Headlines reflect a poverty of creativity in Middle East and global conflicts.
Equally human combatants find it easier to take
"sides" in various forms of "resistance" -- war, more or
less -- than to surrender preoccupation with the "enemy" and
discover each other and their inevitable, shared future.
Choices between Resistance and creative Response
are described on a new Web page:
This week in April, 2004, creative Jews of strong faith invited Palestinians
-- Muslims and Christians -- and other Arabs and neighbors to share the great
family tradition of the Passover dinner-ceremony.
Coast to coast, this joyous home ritual maintained
it's ancient, spiritual plea for human freedom, while expanding the readings
and rituals to be even more inclusive.
Three events -- Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto --
are described below.
===== #1 Los
Angeles =====
The
year-old Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue of Los Angeles created an Interfaith
Dialogue Seder, wrote conveners Paul and Joan Waller (
PJWaller2@earthlink.net ), who would gladly e-mail to you the document
describing the flow of their ceremony, compiled from many sources of past
experiences nationwide.
In the beginning it read: "During this event
let us remember from the Psalm of old that: 'Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies.' And, because we have chosen to be her,
this table is already blessed."
Palestinian Reem
and Jewish Rachel read the inspiring poem, "Hagar and Sarah," on the
Web at:
New
friends were welcomed -- Amanda, Amir Hussain, Joan Beckrt, and Shahnila Ahmad
-- and invited to continue in this Los Angeles "cousinhood."
Everyone expressed personal hopes and stories from
back home -- Palestinian Rola's letter from Nazareth, Jewish Yehuda's report on
the Women's Interfaith Dialogue in Jerusalem, and Lauren Gelfond's Jerusalem
Post story, "Polar Meltdown," about Israelis and Palestinians who
conquered and name The Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship in Antarctica
this January.
===== #2 Philadelphia =====
"An Olive on the Seder
Plate" will use theater, video, puppetry, and music to communicate
anew a contemporary call for freedom for all in the Middle East.
If you're near Philadelphia, it's this Friday and
Saturday, April 9 and 10th, 2004, 8pm. $5-$15. Painted Bride Art Center, 230
Vine Street, telephone 215.925.9914. Then it's Sunday, April 11, 7pm.
$15. Mishkan Shalom Synagogue, 4101 Freeland Ave. 215.508.0226.
===== #3 Montreal, Canada =====
An olive on the Seder plate and an
orange to represent women were additions to the inspiring, alternative
ceremony in Montreal last night, Wednesday, April 7, 2004. Ronit Yarosky (
RYarosky@sympatico.ca ) tells us.
The photo caption in today's Montreal Gazette said:
Nada Sefian (left), who is
Palestinian, and Ronit Yarosky, who is Jewish, hold ceremonial seder plate
enhanced by olives - a symbol of peace. The alternative seder last night began
with a dedication to a vision of a transformed Middle East.
Published in the Montreal (Quebec, Canada) Gazette --
Thursday, 8 April 2004
http://www.womeninblackmontreal.org/Sederarticle.html
N.D.G. potluck for peace: Jews, Arabs share
seder
SUSAN SCHWARTZ
The Gazette
They came together last night in a Notre Dame de Grce
flat, about 30 of them - Jews and Arabs, Christians and Muslims, to break bread
together. Matzoh, actually, and pot luck - at an event they called a seder for
peace.
The seder, held the third night of the eight-day
Passover festival, was convened by Nada Sefian (
Nadacharif@yahoo.com )
and Ronit Yarosky (
RYarosky@sympatico.ca ), two Montreal women working together to
bridge gaps, mainly though dialogue, between Palestinians and Jews.
"We are having people
breaking matzoh together - and hoping for mutual liberation and freedom,"
said Yarosky, a Canadian and Israeli citizen who served in the Israeli army in
the late 1980s, during the first intifada, or uprising, among Palestinians
against Israel. "One nation can't truly be free when it is keeping another
not free."
Sefian, a Palestinian born in Lebanon, condemned,
"in my name personally, and in the name of other Arab people, any attack
on any community."
She was referring, she said, to Monday's firebombing
of the library in the United Talmud Torahs school in St. Laurent, as well as
the recent toppling of Jewish headstones and spray-painting of swastikas on
Toronto synagogues.
"These are hate crimes. They are
counterproductive. I think an attack on any community is an attack on us all.
Today it is them; tomorrow it could be us."
Sefian said she had considered herself an activist for
the Palestinian cause - until the second intifada began in 2000. "As a
pacifist, I don't like any violence, any kind of demonizing of the other.
That's what brought me to work with my Jewish counterparts.
"For me, any human being who is being killed is a
human being, whether Israeli or Palestinian, terrorist or soldier. It is a
loss."
She and Yarosky belong to
groups that promote dialogue between Arabs and Jews in a bid to end the
violence.
"We feel this is the future," Sefian said.
"These are
tiny steps we take, but they are gathering together. I think it helps a lot: I
think it builds an understanding."
Each acknowledges she has not chosen an easy route --
and that there are those in her community who see what she is doing as
"sitting with the enemy."
Yet both count themselves among "concerned
citizens who feel people need to sit down and listen," Yarosky said.
"Occupying a people and torching schools are both bad things.
"While so much of the world is at each other's
throats, there are people who want to make a true connection with the 'other.'
That is the point of involving everyone, so that we can all look inward and
examine what it means to be free, what it means to be oppressed - and what it
means to be the oppressor."
Last night's seder began with a
dedication to "the vision of a transformed Middle East: a free and
prosperous Palestine alongside a secure and prosperous Israel."
Guests took turns reading from a text
Yarosky had assembled from various sources, including elements from the
Haggadah used during the traditional seder, held the first and second nights of
Passover. The Haggadah, for instance, features a recitation of 10 plagues
brought upon the Egyptians for refusing to allow the Israelites to leave,
including frogs and darkness. Ten contemporary plagues were added last night,
including tyranny and indifference to human suffering.
Ceremonial foods were passed, including horseradish
for the bitterness of persecution, and matzoh. But in a reading that is not
part of the traditional seder, a piece of matzoh was broken in two and then
passed "because the bread of affliction becomes the bread of freedom -
when we share it."
Entirely appropriate for an alternative seder, last
night's included some new symbols: an orange to represent women - and olives
for peace.
Reporter Susan Schwartz receives e-mail at sschwartz@thegazette.canwest.com .