The purpose of the recent Interfaith Peace Pilgrimage to the Holy Land on which the Jewish Chronicle reported in their March 19th issue, was to visit the sites holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam as well as to meet with Israelis and Palestinians engaged in grass roots peace building. Let me share two visits that made quite an impact on us and gave us hope for the future.
On the second day of the trip, we went to a moshav located on the northern border of the Gaza Strip. We met with a woman who made aliyah from South Africa. Despite the fact that people on her moshav must take shelter from missiles coming from Gaza, through the use of video and audio communications, she assists people living in Gaza who require medical attention and other basic needs. She has arranged for cancer patients to receive medical attention in Israeli hospitals and even located a piano in Israel for a young Palestinian interested in becoming a musician.
A particularly emotional experience was meeting an Israeli mother and a Palestinian mother, both of whom lost children in the midst of the conflict. The Palestinian mother lost her baby because he had inhaled tear gas during a demonstration and because they were held up at a checkpoint for hours, he didn’t receive the medical attention that might have saved him. The son of the Israeli woman was killed by a sniper, when he was serving with the IDF in Gaza. To hear them tell their stories sitting next to each other and embracing at the end of the evening, gave us a better understanding of the pain each side has suffered and the potential for reconciliation.
During the trip, members of the group spoke of their religious values that, if the leaders would follow, might bring about the peace we all desire for the region. The Jewish members of the group focused on two laws of the Torah: 1. “You shall not wrong or oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:20 and 35 other times in the Torah). 2. “Justice, justice shall you pursue.” (Deuteronomy 16:20). These laws were also mentioned by nearly everyone with whom we met, from Orthodox rabbis to teachers at the secular yeshiva in Tel Aviv, who are actively seeking reconciliation and peace.
Many people in the area and around the world who identify with the Palestinian people are, indeed, homeless and would seize the opportunity to create a Palestinian state living in peace with their Israeli (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) neighbors. Many people in the area and around the world who identify with the Israeli people believe that the Zionist dream cannot be fulfilled until Israel’s Declaration of Independence becomes a document that Israeli leaders embrace and work diligently to implement. And what became very apparent from our experience is that peace will come when the Palestinian leadership recognizes that after centuries of persecution, the Jewish people are entitled to establish a state in their ancient homeland; and the Israeli leadership recognizes that “when Israel became a state in 1948, the Palestinians became homeless and lost their opportunity to have their own state.”
Alan Edelman
Leawood, KS
