SUMMER CAMP WITH THE ENEMY

Muslims, Christians and Jews take first steps forward

Friday, 13 July 2006

There are two kinds of news headlines today, Thursday, 13 July 2006.
WAR is one story -- the symptom of human disengagement, and an abject failure in communication between equally excellent peoples.
FACE TO FACE ~ FAITH TO FAITH is the other news, about a summer program that engages 55 Muslim, Christian and Jewish teenagers from South Africa, Israel, Northern Ireland and the United States.

     FACE TO FACE ~ FAITH TO FAITH, unique among summer camps and peace programs, teaches communication skills, addresses questions of identity and peace, and supports leadership training in a multifaith environment.
     Face-to-Face draws teenagers who are religiously affiliated in their native countries to talk about the consequences of religious conflicts, and also treats issues of class, gender, race and cultural politics in daily workshops and in more informal settings.
     Read about it at http://s-c-g.org/facetoface/ .

     They are part of a growing, loosely-connected family of summer camps of youth from nations in conflict.
     These programs welcome a new breed of citizens turning away from violence, refusing to be enemies, and insisting on engagement.
     Read their names -- Vacation from War, Creativity for Peace, Peace It Together, Building Bridges for Peace, Abrahams Vision, Hands of Peace, Seeds of Peace.
     There are more, described at http://traubman.igc.org/campconf.htm , along with helpful guidelines and creative ideas for camp programs.

Oseh Shalom~Sanea al-Salam Family Peacemakers Camp brings together 200 Palestinians and Jews -- women and men, youth and adults -- in the California mountains.
     For camp this September 2006, 50 Muslims, Christians and Jews are already registered from the Holy Land -- Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus, Beit Sahour, Hebron, Misgav, Sakhnin, Gaza City, and Amman. 
     A San Francisco public presentation -- -- http://traubman.igc.org/camptuesday.htm -- follows the day after camp, Tuesday, September 5, 2006.
     Read more at http://traubman.igc.org/camp2006.htm .

     One FACE TO FACE ~ FAITH TO FAITH participant said:  I trust the process. Kids are communicators if given the chance, and theres no way youd live in a cabin with someone for two weeks and walk away with the same prejudices.
     A program leader described: They realize the other, who theyve been told is the enemy, shares a lot in common, they come up against stereotypes a lot, but they move beyond stereotype to the human being.
     A 20-year-old staff member said that making friends with Muslims here makes her hopeful that peace may one day be achieved in the Middle East.
Its easy to say, I want there to be peace in the world, but people here are actually showing, little by little, that it can happen.
I dont think we can change the world, agreed an18-year-old Israeli, still sitting by the lake, but maybe change can start with us.

     "It's easy to say, 'I want peace in the world," the camper said.
     We must also "want" relationships.
     Otherwise, it's just empty words.
We must get more FACE TO FACE with the enemy, not just with "our own."
     The time is always right.

         - L&L

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Published in The Jewish Week (New York) -- Thursday, 13 July 2006
On the Web at http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12720

Summer Camp With The Enemy
For teens from conflict-laden lands, swimming, barbecues and hard-won common ground.
Carolyn Slutsky - Staff Writer

Holmes, N.Y.

Hiba Alayan set out to fly across the world to a conflict-resolution summer camp. But first she had her own conflict to resolve getting through security at Ben Gurion Airport.
     The 16-year-old Israeli Arab girl was on her way last year to Face-to-Face/Faith-to-Faith, a program dedicated to bringing diverse teenagers from tension-filled areas around the world together to meet and discuss their lives, when she was detained by Israeli security guards. The Jewish friends she was traveling with waited for her as the guards searched her baggage and clothing.
     At that moment Alayan, who lives in Jerusalem and had always considered herself Israeli, remembered, Reality came up and slapped me in the face. Six Jews loved me but what about the rest of them?
     This year, when a new group of campers made their way through the airport in Tel Aviv to this sunny, grassy retreat in upstate New York, the Israelis once again breezed through security, while their new Palestinian Christian friends were subjected to the painstaking search.
     The check made me feel bad, said Sarai, a 16-year-old Jewish Israeli, as she sat at a worn picnic table by a calm lake in Putnam County, reflecting on the experience. (Face-to-Face officials asked that participants last names not be used because of the sensitive nature of the dialogue.) I kept thinking, why arent they checking my stuff also?
Sarais friend Plia, 15, agreed. I felt I trust these people, and they have to go through hell to get out of the country.
Alayan returned to Face-to-Face this year as a Leader-in-Training, and remembered the moment in the airport as redefining how she saw herself. She attends a Muslim school and lives in a neighborhood near Israeli Jews. Being confronted with the distinctive treatment at the airport, Alayan said, was confusing. I have Israeli citizenship, an Israeli passport, but Im not Israeli because Im not Jewish, she said. At a certain point I needed to find out more about my identity.
     Back home in Israel, Alayan, Plia and Sarai might never meet to talk about their differences. But here, along with 55 other teenagers from South Africa, Israel, Northern Ireland and the United States, they are participating in a partnership between Auburn (Presbyterian) Theological Seminary in Manhattan and Seeking Common Ground, a Denver-based peace organization. The program, unique among summer camps and peace programs, teaches communication skills, addresses questions of identity and peace, and supports leadership training in a multifaith environment.
     Face-to-Face draws teenagers who are religiously affiliated in their native countries to talk about the consequences of religious conflicts, and also treats issues of class, gender, race and cultural politics in daily workshops and in more informal settings.
     On the quiet campus here, dotted with red painted cabins lined in yellow trim, campers rock out to music at 9 a.m., croon Joni Mitchell and George Michael out of songbooks throughout the day, and make beaded necklaces and lanyards. They swim in the lake, enjoy barbecues along with kosher and hallal meals, and dance so hard that they have been known to break the wooden floor of the dining hall.
     As at other camps, students at Face-to-Face make friendships that bridge gulfs; however, the program never strays far from its mission to push participants every day to confront each other with questions of faith, belief and identity. Duos and groups sit together talking about their differences and similarities, and in this environment, it seems, no one walks away unchanged.
     The programs stages are twofold: Students first gather here for a two-week intensive session where they participate in such activities as making papier mache masks that show how they feel on the inside and how they are perceived externally, and react to words such as terrorist that conjure provocative interpretations.
     Participants from the same home group develop a timeline of their countrys conflict, Protestants and Catholics working together to hash out the history of the Troubles, Israelis and Palestinians agreeing to disagree as they narrate the years of their regions struggles. Jewish, Christian and Muslim students prepare worship services during the weekend that reflect their own religious traditions.
     After the two weeks, students return to their home countries to work on year-long projects relating to social service and justice. In South Africa, students have organized an interfaith conference on religious responses to HIV/AIDS, and have run their own trainings modeled on Face-to-Face; in Israel, others have focused on how the West Bank security barrier has affected their communities. Students from the U.S. have held retreats that dealt with issues of domestic violence and immigration.
     Many participants return year after year as staff members. Francis McAteer, a Catholic from Northern Ireland, was in the pilot program five years ago. He recalled that at first he was reluctant to participate in activities or meet other teens. We dont have camps in Northern Ireland or communication skills, he joked.
     But within days of arriving at Face-to-Face, McAteer found himself talking to people with whom he would never associate at home, and gaining a confidence he had never felt before. Now 22, he plans a career in social work and says of camp, I trust the process. Kids are communicators if given the chance, and theres no way youd live in a cabin with someone for two weeks and walk away with the same prejudices.
     That prejudices will be dropped and stories will be heard is the hope of Rev. Dr. Katharine Henderson, executive vice president of Auburn and co-founder, with Melodye Feldman, of Face-to-Face/Faith-to-Faith.
     The exciting thing is to see these kids who often come with warnings from parents or communities begin to have conversations where they tell their own stories and listen to others, said Henderson, who noted that families pay what they can in order to participate in the program. They realize the other, who theyve been told is the enemy, shares a lot in common, they come up against stereotypes a lot, but they move beyond stereotype to the human being.
Henderson said that one of the most unexpected outcomes of the program has been the extent to which parents got involved once their children returned home. She mentioned a Palestinian mother who met an Israeli mother through their childrens newfound friendship. Though the two shared no common language, when one mother found out that women in the other mothers village had no access to gynecological services, the Israeli, a gynecologist, offered to help and the two have been working together.
     Parents and students alike come away from the experience changed.
Avra Stein, another counselor who participated in the programs pilot year, is a 22-year-old from Cape Town. Stein says she was sheltered growing up attending Jewish day school, and had no opportunity to meet people from other sides of the conflict in South Africa. At Face-to-Face she met Muslims and Christians from her city, and has since learned about Islam at the home of Rashaad, a Muslim friend from the program.
     Steins rabbi initially worried about her participation, but she said having to explain Judaism to people unfamiliar with its tenets has made her proud to be Jewish.
Its grounded me even more in my religion, she said of the program. It makes you feel more like who you are.
     Of the friends she has made at camp, Stein said, Weve only spent a few weeks of our lives together, but we have a connection no one at home could understand.
     The directors of Face-to-Face stress that camp does not try to tie issues up neatly or create world peace in a brief two-week span. Instead, they said, they hope to give teenagers communication skills and exposure to people different from themselves, and let a ripple effect take place from there.
     Hannah Ellenson, 20, of New York, who participated in Face-to-Face in 2003 and returns as a staff member, and who is the daughter of Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College, said making friends with Muslims here makes her hopeful that peace may one day be achieved in the Middle East.
Its easy to say, I want there to be peace in the world, but people here are actually showing, little by little, that it can happen.
    I dont think we can change the world, agreed Sarai, still sitting by the lake, but maybe change can start with us.