Equally, Jews and Palestinians
in the Holy Land are portrayed in story and exquisite photography in the new
traveling exhibition "Opening Of The Heart." A few of the
photos and narratives are previewed -- advance them manually -- on the Web at:
http://www.openingoftheheart.com/pages/1_brosis.htm
Palestinian Elias Botto ( Elias@Botto.org ), a
Jerusalem refugee, and Leah Green ( Leah@CompassionateListening.org ), Jewish
shepherdess of The Compassionate Listening Project, will speak at the Opening
Reception in San Rafael, California is Thursday, December 4, 2003, 6:30
p.m. The full San Rafael schedule of educational events through January 31,
2004 is at:
http://www.openingoftheheart.com/marin/marinEvents.htm
"Opening Of The Heart" tours
nationally in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and California, detailed at:
http://www.openingoftheheart.com/exhibitSked.htm
Consider booking "Opening Of The
Heart" exhibition for your city to foster hopeful Dialogue by
contacting the photographer, Beverly Boos:
http://www.openingoftheheart.com/booking.htm
"Photos
show the human 'heart' of the intifada" was published yesterday,
Friday, November 14, 2003 in the local press.
"Just hearing that she was going to Palestine got
me turned off," said Jewish businessman Maurice Levitch about his first
meeting with the photographer, Beverly Boos.
But about his first glimpse of some of Boos's
portraits of those whose lives are touched daily by the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, Levitch said: "I had an immediate reaction."
"Whether they were Jews, Israelis or
Palestinians, they were just like me."
Levitch is now a sponsor of the heart-touching,
mind-opening traveling exhibition.
"Opening
Of The Heart" tells both peoples' stories, as equally as possible.
Leah Green is founder of the sponsoring
Compassionate Listening Project, seen at http://www.compassionatelistening.org/
.
She says: "We come from a culture of debate, and
making the other wrong. The act of true listening is not simple at all
because we have to put our own judgements aside and truly honor the other
without needing to change them."
About the transformative power of the photos for
adults and youth, Green says: "Looking into someone's eyes creates such a
powerful connection."
"Some people feel because of the conflict they
have to choose sides, but we're trying to say that there's a third way."
"There's a way to stand for both sides, for all
sides."
Consider booking "Opening Of The Heart"
in your community by writing to creator Beverly Boos at
Beverly@MangoPhotography.com .
-- L&L
Published Friday November, 14, 2003 in j. the jewish news
weekly of northern california
On the Web at https://www.jweekly.com/2003/11/14/photos-show-the-human-heart-of-the-intifada/
Photos show the human 'heart' of the
intifada
by alexandra j. wall
staff writer
A few years ago, Maurice Levitch hired Beverly Duperly
Boos to photograph an architectural project he had
completed.
A Berkeley-based architect, Levitch is an American Jew
who describes himself as "definitely a supporter of Israel." As the
two were talking, it came up that Boos was soon headed "to
Palestine."
"Just hearing that she was going to Palestine got
me turned off," said Levitch. From his experience, when he heard people
use that word, it usually meant that they were anti-Israel.
The two went to lunch, and Boos told Levitch she had
some portraits of people she had photographed on her first visit to the Middle
East, on her laptop. Would he like to see a few? He said he would.
"I had an immediate reaction," Levitch said.
"Whether they were Jews, Israelis or Palestinians, they were just like
me."
Levitch is now a sponsor of these photos, which will soon show in the Bay Area.
Portraits of those whose lives are touched daily by
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are part of a traveling photography exhibit
called "Opening of the Heart," sponsored by the Compassionate
Listening Project. The exhibit will open Saturday, Nov. 15 at the Osher Marin
Jewish Community Center, with community events around it continuing into
January. Then, it will show in Berkeley and San Francisco.
The Compassionate Listening Project was founded by
Leah Green in 1996, based on the premise of people-to-people diplomacy.
Green, who is Jewish and grew up in Alamo and
Danville, first visited Israel in 1979, when she was 19. Though Green knew
nothing about the Middle East conflict, her first encounter with a Palestinian
left her terrified.
"I had absorbed it from my synagogue, my Jewish
community, my Jewish American upbringing and by osmosis," she said. But
obtaining a master's degree in Middle Eastern studies made her want to hear the
narrative of both sides.
"Once I did, I heard hardly any overlap," she said. "How do you
bring people together and build peace when people have such completely
different experiences and understandings of history?"
Her group has sent 17 delegations - 350 Jewish
American leaders and American citizens - to the Middle East. This year, the
project expanded to include Syria and Lebanon, and training for Israeli and
Palestinian facilitators.
"We come from a culture of debate, and making the
other wrong," said Green. "The act of true listening is not simple at
all because we have to put our own judgements aside and truly honor the other
without needing to change them."
Photographer Boos, 42, who lived in Mill Valley for
five years, recently moved to Bainbridge Island, Wash. Before going to the
Middle East on this assignment in 2001, she had never traveled to the region.
In two visits, Boos took more than 4,000 photos of several hundred people. So
far, 18 have been made into large panels for the exhibit, with the hopes that
eventually - depending on funding - there will be a total of 29. Each panel is
accompanied by a short description of those in the photos, plus some of their
own words.
Boos shared one story that seemed to epitomize her
time there.
She had left her 10-year-old daughter with some
relatives in Jamaica to return to the Middle East in the summer of 2001 to take
more photos.
In the West Bank town of Dura, she photographed Marwa
al-Sharif, a 10-year-old Palestinian girl who had been struck weeks earlier by
a stray Israeli bullet that ricocheted into her head while she was sleeping.
Without surgery, she would die within weeks.
Boos felt she had to do something. She organized a
press conference in Bethlehem, to tell of al-Sharif's plight.
But "at the literal moment my appeal for Marwa was about to start, a bomb
went off at Sbarro Pizza in Jerusalem. All the press abandoned this and went to
the scene of the bombing, and I went too."
A suicide bomber had killed 15 Israelis, 10-year-old
Yocheved Shushan among them. Her 15-year-old sister, Miriam, was severely
wounded, and Boos photographed her within two days. The victim lay in her
hospital bed, her body pieced together and held with metal stays.
Boos visited the family repeatedly during the seven
days of shiva, and went to Yocheved's grave.
As Boos sat shiva with the family, "I
contemplated the triangle of these 10-year-olds: Yocheved who died and Marwa
with the bullet in her head and my daughter who was having a wonderful summer.
It struck me that these little girls represent a thread running through
everything."
(Al-Sharif is fine now, largely thanks to Boos. With
help, she was able to arrange surgery for al-Sharif in Connecticut, where a
pediatric brain surgeon and anesthesiologist donated their services.)
While taking these photographs brought Boos closer to
the conflict than she ever thought possible, viewing them can also have that
kind of transformative power, Green believes. "Looking into someone's eyes
creates such a powerful connection," she said.
Green is encouraging school groups especially to view
the exhibit.
"Some people feel because of the conflict they
have to choose sides, but we're trying to say that there's a third way,"
said Green. "There's a way to stand for both sides, for all sides."
Alexandra Wall gets e-mail at Alexandra@jbnc.com .