Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue reaches
American Psychological Association and
Holy Land living rooms
Sunday, 26 August
2007
IN NORTH
AMERICA:
LIVING ROOM DIALOGUE IMPACT
The
The August, 2007 American Psychological
Association Conference in San Francisco of 14,000 attendees welcomed a 4-day
booth presentation of the 15-year-old Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue
Group.
Photos are at http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbtmbJq0aMm7J
Next engagements include the Islamic Society of
North America (40,000 attendees) and National Council for the Social Studies
Annual Conference (5,000 educators).
This was preceded by a Radio WBAI-
UNITY WEEK IN
For the past few years, there has been Unity
Day in
This year it became Unity Week, reflecting
its increased value among citizens.
There were dramatic exchanges between ethnic community
centers.
Ellen Israel Goldberg (
Ellen@goldberg.net ), President of Sister Cities of
One day a group of nearly 40 6-to-11-year-old Jewish
Community Center campers visited the Arab American Cultural and Community
Center in
Driving rains could not prevent the Jewish campers from
travelling.
The youth dressed up in traditional Arab garb, had
their names written in Arabic and in Egyptian hieroglyphs, and enjoyed
traditional Arab food and dance.
They saw a T-shirt bearing doves and both the Israeli
and Palestinian Authority flags, inscribed with the word peace, in both Hebrew
and Arabic.
There were also maps and symbols that tested the
Jewish visitors' acceptance of unfamiliar worldviews and symbols.
Throughout the program, representatives of the Arab
community expressed the desire and hope for peaceful coexistence between Arabs
and Jews, and drew attentions to the more positive signs and symbols.
ACC board member and past president, Imad Abdullah, reflected on the significance of hosting a
group of Jewish children at the ACC, and the potential such a meeting could
have on the future.
We hope everyone gets to know everyone else, and the more
we know each other, the easier it is to resolve differences and problems, and
to move forward in a world of peace," Abdullah said.
READ the whole story.
Published in The
Jewish Herald-Voice -- Thursday, 23 August 2007
Unity
Week delivers promise of peace
Latino-Jewish and Arab-Jewish
programs
part
of weeklong cultural exchange
by Michael
Duke. It captures the essence, and excitement of two of the visits.
IN THE HOLY
LAND:
EMUN -- Hebrew for trust -- is a new
2007 Israeli endeavor from Jerusalem to bring people together to build
relationships of mutual trust and understanding between Israeli citizens, and
between Israelis and their Arab neighbors.
Activities include parlor meetings that bring
Israelis and Palestinians into each other's homes.
The TRUST Women's Interfaith Network (WIN) takes
Muslim, Christian, and Jewish women on pilgrimages to holy sites and to visit
each others' homes.
WASATIA (Arabic for moderation, centrism, balance,
justice) is a new Palestinian movement.
It was born in March 2007, the beginning of Spring, a time of new birth, regeneration.
Their new Web site offers wisdom from Islam, Judaism
and Christianity about the importance of balance and even-handedness.
WASATIA calls for regenerating in Muslims and
everyone the seed of peace that lies encoded in the spirit.
Women and men from WASATIA and EMUN have begun to
meet in their homes.
It began in
Then 17 Israelis recently traveled to Palestinian town
of
Their intimate living room meeting is described
below in The Jerusalem Post.
In September they will meet a third time in a Jewish
home in
In faith and trust -- EMUN -- on this balanced, just
path-- WASATIA -- of listening and relationship building anew.
Where we Connect, Change and Create.
More than ever before.
One, finally.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Published in The Jerusalem Post -- Friday, 17 August 2007
On the Web at:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557465025&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Moderating among moderates
By Gail Lichtman
The spacious and lovely home of Dr. Muhammad Dajani in Beit Hanina is only two minutes from the Pisgat
Ze'ev expressway. Yet for the 17 Israelis who came
there last week, it was like entering another world. The familiar street signs in
Hebrew were replaced by Arabic, and up ahead loomed the checkpoint through
which one enters the enclave where Dajani lives.
"This is Palestinian land," exclaimed one woman with a sense of
trepidation and surprise.
The Israelis had come to Dajani's
home for a meeting with moderate Muslims, arranged by Trust (Emun), a new NGO that focuses on building understanding
among peoples, and Wasatia, a new social movement for
moderate Islam.
The aim of the evening, which took place on the same
day that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in
"Most Israelis live their lives in cocoons,
meeting only people who are like them," explains Trust co-founder and
director Elana Rozenman.
"In Trust, we are trying to go beyond dialogue so that people can see one
another as human beings. Unless people are ready to trust one another, it will
be impossible for things to change."
For this reason, Rozenman
prefers to hold Trust meetings in private homes. "It is hard for people to
feel trust. But meeting in homes gives people the opportunity to see how people
live and to understand their culture. Going into Beit
Hanina is going into unfamiliar territory for most
Israelis. This brings up fears, both internal and external. But entering a
warm, home environment provides a safe place where people can interact."
"Trust is ground-breaking in that it gets away
from politics," notes Ester Golan, one of Trust's founders and a
participant in the meeting. "A person is more than politics."
For Rozenman, Trust is the
culmination of a decade of working toward non-violence and understanding. In
September 1997, her 16-year-old son Noam was severely
injured in the triple suicide bombing on the Ben-Yehuda
pedestrian mall. He spent six weeks in the burn unit at Hadassah and months
more in rehabilitation.
"Thank God Noam
recovered. Today, he is married and the father of twins. But as a result of
lying on mattresses in the burn unit next to him, I had time to think," Rozenman recalls.
"I concluded that to do nothing was to collude
with violence. The root cause of violence comes from fear and mistrust. It is
easy to demonize the other and once you do that, you can do anything to him. So
I decided to work on building trust and understanding. This is the only way to
make a difference."
DAJANI, THE scion of a distinguished Palestinian
family, is the director of the American Studies Institute at Al Quds University. Highly educated with two PhDs from
American universities, he is also a signer of the Ami Ayalon/Sari
Nusseibeh Statement of Principles.
In March 2007, Dajani
started Wasatia, which comes from a term in the Koran
that means "moderate." He hopes it will someday be an alternative to Fatah or Hamas.
"Islam is moderate," Dajani
explains. "There is no radical Islam, only radical Muslims. There are
extremists who are interpreting the Koran in an extreme way. They are making
Islam radical, which it is not. In Wasatia, we would
like to show the common ground of values [of the monotheistic religions]."
"The name Wasatia comes
from a verse in the Sura of the Cow," he
continues. "It is verse 143 out of 186. It is exactly in the middle, which
is where God wants us to be. The verse says: 'And we have created you a
mid-ground [moderate] nation.'"
Dajani couches his approach
in the language of the Koran. He admitted during the meeting that saying
"democracy" to Palestinians doesn't work. The word is linked to the
West and turns people off. But promoting values such as tolerance, justice,
fairness and acceptance of the other through the Koran is speaking to
Palestinians in their own language.
"I was very impressed by the quality of Israelis
who came to my home," he adds. "They were not 'the usual suspects.'
Also for many of the Palestinians, this was the first time they met regular
Israelis. The important thing is that we get to know one another as human
beings and not as soldiers or terrorists."
THE EVENING started off with an exercise designed to
help the 35 participants, who ranged in age from 16 to 83, to get acquainted.
People paired off with someone they did not know and then had three minutes to
talk about a person they trust and why.
"Trust is something one has to work on building
over time," explains Golan. "Being able to listen to the other
without judging is an essential ingredient for building mutual trust."
"I have never been to a meeting quite like this
one," says Reuven Rosenfelder
of Katamon. "I was paired off with a young
Palestinian who is about to graduate from
"Then he told me the strangest story," Rosenfelder continues. "Somehow, he was put in contact
with a blind American rabbi at Oberlin. I know this doesn't seem like a
combination that goes together - a Palestinian student and an American rabbi -
but they developed a close friendship and this rabbi became his guiding light
in becoming part of college life. He chose to talk about the rabbi as the
person he trusts.
"This just proves that you can never assume
things about people and you never know what to expect. I was also surprised to
see religious Jews at the meeting. To me, they are associated with the right.
So you can never really know," he concludes.
Dr. Esther Silver, a Canadian/Israeli psychoanalyst
and pediatrician, admits to never having been to a meeting like the Trust/Wasatia one. "I haven't even been in this part of
Nabil Kayali,
the director of two private schools -
At the meeting, Kayali spoke
about the importance of educating children to seek openness. "We try to
convey the message to our children that they should look a little further
beyond closed ideas and have an open mind. We also try to show them how
conflicts can be resolved peacefully." He also expressed an interest in
having ordinary Israelis come to his schools and speak with the children.
As an initial meeting between Israelis and
Palestinians, the encounter barely scratched the surface. Nevertheless,
participants universally expressed the desire to meet again. "I realize
that we did not get beyond general positive impressions," says Rosenfelder. "There was not much time to really
progress. I look at this meeting as an appetizer. I would like to meet again to
hear more about moderate Muslims."
Both those from Trust and Wasatia
were also well aware that conducting the meeting in English was a limiting
factor. Most of the Israelis were highly educated, native speakers of English
or those who had lived or worked abroad. The Palestinians were also highly
educated and the elite of their society.
"Even if this is a self-selected group, it can
still have influence," Rozenman explains.
"Those who took part witnessed a different reality and will go home and
tell their friends and neighbors about their experiences. They will help open
the minds of others. They will tell them that they met Palestinians who want a
normal life and are really ready to live with Israelis."
A number of years ago, she met the Dalai Lama and told
him about her efforts. "He said I should not worry about being only one
person. Right now, all over the world, one person in one little place is doing
something and each one is changing the world. It made me recognize that I am
already making a difference."
"Peace is built on better understanding of the
other," concludes Dajani. "Yes, this is a
narrow group. But it is better to start here than wait another 10 years. We
have already lost so much time. We are fated to live together, not only next to
one another but also in the midst of one another. We cannot isolate ourselves
from the other. Our grandfathers planted the seeds of conflict. We should plant
the seeds of peace for our grandchildren to reap."