It is such joy to be with each other again, our little group is all here - and I am excited that we have a special guest, A. I have wanted to meet her for ages now. She and J have worked together in Israel, with Shahabuddin and Ibtesam on Abrahamic Reunion events and trips.
H tells us about a radio talk she heard - and how she was struck by the speaker's comment that both Israel and Palestine need to simply acknowledge that each side must have their own state. This leads us into a discussion of what it means to lose or leave, willingly or unwillingly, one's own country. What traditions do we cling to, who keeps those traditions more accurately - the displaced or the ones left behind, and do the people still in the homeland grow and change with the traditions more easily than those who left? The people in the new country, how do they feel about those newcomers and their traditions? We are all familiar with, for example the problem of phoning for help with a computer and not being able to understand the voice on the other end of the line. What is life like for the new children and the teenagers of immigrants?
It is a potent and intense conversation.
J has watched a movie, "Slingshot Hop" made by 2 girls, one Israeli, and one Palestinian. More recommendations follow:
Movies, "Through the Eastern Gate" and "Walking the Bible", and a book "The Jew in the Lotus".
T manages to sum it all up - we want to move past the nation states, to feel that the whole earth is our home, and to move past our insistence that one religion is right, and find instead the unity of religions.
