August 4-8, 2002, at Trinity
University in San Antonio, Texas, was the first time Palestinians and Jews
cooperated to bring Dialogue to CAJE -- the Conference on Alternatives in
Jewish Education -- where 1,600 Jewish educators gather from the Americas,
Israel, and beyond.
Photos from the CAJE Dialogue events and related
gathering all week maybe be seen as a slide show -- and even photos ordered --
on the Web at:
Six Dialogue workshops were
presented cooperatively by participants from San Antonio's Palestinian-Jewish
Dialogue and Tri-Faith Dialogue, and the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room
Dialogue of San Mateo, California. The sessions were:
** Seeking Peace and Pursuing It
with Children of Abraham
** The Process of Social Change
Through Dialogue and Expanding Identification
** Story as Entry to Dialogue
** The Stories of Our Cousins
** Beginning, Maturing, and Growing
A Dialogue
** The film PROMISES and Discussion with Palestinian Muslims
The reception at CAJE was
encouraging, even surprising.
Many of the women, men, and youth seemed eager to hear
Palestinian voices to go with their Jewish ones! And to see that it is
possible -- not impossible -- to successfully listen with compassion to one
another.
Relationships between these CAJE participants --
Palestinians, and Israeli and American Jews -- continued into the evenings in
San Antonio nightspots. When a restaurant manager heard about who had
come in, he announced it and the other diners stood and applauded loudly.
Then the musicians played John Lennon's "Imagine."
Rabbi Michael Melchior, Israel's Deputy Foreign
Minister, taught a Talmud lesson and also met with Palestinian Mohammed Alatar
(MA1962@yahoo.com), a San Antonio Dialogue participant, to talk about ways to
educate Palestinians and Israelis about each others' histories. Their
photo together is on the Web, under Daily Photos/Thursday, at:
Other Palestinian participants at
CAJE with Mohammed were Rawsam Almasar (rawsamalasmar@hotmail.com), Ms. Rolla
Elaydi (RElaydi@yahoo.com), and Imam Nadir Faris (NFaris@satx.rr.com), in
addition to fellow Muslim Narjis Pierre (narjas@aol.com). Other Tri-Faith
contributors included Sister Dr. Martha Ann Kirk"
(Kirk@universe.uiwtx.edu) and The Rev. Mary Earle (mcearle@aol.com).
After the CAJE meeeting ended, Dialogue participants
also met with Board members of the local Jewish Community Relations Council and
Jewish Federation. Libby and Len Traubman, and Imam Nadir Faris, spoke
together at the Congregation Beth Am Saturday Shabbat synagogue service of
inspirational Rabbi Julie Danan (JHDanan@aol.com).
Later that Saturday was a separate workshop at week's
end initiated by Dialogue participants for the San Antonio community at their
peaceCENTER. It was followed with a program named "Heartbeats" -- an
informal evening of more personal exchanges and inspiring Ladino and Middle
Eastern music.
Participants in the new Austin, Tex.
Jewish-Palestinian "Dialogue for Peace," including Bruce Kravitz
(KKravitz@juno.com), arrived by car. You can read about them on the
Web at:
As a result, a Sunday San Antonio
Express-News article was headlined "Participants hope talks promote
Mideast peace: Jews, Arabs, others seek to overcome mutual fears."
The ground-breaking week concluded on Sunday with the
monthly meeting of the thriving Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue of San Antonio.
Many ideas for this cooperative week stemmed from the
imagination and initiative of San Antonian Barbie Gorelick
(bmjgorelick@stic.net), at the heart of San Antonio Dialogue.
Barbie and the others in that city embody what is
dearly needed everywhere, as verbalized by an Austin woman in the newspaper
article's closing line:
"'I know one person can make a difference and
change the course of history,' she said."