Palestinian,
Jews overcome walls, share recipes for living together
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
"We build too
many walls and not enough bridges."
~ Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
English Mathematician, Physicist,
Theologian - "Father of Modern Science"
"When you're
weary, feeling small, when tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all.
I'm on your side,
when times get rough and friends just can't be found...
Like a bridge over
troubled water, I will lay me down."
~ from Bridge Over Troubled Water
Paul Simon (1969)
CLIMBING WALLS: Youth Circus for A Brighter Future is a theme of the
Israel Circus School -- http://israelcircusschool.com
.
These "circus arts of social change" in the
Holy Land brings together Palestinian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, youth at
risk, and visiting young adults and children to create a mini-picture of what
life can look in the larger community.
They share risks, skills, falls, and successes while
transcending walls learned and imposed by culture, social circumstances, and
other teachings that unnecessarily separate them from open, creative
relationships.
READ more:
Circus
School Leads Jews And Arabs To Climb Walls Of Separation
http://nocamels.com/2011/11/circus-school-leads-jews-and-arabs-to-climb-walls-of-separation/
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THE OPEN HOUSE OF RAMLE -- http://www.friendsofopenhouse.org/
-- is a living model of Palestinian-Jewish community and empathy.
Dalia Eshkenazi Landau (
DaliaLandau@hartsem.edu ) was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1948.
She came to Israel with her family in the European
immigration right after the creation of the State of Israel.
Her family settled in Ramle
in an "Arab house."
In July 1967 Dalia she came to know Bashir Al-Khayri, son of the Arab
couple that had built the house and lived there before 1948.
Together, in their common home, they founded
"Open House," a Jewish Arab co-existence center.
"How do we take a legacy from the past and transform
it into something positive for the future?" asks Dalia, who lives in
Jerusalem.
For Landau, the answer is Open House Ramle, founded in 1991.
Its Center for the Development of the Arab Child
provides educational and social opportunities to Palestinian Israeli children
and their families.
Its Center for Jewish-Arab Coexistence serves as a
place of face-to-face communication and cooperation between Jews and Arabs in
the Ramle-Lod area.
VIEW the human success story:
Deciding
to Open the Door to The Other
Dalia Landau
TEDxJaffa - 20 min video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GcR56PvnS4
In
her TEDxJaffa talk, Dalia Landau tells the story of
her decision to open the door to a stranger.
Peace
begins at home
By Abigail Klein Leichman
Israel21c -- 12 December 2011
http://israel21c.org/social-action/peace-begins-at-home
A
house with an Arab and Jewish history now serves as a center for a range of coexistence
programs in the mixed city of Ramle.
The
Lemon Tree:
An Arab, a Jew,
and the Heart of the Middle East
by Sandy Tolan
Bloomsbury USA, 384 pages
http://sandytolan.com/the-lemon-tree
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OTHER VOICE -- http://www.othervoice.org/
-- was created by Israeli and Palestinian neighbors at the Gaza-Israel border,
in response to collective fear, frenzy, and violence around them.
VIEW their personal challenges and steps
together, including self-publishing:
BRIDGES
OVER BLOOD
Gaza-Sderot Documentary Film
October 2011 -- 25 min. video
by Ose
Oyamendan
This 25-minute documentary is
about the people in Gaza and Sderot, a war zone in
the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. Its the story
you hardly ever hear about citizen-to-citizen Middle East communication, of
neighbors working together toward their shared future.
RECIPES
FOR PEACE
In 2010, some of these
Palestinians and Israelis created this exquisite hard-cover 44-page "Cook
Book for Peace."
It includes beautiful
illustrations and short stories. They say: "We all enjoy food and we
should soon also enjoy Peace in the area."
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PALESTINIAN
& JEWISH RECIPES FOR PEACE
With additional recipes for
the table and for relationship-building, these 100 illustrated pages can be
downloaded online.
The cookbook is the
cooperative creation of the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue across the
ocean in California, USA.
http://traubman.igc.org/recipes.htm
INTERNATIONAL ONLINE FACE-TO-FACE CONNECTIONS honored the year-end 2011
"Season of Light Gathering" of this 19-year-old Jewish-Palestinian
Living Room Dialogue Group on the San Francisco Peninsula.
Video-connected, bridging simultaneously between
the Middle East, Europe, and North America with a Muslim Palestinian,
Jewish Israeli, and Christian Nigerian -- all citizen bridge builders -- was a
"first" among hundreds of outreach initiatives of this handful of
Muslims, Jews, and Christians -- http://traubman.igc.org/dg-prog.htm
PHOTOS -- the how-to of creating this evening
-- are at http://traubman.igc.org/light2011.pdf
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These and hundreds of other success stories are preserved at http://traubman.igc.org/messages.htm