter and her family live in Israel and four
Palestinian immigrants from the West Bank and Haifa. Another is an Arab
Algerian raised in France; one is a Jew raised in a Zionist family. Two of the
Jewish women have children living in Israel.
Most are secular Muslims, Christians and Jews. Several
belong to a synagogue; none are members of mosques or churches. All the Arabs
interviewed said they are culturally Arab and enjoy their holidays, the food
and family gatherings. Two of the Arab women are married to Jewish men.
Although several have belonged to Arab-Jewish
discussion groups before, this one, all agree, is the most successful for them.
There is chemistry among them. Their commitment to each other - no matter the
pressures from their communities - has been very important, along with the
comfort and trust they share with each other.
Both Arab and Jewish women have complained about
pressures from their own groups.
"We're asked to take a stand with our respective
ethnic group and we're perceived with some sense of suspicion or threat when
we're open to hearing the stories from all perspectives," says White, who
lived on a kibbutz in Israel.
She says it's always easier to establish a
person-to-person connection and find the common ground than it is to struggle
with the more entrenched institutional framework.
Several Arab women who had been in Jewish-Arab groups
in the past expressed ambivalence when first joining another. Rabia Shafie, 57,
a Muslim from Nablus, says that in a former group, Jewish women backed out when
they wanted to go public with a newspaper article.
Randa Nasir Ajlouny, 29, of Ann Arbor, a Palestinian,
had reservations. Her friends did not think this group would be worth her time,
but her mother and other Zeitouna members encouraged her to give it a try.
"We're very open with each other and we're not
afraid to speak our minds," says Ajlouny, whose parents live in the West
Bank, where her father is president of Birzeit University.
She says it was important that the group hear her
family's story.
Ajlouny's personal narrative involves her father, who
was deported from Birzeit when she was 1. Her family eventually moved to Jordan
to be with him until the Oslo accords 10 years later, when he was allowed to
return home.
But even today, she says, it is difficult to visit her
and her husband's families in the West Bank. She told the group that clearing
protective checkpoints set up by Israel can be an extremely long and sometimes
insulting process.
Toward A Just Peace
The ability of the group to hear each other -
whether they agree with the perspective or not - has been a moving experience.
"This group is sheer pleasure," says Benita
Kaimowitz, 68, a member of Temple Beth Emeth, who grew up in a Zionist family.
"With these women, I feel an optimism for a situation that for so long has
been very painful to me because of my deep care about Israel."
Abed, who came to this country from Nablus with her
family 36 years ago for safety and education, says, "My humanity is
restored here. We meet at each other's houses, eat each other's food, meet our
families. We discuss difficult issues but we also celebrate life."
Says White, a psychotherapist and filmmaker,
"This group creates optimism about the Middle East situation by refusing
to be enemies. We see the richness and complexity of people and don't have
simplistic solutions [for how to live with each other]."
"It's a safe haven," says Carol Haddad, 53.
"When I leave, I can't wait for our next meeting."
Her grandfather was from Lebanon and Syria, and he
studied in Jerusalem before coming to America.
"We are learning together," Shafie says.
"I'm finding commonalities," says Johanna
Epstein, 47, a member of Ann Arbor's Jewish Cultural Society. "We even
look alike. It's very nice and comfortable to be in a room with all Semitic
women."
Yet, pain brought Zeitouna together, along with a
strong commitment to peace, justice and political action.
Abed is a marketing director for a consulting firm.
She said she was very upset when Israel re-occupied the West Bank in the wake
of the suicide bombing at a Passover Seder in 2002, when 29 Israelis were
killed. While despising the killing of the Jews, she says, she also was
"overtaken by hatred because of the brutality of the re-occupation."
"And I refuse to indulge in hatred," she
says. "It's the worst thing to do to myself. It's important not to lose my
humanity. And both Palestinians and Jews have become so dehumanized."
Nine years ago, she joined then-State Sen. Lana
Pollack's dialogue group with Arab and Jewish women that lasted a little over a
year.
With the recent Palestinian terror and Israel's
response, Abed reached out to Pollack, telling her "if there ever was a
time we needed to dialogue, it's now."
Thanks to Pollack, also of Ann Abor, Abed got a call a
month later from Irene Butter, a University of Michigan professor emeritus of
public health. Pollack put the two in touch. With a daughter, son-in-law and
grandchildren in Israel, Butter also felt the need to talk and do something for
peace in the Middle East.
They gathered others, and as the group grew, they made
sure there were equal numbers of Arab and Jewish women. Together, they all
worked to develop a process and a structure that would allow open expression of
their thoughts, fears and pains.
"We use dialogue, not debate," White says.
To build trust, group members first talked about their
personal stories, "our individual narratives, not just those of our
people," Abed says.
"We had to be as honest as possible, even if it
rubbed someone the wrong way," she says. "If there were differences,
we'd utilize dialogue."
Opposing Takes
To Hadad, raised Roman Catholic and a
second-generation American, "there are two narratives regarding Middle
East history."
"The Jews were persecuted in Europe and saw
Israel, or Palestine - what it was called before the state was formed - as the
vehicle for their liberation," she says. "And given their biblical
attachment to the land, that's very real.
"Another real narrative is that many then came to
a land and displaced the existing population. Each side needs to understand the
other's narrative for a meeting of the minds on the Middle East conflict. And
the greatest obstacle to peace is that both sides, to some extent, demonize
each other."
After meeting for several months, the women decided to
have a retreat, a weekend to put together their mission statement and formalize
guiding principles.
"I came away feeling energized. There's a
discovery process happening to each in the group," says Jewish member
Manya Arond-Thomas, 53, of Ypsilanti, an executive coach and organizational
consultant.
"I was high for days by what we had achieved
together," Abed says.
The group credits Arond-Thomas for guiding the process
to such a high level.
"We learn to engage in conversations without
judgment," she says. "We also learn how to examine our
assumptions."
Their resulting mission statement reads: "To
embody and promote the peaceful and just coexistence of the Arab and Jewish
peoples through connection, trust, empathy and actions focused on the creation
of a sustainable future for Palestine and Israel."
Hearing The Unhearable
Zeitouna's hard work yielded impressive results.
Issues never before acknowledged by group members were
discussed at their meetings. Arab members for the first time could listen to
stories about the Holocaust, and Jews heard about the Nakbah, the Arabic word
for catastrophe, used to describe Israel's Independence Day as a Jewish state
(May 14, 1948); Palestinian Arabs in Israel were given refuge in United Nations
camps.
"That catastrophe lives with us every single
day," says Shafie. "It's when our society began to be
destroyed."
Abed says, at first, she would not hear about the
Holocaust because her belief was that the Holocaust was the reason used to
justify taking away her homeland. Then, as part of her personal growth, she
realized the Holocaust was something she had to deal with. Because of her
experience with Butter, she says, she is reading other personal Holocaust
accounts.
"I love this human being who has this horrendous
experience and comes out the other end with so much love and wisdom," Abed
says. "She represents a person who has dealt with ugliness and turned it
into beauty and hope."
Still, it has taken the group almost a year to begin
to hear each other's stories, and the discussion that follows.
Says Abed, "I'm beginning to understand the fear
and concerns Jews have. It's a legitimate feeling of being subjected to one
atrocity after another throughout the world."
She now accepts Israel's right to exist, she says.
The Jewish women, in turn, learned about Abed's
emotional pain when they talked about going to Israel.
"American women talk about moving or living in
Israel for a while and that upsets me," Abed says. "All Jews - from
the United States, Russia and Europe - can have automatic citizenship in
Israel, and I can't. Yet my family goes back for several generations
there."
Open Hearts And Minds
"The future of peace will fall upon people
like us," White says.
"We are each other's destiny. Neither Arabs nor
Jews are going away. Our futures are so entwined. We need to start building for
our children and our grandchildren," Abed says.
And while the women in Zeitouna find it difficult to
get excited about the current peace efforts - pained by past failures like the
Oslo accords - they all express hope for the future when it comes to their
group. They are planning a trip together to the Palestinian-administered
territories and to Israel next year.
"Women are doers, the key to peace," says
Shafie. "And Zeitouna can be an example of how people can share and live
together."
When asked what's unique about the group, she says,
"We're so much alike."
"I hope we inspire other groups like ours to
create a place of sanity where people with similar feelings and passions can
meet," Epstein says.
Abed dreams of many Zeitouna groups that eventually
form a solid base for peace.
"The draw of this group is comfort and
commonality," White says. "We came together with open hearts and minds."
"And now," Abed adds, "we can envision
peace - and go for it."