"Disengagement" is under way
in the the
But "engagement" has been the experience of
Jewish and Palestinian youth camps across
And the idea will go home to
Just concluding their life-changing summers are
programs like Peace Camp Canada, Creativity for Peace, Face to Face ~ Faith to
Faith, Hands of Peace, Kids4Peace, and their forerunner, Seeds of Peace.
These camps that fashion tomorrow's leaders are
described at http://traubman.igc.org/camps.htm
.
On their heels will follow a
family camp.
September 16-18 is the Third Annual Oseh Shalom~Sanea al-Salam Family Peacemakers Camp in the
Youth and parents, as well as singles, will travel
from the Middle East and
The next evening after camp, Monday, these campers
will give a major
You can read about this at http://traubman.igc.org/camp2005.htm
and http://traubman.igc.org/campmonday.htm
.
This Sunday, founder Melodye Feldman came down the
Monday, she was already on the phone offering
her best ideas to the planning team of Oseh Shalom~Sanea al-Salam.
Tuesday, today, she flew to
Such is the spirit and sharing of intelligence of this
new family of camps.
Programs that promise to train citizen-leaders, to
help change the direction of history for the good of all.
This
same day, the Denver Post told the story of Building Bridges for Peace.
Read about these intelligent, courageous teen
women, and you will know and feel that change is in the air.
See the telling photos.
And assist activities like this where you live,
however you can.
Published in the Denver
(Colorado) Post -- Tuesday,16 August 2005
http://www.denverpost.com/lifestyles/ci_2944412
Embracing peace
AMID GAZA CONFLICT, ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS
BUILD A BRIDGE OF PEACE IN COLORADO
By Colleen O'Connor
Denver Post Staff Writer
For some Israeli and Palestinian women, just
participating in a Colorado peace camp triggered terrifying threats back home
in Israel, particularly the West Bank.
Others feared to even mention they spent their summer
vacation at "Building Bridges for Peace."
Because of the
"It's not safe," says Inas,
21, a Palestinian from the West Bank city of Jenin,
the center of one of the most intense battles of the second intifada,
or Palestinian uprising.
"People will say, 'Oh my God, you went to the
She sits on the forest-fringed terrace of this ski
lodge in rural
Four years ago, Inas told
fellow campers that she wanted to become a suicide bomber. Now she's a
Palestinian peacemaker, headed home at a pivotal time for the
On Sunday,
Already, an Israeli soldier deserted the army in
protest of the pullout, then gunned down four Israeli
Arabs before a mob beat him to death.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul
Mofaz has warned Palestinians that
"I think it's going to be horrible," says Rawan, 22, a gregarious, tongue-studded Palestinian who
lives in
In her neighborhood, Eliana,
a 20-year-old Israeli, expects an escalation of anger.
"There will be more hatred toward people who
don't agree," she says, grabbing a veggie-burger between peace-building
lessons.
"In
Over 12 years, more than 500 teenage girls have
attended Building Bridges for Peace, founded by Melodye
Feldman, an American Jew who founded the
Difficulty in fundraising almost closed the camp a few
times, but Feldman perseveres because the teens insist.
"For them it's a matter of urgency," she
says. "This program keeps them tied to some form of sanity in a pretty
insane place."
Here, they learn new communication techniques, develop
leadership skills and focus on building peaceful communities. Then they return
to embark on a year-long follow-up program.
They are Jewish, Muslim and Christian. Most are from
the
Numbed by violence, they struggle to reconnect with
their feelings - fear, anger, joy, love - in order to
communicate better with each other. The telling of their stories, an abyss of
pain, is balanced with fun.
Up on
"When they look across the dinner table at each
other, mostly they see another teenage girl just like themselves," says
Feldman.
Change requires a breach in the security of certainty.
On July 28, Reem, 16,
stepped off the plane in
"Oh my God," she remembers muttering.
"I'm going to stay with them 14 days? This will be really hard. They're
the enemy."
On the first day, she was partnered with Roni, a 16-year-old Israeli who lives on a kibbutz.
Apprehensive, treating each other like mysterious
packages that might detonate at any moment, they
worked on their first art project together, illustrating their hopes and fears.
Twelve days later they're inseparable, standing with
arms draped around each other, grinning.
"My hope was to be able to look at an Israeli and
see not the enemy but a human being," says Reem,
gazing fondly into Roni's warm brown eyes.
"But now I look at an Israeli, and I see a great,
great human being!"
This summer Rawan , co-director of the follow-up program in
But when she pauses to reflect, it makes a certain
sense - especially now, with dismantlement in
"People are fed up with the conflict," she
says, "and trying to find some hope somewhere in this big pile of dead
bodies."
Desperate for peace, they hurtle past the pain,
yearning to embrace enemy as friend.
Staff writer Colleen O'Connor can be reached at 303-820-1083 or at
coconnor@denverpost.com.
War's collateral damage
forges hate, then change
Transformation is slow for some teens.
Rawan, a Palestinian who
lives in Beit Hanina,
"Because I got to hear the other side, and all
that I believed to be true about the other side was half-wrong, or not
completely right," she says. "That was really hard for me to deal
with."
She grew up watching her parents socialize with their
Israeli friends. An Israeli soldier had risked his life to help her sick father.
Still, something inside snapped when Rawan was 10.
Turning on the television one day, she saw footage of
an Israeli man shooting people at prayer inside a mosque.
"I got really extreme," she says. "I
was like, 'Jews should die. Suicide bombs are OK.'"
Six weeks after peace camp, when she had just started
her first year at
Shaken, she went home, where her mother said a girl
named Adva had called to check on her.
"Who the heck is that?" Rawan
recalls grumbling before dialing the phone number to find out.
Adva turned out to be an
Israeli teen from camp, someone she had already forgotten.
"It struck me that none of my Palestinian friends
called me, because we're used to bombing, but that Adva
had called."
Rawan's transformation, and
her friendship with Adva, started at that moment.
They crossed into alien territories to meet each other's families. Adva even attended the wedding of Rawan's
sister.
Now they co-direct the
"I'm not looking to save the world," says Adva, 22. "I know I can't. But if I can open the eyes
of 'the other,' even one person, that's enough."
- Colleen O'Connor