PLEASE FORWARD
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In San Diego, Calif., Doris Bittar (DBittar@ucsd.edu),
an accomplished Arab artist and teacher, and her husband, Jim Rauch
(JRauch@weber.ucsd.edu), a Jewish University of San Diego professor, are
champions of Dialogue.
Seven groups have been birthed there within the past
few years, due in part to their affection and totality.
To illustrate their diversity, the San Diego Dialogue
community has two Web sites:
Through her art, Doris expresses the stories, humanity,
excellence, and high aspirations of both Arabs and Jews who are in Dialogue.
You can see a few examples of Doris's art on
the Web at:
http://dorisbittar.com/SemitesGroup.html
Today, Sunday, February 2, 2003, The Los Angeles Times
published some of the people's stories.
"The personal narratives are really the heart of
the whole thing," Bittar said of the dialogue group. "That's what
allows you to move from the didactic and the political to the human."
San Diego (Arab-American Anti-Discrimination
Committee) activist Majeed Khoury said: "I have realized I could stop
dehumanizing the Jew, and the Jew can learn not to dehumanize me. At first we
were touchy-feely.... Now we have genuine respect. I call Miko ... a brother.
We have that respect."
Miko Peled said the dialogues and peace-making in San
Diego are a worthy goal themselves. "The goal is dialogue, not peace in
the Middle East," he said. "This is the process; this is the
solution, to get together and talk about these things."
For Doris Bittar, on could say it's about art.
The art of art. And the art of compassionate
listening.
And for Doris and Jim and their exemplary Dialogue
community, the art of initiating and staying everlastingly at it.
This story is on the Web at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-bittar2feb02,0,5845683.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dpe%2Dcalifornia
Published in the Los Angeles Times
Sunday, February 2, 2003
Art Shows Arabs, Jews Reaching Out
By Janet Saidi, Special to The Times
SAN DIEGO -- Gila Peled and Taghrid Kanj greet each
other like old friends, chatting spontaneously about their children as they
size up the portraits lining the gallery walls. As they talk amid the crowd at
an opening here, the women's expressions turn serious, their voices quiet.
They are comparing stories, and the portraits they are
observing are of themselves and the others in this city trying to keep open the
channels of communication between Palestinians and Jews.
Kanj, a Palestinian who grew up in a refugee camp in
Lebanon, explains how her grandfather fled to Lebanon from Palestine in 1948,
tearing the family apart; mothers and sons never saw each other again.
Peled is a Jewish Israeli woman who says she enjoyed a
carefree childhood on a kibbutz near Gaza, where she never needed to question
why the Palestinian refugees living minutes from her home had left their own homes.
A national forum called the Arab-Jewish Dialogues is
bringing Arabs and Jews together. About 150 members in six chapters meet once a
month in San Diego to talk about their differences and their common fears.
Jews and Arabs get to know each other and their
long-held prejudices. When they work, the dialogues may even chip away, just a
little, at the conflict that is killing their countrymen.
"It's very hard to leave your mother and not ever
see her," Kanj says to Peled, as if explaining a problem to a grade-school
student. "It's not fair."
Peled acknowledges: "I don't think enough
Israelis know the other side. People in Israel don't know these stories; you
don't even know what's happening there.... Growing up, I knew that there were people
in Gaza but I never even thought, 'Where do they come from?' But now it's
coming out, very slowly."
Kanj listens and nods. "I think it helps a lot
for them to know the stories," she says. "And it helps us too."
Now the stories of the dialogue group and their hopes
for a better future are on display in San Diego -- placed front and center on
the walls of the David Zapf Gallery downtown.
Artist Doris Bittar's exhibit of new paintings,
"Stripes, Stars and Semites," features quirky, almost childlike,
portraits of the Jews and Arabs from the dialogues. They are people who Bittar
and her Jewish husband, UC San Diego economics professor James Rauch, have met
during the last two years while leading four groups.
The portraits are shrouded in veils which, in turn,
are almost completely hidden beneath veils of fabric, which are covered with
words from the subjects' personal stories. The identities of the speakers are
not as important, the portraits suggest, as their shared thoughts and common suffering
over conflict in the Mideast.
In one portrait, Israeli activist Nurit Peled --
Gila's sister-in-law -- holds a picture of her 13-year-old daughter, who was
killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber. Peled's face looks peaceful but her
lips are parted, suggesting both sorrow and determination.
Her accompanying text begins simply: "My little
girl, Smadar, was murdered because she was an Israeli."
Another portrait features Kanj, leaning slightly,
curiously, hands together in front of her. Her story begins: "My
grandfather always swore that no pomegranate would touch his lips again if he
could not eat from his tree in Palestine."
Taghrid's husband, Jamal Kanj, also pictured on a
gallery wall, is a Palestinian engineer who grew up in a Lebanese refugee camp
with six siblings, most of whom are still there. His father fought in Syria's
"Salvation Army" of 1948, and he now considers himself a friend of
Miko Peled, Gila's husband and a man who is the son and grandson of founding Israeli
Zionists.
Bittar, who began developing the idea for the
portraits 15 years ago, believes that digesting one another's personal
narratives is the key, not only to the portraits, but also to resolving the
conflict in the Middle East.
"The personal narratives are really the heart of
the whole thing," Bittar said of the dialogue group. "That's what
allows you to move from the didactic and the political to the human."
But will telling these stories over dinner, or on the
gallery wall, change the Middle East?
Skepticism, Jamal Kanj explains, is part of the
experience. At one dialogue meeting at the Kanj house, several participants,
ranging from the rabbi of a Conservative congregation to a director of the
local Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, expressed doubt that all the
chit chat would get them anywhere.
San Diego committee activist Majeed Khoury said:
"I have realized I could stop dehumanizing the Jew, and the Jew can learn
not to dehumanize me. At first we were touchy-feely.... Now we have genuine
respect. I call Miko ... a brother. We have that respect."
Miko Peled said the dialogues and peace-making in San
Diego are a worthy goal themselves. "The goal is dialogue, not peace in
the Middle East," he said. "This is the process; this is the
solution, to get together and talk about these things."
As for the women, Gila and Taghrid, they have avoided
participating in the dialogue meetings. Their mutual regard is an outgrowth of
their husbands' growing alliance.
"It's very hard for me to sit there and talk
about it," Kanj said.
"Doris Bittar: Stripes, Stars and Semites" is at the David Zapf
Gallery in San Diego through Feb. 15, 2003.