That Time We Did Something non-MEETy

One of the downsides of MEET is that pretty much everything we do is MEET-related. Either we're teaching at MEET, working on materials for MEET, or going on MEET trips. Other than the occasional trip for dinner, we're somewhat caged into the MEET world. Today, we broke out of that box a little bit.

We had a free day today, due to the observance of Tishah B'Av, a Jewish day of mourning the destruction of the temples. Hebrew University was closed due to this, and therefore, we certainly couldn't hang out in their computer labs! Instead, I slept in really late, and in the afternoon, I wandered around the Old City without agenda or purpose.

Meanwhile, back at the house, several instructors folded 100 paper cranes. Max's birthday falls conveniently during the last week of MEET, and they decided to give each student a crane to give to Max on his birthday. Pretty sweeeeeet.

In an e-mail to all the instructors, Kim suggested that we go with her to a peace lecture. A woman from her church had once heard a man named Rami Elchanan lecture in the region. Like us, he works with an organization that tries to bring Israelis and Palestinians together based on common ground. In our case, we use Java. In the case of The Family Circle, they use tragedy of violent conflict. She said it was a phenomenal lecture, and that we should go join Rami's discussion at the Mt. Scopus Hotel.

Being the enthusiastic young people that we are, many of us decided to join the discussion, and we headed off to the Mt. Scopus Hotel. After discovering that it was run-down, walking in the wrong direction, and climbing up a hill covered in broken glass (while wearing sandals of course!!), we discovered that we were in the right location, but the lecture had been moved. Instead, we were at the St. Peter Cathedral, much closer to our home. Only a block away in fact.

We entered the church, but into the part that was actually a hotel, and met a few of the other people at the lecture. We discovered that it was not a lecture, but in fact a round-table discussion with a small group. There were 7 of us who decided to attend the lecture, plus about 8 of the other group, who were a random collection of people participating in a summer public policy program in the Middle East. Including the two men leading the discussion, there ended up being less than 20 people sitting around the table.

Then the story began...

"My name is Rami Elchanan. I am a Jew, and I am an Israeli. But above all, I am a human being."

Those were some very moving words. But not as moving as the rest of his story. He is the son of a holocaust surivivor: His father was "a surivivor of the Auschauwitz school" as Rami said. He said that his story would begin and end with Yom Kippur. (Yom Kippur is the holiest day in Judaism, the "day of atonement".) The beginning was him serving in the Israeli Army during the war of 1973, which began on Yom Kippur. The story continued through Yom Kippur of 1983, when his daughter Smadari was born. And the story ended on Yom Kippur of 1997, when Smadari was murdered by 3 Palestinian suicide bombers on Ben Yehuda Street (a large pedestrian area in the center of Jerusalem) along with several of her friends. Rami had all the reasons in the world to hate the Palestinians, to seek revenge instead of peace. But instead, he worked with his wife to found an organization which brings victims of the conflict together.

You can read the full story here.

Then Mazen Fara began his story. Rami has introduced Mazen as his Palestinian brother. They are not related by blood, but united in a cause with is stronger than that which should divide them. Mazen's story began a little bit further back. He talked of his father, who fled with his family from a Palestinian village in 1948 at the age of six. They fled to the Daheisheh Refugee Camp, and both Mazen and his father grew up in the camp, with promises that one day they might be able to return home. Mazen spent three years in the Israeli prison, along with some of his brothers. One served a five year sentence, and died shortly after of cancer. But the most tragic event for Mazen was the death of his father. His father was shot by an Israeli soldier, while carrying groceries back to his family.

Mazen had all the reasons in the world to hate the Israelis, to seek revenge instead of peace. But instead, he joined the organization, and he works to bring Israelis and Palestinians into a dialogue of peace.

Some of Mazen's story can be read here.

Rami and Mazen tell their stories at high schools around the region. And for many of the students, it is the first time they have met someone and actually listened to someone from "the other side". And they see one Israeli and one Palestinian together, each sharing themselves and their lives and their pain. Two men who are friends, who are brothers in a sense. Some learn from this, some cling to their ideals.

More of what The Parent's Circle does is explained at their website: http://theparentscircle.com/

The round table discussion brought to light the suffering on both sides of the argument, and also helped to bring to light some of the history of the region that needed further clarification. It was an amazing opportuntiy to get an inside perspective, especially from two people who have such a positive outlook of hope.

Though I have found that conversations about the region with people from here, (or even sometimes not from here) are sometimes painfully difficult, Rami and Mazen have reinstilled in me the hope that eventually these strong views will be abandoned in hopes of peace and compromise. They've recharged me for another week of fighting the good fight, which is something that I really needed.