Holding Onto the Vision

Like so many others, the last nine months have tested my faith and my resilience. More than that, though, they have confirmed my belief in the essential goodness of people. At the same time that we have seen the worst of human behaviour, I have seen humanity at its best.

On Sunday, I attended the graduation ceremony for a group of German Christian students who have completed a year of studies here. They spoke and prayed in Hebrew (and English) and shared how being here during this difficult year and living in Jerusalem has given them a mission to share with their communities the complexity of life in the Holy Land.

On Monday, I was with a group of Israelis women of four different religions – Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze – learning and sharing our feelings, hopes and determination to work for a better future together.

I choose to focus on the positive.

I grew up an idealist – and Zionism was a huge part of my idealism. My religious convictions made me an optimist and an activist. After a career in Jewish education, attempting to inspire others with the wisdom that inspired me, I finally was able to settle in Jerusalem in order to live out my highest ideals.

I meet inspiring people every day. Their generosity, energy and creativity are amazing. The opportunities here are endless. But Jerusalem is not yet the city the Prophets described. There is also much work to be done to correct social inequities and injustice and to battle against prejudice. I have found friends, allies and listeners, role-models and partners.

I also have found obstacles and stubbornness, corruption and selfishness – most of it in those who should be our leaders. I am painfully aware that if we were to measure the achievements of Israel since its creation as a nation-state, we would have to say it falls short of the ideals of its founders.

We have succeeded in part of the vision: the ingathering of the exiles is very impressive; the plans to make the land flourish have exceeded expectations. However, we are far from creating a haven from antisemitism, where every Jew can feel safe, and a place where minorities feel protected. We have not created a model society based on the highest moral values – whether religious or humanist. We are neither a socialist paradise nor a state based on the principles of Torah.

The Zionist vision was to live in peace with others in the Land and alongside our neighbours. Nobody dreamed of living in a constant state of war.

But I have never lost my hope.

I am one of the idealists and activists who have not abandoned their missions but have intensified them. We have realized that our story is still unfolding and will improve. The current situation, unsatisfactory in so many ways, is but a glitch in the trajectory towards something special. We will eventually reach the climax, where the vision of the prophets of peace and justice will be achieved.

Three times a day, I pray for peace. My prayers are not empty words. I believe in prayer and its efficacy. I believe that prayers transform the person saying them. We are not just praying for Divine intervention in worldly matters; we are praying to confirm our own priorities and to clarify our own responsibilities.

In a course on the art of story-telling that I was privileged to undertake under the auspices of Women Wage Peace, I began to understand my own story and how it fits into the national one.

I formulated my slogan (with acknowledgement to Alick Isaacs): “If it’s worth praying for, it’s worth working for.”

(I usually avoid prepositions at the end of sentences but this one is worth breaking the rules!)

My prayers for peace have transformed me into someone who not only believes that peace is possible, and that it is the Divine will, but who believes in our human obligation to work towards the ideals with which we have been presented through the words of the prophets: We will beat our swords into ploughshares and Jerusalem will be a sacred and peaceful place of prayer for all the nations of the earth.

The prophets spoke little about the role of women in all of this. I am increasingly convinced that women will be the drivers towards our better future.

On 4^th October, Women Wage Peace, along with our Palestinian sister organization, Women of the Sun, held a powerful and moving peace rally where we announced the next phase of our work: two joint programs, one exploring the connections between environmentalism and peace-making and the second, building bridges between women of faith to harness religion as a tool for peace-making.

I immediately volunteered to take a role. The war delayed our start but I now have the privilege of moderating a wonderful group of Israeli women – Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze “believers” – along with Raefa Hakroush, a marvellous, committed peace-maker from the Muslim community in Haifa, with whom I have formed a bond of deep affection.

Raefa and I, photo used with permission

The women were selected from a much larger group of applicants on the basis of their openness, their optimism, their commitment to participating, their potential for growth and their ability to influence others. They range in age from their early 20s to their late 50s. They come from every geographic area in the country, including from settlements in the West Bank. They are women who would be unlikely to come together in other settings.

Our objective is to create a cohort of women who know and respect each other’s faiths, who see themselves as sharing a common purpose, Divinely sanctioned, to spread the message of peace in their communities and who are equipped to take small, practical steps to demonstrate that peace is possible.

The challenge we face is how to use our religious traditions and spirituality to work together in peace-building. Add to the fact that religion has been abused and coopted to create divisions and to emphasise differences to the reality that women have been excluded from leadership in our religious communities and you can begin to see the complexities we need to overcome.

However, every woman in the group comes with the faith, like mine, that our religions teach us to be peaceful and to pursue peace and that the Almighty wants us to make peace with each other. They also believe in individual responsibility and accountability.

Raefa and I have given a great deal of thought to the project and its objectives. We will have four meetings with our Israeli group and then will have four further meetings with the Palestinian cohort from Women of the Sun. At the time of writing, we have held the first three meetings.

Our meetings open and close with prayer – some words spoken aloud in Hebrew and in Arabic and then silent, personal prayer.

Then, we engage as a group.

Each gathering revolves around a religious value shared by all of the traditions.

Our first meeting was on the theme of “the stranger” – in Hebrew “ha-ger.” The Torah is explicit that we must treat strangers with kindness. We are instructed to remember that we were strangers in the Land of Egypt. That we were enslaved by the Egyptians is the exact opposite of what our behaviour should be.

Applying the method of Bibliodrama, we used the Book  of Ruth to explore what it feels like to be a stranger in society.  We saw the anguish and the gratitude, the uncertainty and the building of trust, the loneliness and the joy of being accepted. It made no difference if we were Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Druze: we could feel the human experience of being the outsider or having the power of being in the majority.

Our second meeting revolved around the idea of “kindness” – “chesed.” We used sources from the Quran and the Christian Bible, adding them to more verses from the Book of Ruth and to the wisdom of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Learning texts together in small groups proved to be a powerful experience in which each woman felt empowered.

The third meeting, held on Monday, grappled with “justice” – “tsedek.” The participants shared stories of injustice they have experienced or observed and then, after studying texts with four remarkably wise women, role models and teachers from each of our faiths, entered into a deep conversation about who we are and what impact we can have.

Next time, we will examine “emet” – “truth.”

We are re-visiting these essential religious values through the lenses of each of our religions, through female lenses and through our common humanity. We are learning how even when we hear the words differently, we can reach a common understanding.  We allow space for women to share their dreams and their concerns, their hopes and their fears.

Unexpected conversations arise, such as the one about the centrality of “place” – one’s home and one’s land – in Palestinian society or the observation that we come together as believers in the Divine and are becoming believers in each other.

Each participant has been allocated a partner with whom they are in contact between meetings. They also have a journal, in which they write their reflections and observations.

After each meeting, participants are asked to evaluate the activities and their own growth towards becoming a peace-maker. We already know that the program already has had an effect. The responses are overwhelmingly positive.

As a realist, I don’t expect radical overnight transformations in any of our societies but as an idealist and an optimist, I believe that this program and these women will make a difference.

Women Wage Peace and this project in particular are the best expression of my Zionism. We are working towards a society based on Jewish values of peace, justice and hope and moving toward the vision of the Prophets that inspired generations.

When I despair of our political representatives and the religious establishment, I am bolstered by these women.

Women Wage Peace, along with Women of the Sun, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. How sad but unsurprising that our so-called leaders are not celebrating this Israeli grass-roots movement, speaking about it with pride, and joining with it in fighting for peace.