This is a new story about Palestinians and Jews
changing -- in a living room, at a conference, on a campus.
It is also a "how-to" for encouraging people
to enter into Dialogue and demonstrate it to others.
Today, January 13, 2003, this was published by The
Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education.
You can see the story on the Web at http://www.caje.org/learn/a_traubman.htm
.
And you can DOWNLOAD the full document in English:
http://traubman.igc.org/MeetingMohammedEng.doc (Word)
http://traubman.igc.org/MeetingMohammedEng.pdf (PDF)
Too, it's available for you in Hebrew:
http://traubman.igc.org/MeetingMohammedHeb.doc (Word)
http://traubman.igc.org/MeetingMohammedHeb.pdf (PDF)
We hope it helps. -- L&L
Meeting Mohammed:
Beginning Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue
by Libby and Len Traubman
We first met Mohammed - as did hundreds of Jewish
educators - at the 2002 Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education. It was
a hot summer week in San Antonio, Texas.
He was tall, dark, and imposing. A tattoo of a
Kalishnikov rifle was on his right forearm from earlier days as a relentless
advocate for his Palestinian people's human rights and national aspirations, in
the Middle East and after he emigrated to America.
Mohammed Alatar -- grandson of a Muslim imam, with
family roots in Jenin as many centuries back as anyone can remember -- began
teaching us much about anti-Semitism and how to prevent it, not from a
distance, but by personal, face-to-face dialogue and education. It begins,
we've discovered, with compassionate listening to each other's stories, seeing
one another as human and equal, and finally beginning to want the best for one
other.
"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One."
This is, to us, the life of Shema. Listening and
truly hearing not just ourselves, but all others, even our "enemy."
And not only when it's easy, but also when the wind is blowing a hundred miles
an hour. Listening -- one of the great acts of healing and of love.
And, this compassionate listening was welcomed at last
at CAJE, as the successful Dialogue endeavors of Californians and Texans
combined to offer six workshops to the more than 1,700 teachers from the
Americas, Israel, and elsewhere. Sessions included "Story as Entry to
Dialogue," "Seeking Peace and Pursuing It, with the Children of Abraham,"
"The Stories of Our Cousins," "Beginning, Maturing, and Growing
a Dialogue," and "The Process of Social Change Through Dialogue and
Expanding Identification."
Several hundred participants viewed the Emmy
Award-winning Best Documentary film, "Promises," about the
importance, challenge, and promise of Palestinians and Jews meeting
face-to-face. In the discussion that followed, many Jews expressed themselves
freely. Then, one Orthodox educator in the corner burst out, "We've
listened enough to ourselves. Let's hear Mohammed. We never get to be with
Palestinians."
"I didn't hear about the Holocaust until I was 28
years old." He startled the packed auditorium. "It may surprise you,
but I didn't hear about the Holocaust until I was 28 years old. After that, I
spent two years studying to be sure it was true. I simply didn't want to
believe it, because then I'd have to see the Jew as a victim, like myself. And
human, like me. I'd have to change my whole way of thinking about you."
In front of those Jewish women and men, Mohammed was
that changed man. "Instead of wasting our time apart, dehumanizing one
another, we must start coming together like this, understanding each other's
stories and histories.
"I'm learning yours, he said. "And all I ask
is that you hear mine. And, that we become closer and more like the neighbors
and great partners we can become."
The moment reminded us of the instructive words we'd
heard from Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener, in Hartford, Connecticut, "There are
two stories here and there is a quality of transcendence -- seeing beyond the
'Jewish Narrative' or the 'Palestinian Narrative' -- to a perspective that can
humanize both sides and hear the 'other' story. A transcender after all has
abandoned the exclusive quality of his or her narrative of origin."
Mohammed's first invitations to this "public
peace process" were from Rabbi Julie Danan, a former West Bank resident
who co-founded the successful Palestinian-Jewish Dialogue of San Antonio with
Muslim Imam Nadir Faris, and from Barbie Gorelick, founder of the Tri-faith
Dialogue of San Antonio. Now Mohammed is a member of the Jewish Community
Center, so his two sons will grow up differently, appreciating Jews and
inventing a different future side by side.
Once "against Jews," Alatar now says
"every time that I meet a Jew, I learn something new about them - their
history, humanity, terrors, and dreams. "Just in return please listen and
understand me and my people -- how we experience unspeakable injustices,
humiliation, malnutrition, lost education, and despair under an unkind military
domination of decades." He pleads, fairly, that we also appreciate the
intelligence, beauty, culture, and dreams of his fine people.
Most Jews and Palestinians, here and in the Middle
East, have never had an in-depth, sustained relationship with the other. There
is a "big disconnect" that allows us to live by our stereotypes and
inherited agendas, and to continue to disregard, dehumanize, discredit, and disenfranchise
one another. And to do unspeakable acts of violence, mirroring one another, the
cousins and Semites that we are.
For Mohammed and us, Dialogue has been the
transforming activity.
Our 10-year-old Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue
We are part of a 10-year-old Jewish-Palestinian
Living Room Dialogue Group here on the San Francisco Peninsula -- 30 women and
men; young and old; Holocaust survivors and 20th generation Palestinians --
preparing for our 127th meeting, learning to change strangers into friends,
"enemies" into partners, while initiating concrete projects that help
people and invigorate the public peace process, here and overseas.
Now there are six Dialogues in our area and over 40
others nationwide. The idea is moving into new towns, and onto university and
high school campuses coast-to-coast.
We have offered educational videos and published
Dialogue guidelines, without charge, and personal guidance. The materials have
gone to 1,300 people, representing 700 institutions in 490 cities, 41 states,
and 35 nations.
Something new is happening. People are seeing that one
cannot simply "demand an end to anti-Semitism" or "want
peace."
Conditions to be Fulfilled
There are conditions to be fulfilled. And, they
include building human relationships.
We cannot want peace and not relationships. And ending
anti-Semitism cannot be legislated or demanded. Peace will arrive and
anti-Semitism will atrophy as human contact increases and deepens.
Extending a hand and an ear to the other requires a
new kind of courage -- a new kind of soldier. And, the fear is not just of the
"enemy," but of misjudgment from one's own for being misperceived as
a "traitor" instead of a healer of wounds, a bridge-builder, an
inventor of a future that benefits not just "mine," but all.
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is
One." Is not God the largest frame of reference? If we do not include the
"other" and our neighbor in our vision of the future, then is our
life about God or something else?
Meeting Mohammed Again
In October 2002, we initiated a Jewish-Palestinian
Dialogue All-Day in Washington, DC. That Monday participants from 14 states
arrived. And, so did Mohammed.
It followed the First National Conference on Dialogue
and Deliberation, which seemed to fasten to North America the essential
activity of Dialogue in human relationships.
Tuesday, We accompanied Mohammed to the
Israeli-Palestinian Affairs Office of the U.S. Department of State. It affirmed
our belief that a key reason for the failure of treaties was the "big
disconnect" between the people, who still live at a distance with their
bigger-than-life fears, those dark stereotypes, and inherited agendas.
That night we presented the model of Dialogue to
students at Georgetown University. Relationships had been poor, alienation
everywhere -- typical of the sign-wars, shouting, finger-pointing, taking
sides, and rallies that have added up to nothing at all on campuses nationwide.
A Night of Diminished Anti-Semitism to Remember
But, at Georgetown that night was the diminishing
of anti-Semitism - anti-anybody.
To everyone's surprise, this was the University's
first unifying moment like this, co-sponsored in the Copley Formal Lounge by
all the key student organizations: Jewish Student Association (JSA), Muslim
Students Association (MSA), Young Arab Leadership Alliance (YALA), Georgetown
Israel Alliance (GIA), and Students for Middle East Peace (SMEP).
Listening finally began between Muslims, Jews, and
Christians, especially including Palestinians and other Arabs. Eighty students
had responded to the event's flyer: "Palestinian-Jewish Living Room
Dialogues."
The evening started -- naturally -- with a generous
spread of desserts, fruit, and drinks for a half-hour. Already, conversation
was noisy, and people were glad to be together.
The presentation began with an understanding of the
"public peace process" and of Dialogue -- what it is and is not -- by
Libby Traubman.
Then, a Palestinian and a Jew -- Mohammed Alatar and
Len Traubman -- told their "stories" about their ancestors, early
lives, what they were taught about the "other," how they came into
Dialogue, and how they have changed.
The room was open for students' comments and
questions, and their own stories, with Libby
facilitating.
"An enemy is someone whose
story we have not
heard."
- Gene Knudsen-Hoffman
It was an amazing,
breakthrough experience, with a bearded Palestinian student standing up and
reaching his hand out to a Jewish classmate from whom he had been totally
alienated since an altercation. The Jewish
student responded in kind with his own public apology for his earlier
insensitive language and poor spirit.
People cried.
Maher, a young man newly here from Deheishe Refugee
Camp, stood to describe his five years in an Israeli prison, yet coming to the
conclusion that Dialogue and building unbreakable human bonds was the only way
into the future.
A Jewish student stood to tell his story about wanting
to demonstrate proudly in rallies for Israel, yet looking out at Arab students
for whom he felt such affection, partly because of his own family's Arabic
cultural and language roots in Damascus, Syria. He broke into tears and
Mohammed walked across the room to embrace him sympathetically.
That's what the evening was like, with many more
narratives. And, that is what caused about all the student participants to sign
up to begin their new Dialogue on
campus.
"People become the stories
they hear and the stories they
tell."
- Elie
Wiesel
We tell and re-tell these
stories to show that Jews and Palestinians have settled for far too little. Our
conflicts are not "intractable." Together, we can become
"more." Together, we're better. There
is a way through our present dilemma. The life of Dialogue, of Shema --
listening as we've never listened before. For this is our dearest prayer for a
very good reason: it is a pragmatic step toward our ideal, very attainable
goals.
It works in everyday life because, in our experience,
everyone has a soul whose oldest memory is of union, and whose deepest longing
is for reunion.
So, after over 10 years of seeing anti-Semitism
diminish around us, what is our prescription for others?
Find a Mohammed. Listen to each other. Grow together.
Libby Traubman, B.A., M.S.W. is a
retired clinical social worker and co-founder of the Jewish-Palestinian Living
Room Dialogue Group.
Len Traubman, D.D.S., M.S.D. is a retired pediatric
dentist. He has authored and published The Oreckovsky Family: From Russia to
America.
The Traubmans are on the Web at http://traubman.igc.org/ and
also can be reached by e-mail at LTraubman@igc.org.
Mohammad Alatar in San Antonio, Texas receives e-mail
at MA1962@yahoo.com.