When: Sunday evening, December 7, 2003 — 6:30-9:00 PM
Where: The Commons, St. Ignatius College Preparatory, 2001 37th Ave., San Fransisco (directions)

         “An enemy is one whose story we have not heard” is the experience of local American Arabs and Jews convening the first-ever All Bay Area Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue Season of Light Gathering.
         It brings together over 150 dedicated women and men, young and old, representing nine ongoing Dialogue groups from Napa to San Jose. They include the oldest sustained Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue in North America. The evening celebrates 11 years and hundreds of local meetings, including the historic "Oseh Shalom~Sanea al-Salam Jewish-Palestinian Family Peacemakers Camp" near Yosemite last summer, an American and maybe global first.
         Speakers will include Muna Aghawani, from Ramallah, and Melodye Feldman, from Denver, with their inspiring stories of Palestinian and Jewish teen youth who change from “enemies” into friends and partners in summer experiences of “Building Bridges for Peace,” and “Face-to-Face/Faith-to-Faith.” They model how transforming the Jewish/Israeli-Palestinian relationship begins with individual citizens, and that it is not "impossible," but absolutely possible and desirable.
         The evening will include a collective signing of a letter to governments — United States, Palestinian, and Israeli heads of state — urging a new quality of listening, and treating both peoples equally. The message recommends active support for concrete, congruent proposals now before the public — the Roadmap, and the recently-heralded Beilin-Rabbo Geneva Accord and Nusseibeh-Ayalon Statement of Principles initiated by creative Israeli and Palestinian citizens outside of government.
         The American Jews and Palestinians — women, men and youth — will be gathered at round tables to share Dialogue and their best potluck desserts. The landmark evening will close in a partially-darkened room with a candlelight ceremony around a globe of Earth, expressions of individual hope, and the inspirational music of Raffi — “Salaam Shalom.”

More information is on the Web at http://traubman.igc.org/light.htm