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The Most Emotional Day Yet Today we drove south to kibbutz Ein Gedi. Ein Gedi sits at the beautiful point where the Dead Sea and the Judean Desert converge. The people of the kibbutz run a guest house, produce agriculture, and bottle water for their spring.  Kibbutz Holit On October 7, the people of kibbutz Ein Gedi became hosts to the survivors of kibbutz Holit which sits 3/4 of a mile from the Gaza Strip. Four women from kibbutz Holit met with us and shared with us the absolute unthinkable horror of the day. They were P'nina, Gigi, Sveta, and Gerida. Gerida (on the right), originally from South Africa, and Gigi (second from the left), born in Brooklyn, did most of the talking. P'nina, born on the kibbutz, nearly died of smoke asphyxiation, as the terrorists burned her home, the smoke entered her safe room, and she was unconscious when the IDF soldiers reached her home. Gerida's family hid in their attic for 11 hours and refused to come out until they were absolutely certa...
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On Wednesday, we headed south. Roni Kedar, "The Other Voice" Roni Kedar made aliyah  from England and was living in a village in the northern Sinai Desert. When Begin and Sadat signed the peace treaty in the late 1970s, Sadat agreed to peace if Begin would return the Sinai to Egypt. The residents of the northern Sinai at first were upset, but then they knew what had to be done for peace. Roni's village loved the area and wanted to find new land in Israel where they could build a similar community. They moved to Moshav Netiv HaAzara in 1982, right on the Gaza border. Life was good for the most part for about 25 years. Their village grew from 66 families to 300. With the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, however, things began to go downhill, from bad to worse -- rockets, bombs, tunnels, kites, balloons, safe rooms, and more. Life was unpredictable, as they never knew when the violence would come or how long it would last.  Roni believes emphatically that peace is possible. Wi...
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 If I thought yesterday was intense, I had no idea what we'd experience today. Shorashim or Roots We began our day visiting  Shorashim  in Gush Etzion, a bloc of settlements in the West Bank. There are 22 settlements in Gush Etzion, many of which identify as religious Zionists or ultra-Orthodox. We first me with Shaul Yudelman, a religious settler and co-founder of  Shorashim. In addressing October 7 he said, "There are no words and nothing so say, no ground under our feet; we live with fear and the future is unknown. Since that day, there have been so few visitors, and meeting with our Palestinian partners has been hard because there is so much pain, too much pain." About  Shorashim. It   is a group of Jewish settlers and Palestinians who work together to send out a different message: It is not Israel and it is not Palestine. It is the Holy Land and it does not belong to one side or the other; rather, the people belong to the land. Shaul continued, noting...
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It's 9:40 pm in Israel as I begin writing this post. My head is spinning. I am trying to digest all that we saw and heard today. Before I get into the details, let me start with my conclusion. There is so much  peace work being done in this country, even after October 7. It's harder than it was before and some activists express a lack of hope and pessimism, but they won't give up or stop their work. Standing Together Our morning began outside of the gates of Hebrew University, Mount Scopus campus. We met Ariya and Noam, sophomores at the school. Ariya is from an Arab village in northern Israel, and identifies as Palestinian, a relatively new expression of identity for Israeli Arabs. She had never met a Jew before moving to Jerusalem for college. She held every negative feeling and stereotype possible about Jews. Noam was born in Jerusalem to a Jewish family with left-wing leanings. Ariya's friends had been attending meetings of Standing Together and encouraged her to go...
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I arrived in Israel after an uneventful trip beginning Saturday night at Logan. I wasn't certain it would be uneventful, and let me tell you why. Some of you know that for May and June on Thursday nights, I've been going to Chelsea, MA to the FBI Boston headquarters to participate in the FBI's Citizen Academy, learning about the agency and in particular about cases handled out of the Boston office. Saturday morning we met at Ft. Devcns for a SWAT and arms demo, and to learn about how the agency processes evidence. At the end of the evidence presentation, the special agent said, "I hope none of you are planning to get on an airplane today, as you are now probably covered in bomb residue." Panic set in. I looked at him and said, "You're kidding, right? I'm flying to Israel tonight."  The upshot was that before I left Ft. Devens for Logan, I got the cell phone number of the head of the FBI Boston office just in case she had to talk to Logan security...
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Thanks for joining me on my journey to and around Israel and the Palestinian territories. The program, Seeds of Recovery, begins Sunday night, May 19, and ends on Friday, May 24. I will post updates and reflections as I am able. Below is the itinerary. Seeds of Recovery   Solidarity and Encounter Seminar in Israel and in the Palestinian Autonomous Territories   Sunday, 05/19/24 – Friday, 05/24/24 Updated Itinerary  Day 1, Sunday, May 19 th : Individual Arrival and Settling In   06:30 PM: First gathering in the hotel meeting room   07:00 PM: Dinner at the hotel   08:00 PM: Welcome and introduction   Day 2, Monday, May 20 th : Groundbreaking NGOs in Jerusalem Meeting with NGO representatives in Jerusalem, focusing on interreligious and intercultural dialogue and peace initiatives   08.30 AM: “Standing Together” (Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus Campus)   For many years, Standing Together has been advocating for unmediated dialogue and cooperation ...
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