Negotiations are once again taking place between Israel and our Palestinian neighbors. War has tragically permeated the history of life in Israel since the Jewish people returned to their ancestral homeland in 1948. Many of my friends and neighbors have fought in several wars. Many of them spent their early childhoods sleeping in bomb shelters. Palestinians have lost friends and family and many were displaced from their homes as the result of the fighting between Israel and the Arab nations. Hopefully, by the time the negotiations end, the people in this region will obtain the blessings associated with peace.
A peace agreement will feel like a victory of sorts for all sides, and will allow children and grandchildren to live without fear of being bombed. They will attend their schools safely, without the need for air raid sirens and bomb shelters.The Palestinian people will obtain true Independence and dignity.
Yes, there is hope for peace for the people in our region. I am blessed to live in Haifa, which has earned its reputation as "The City of Peaceful Coexistence".
There is a popular expression in Israel: “In JERUSALEM people pray, in HAIFA they work, in TEL AVIV they have fun”. Haifa gives the impression of a world light-years away from the religiosity of Jerusalem and the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv. Here everything is different; the city is positioned on top of a magnificent bay, and although the typical white stone that is characteristic of the whole country, prevails, the buildings and skyscrapers have a variety of styles, and the port is busy with bustling commerce. The many industries in the area are mainly concentrated in the so called Krayot, surrounding villages. The city is dotted with gardens. The most prominent is at the world center of the Baha’i religion, with the tombs of the Bab (Mirza Muhammad Ali) and Abbas Efendi, son and successor of the founder of the faith, Bahá’u’lláh. The presence of the Baha’i, for so long persecuted in various Middle East countries, is evidence of the tolerant social fabric of this city.
Haifa has a multi-ethnic and multi-religious population of 260,000, with a Jewish prevalence (91%). The well-integrated Arab minority is Christian (4.5%), Muslim (3.5%) and Druze (1%). Road signs in Cyrillic, alongside Hebrew, Arabic and English, are signs of the extensive Russian community here (25%).
In the past, peaceful coexistence, however, could not be taken for granted. Here too, in fact, the birth of the State of Israel was marked by tensions and blood. Haifa’s port became the arrival site of thousands of Jewish immigrants after World War II and the departure port for the Arabs fleeing during the 1947–48 Arab-Israeli war. Clashes between Arabs and Jewish paramilitary groups led to numerous casualties on both sides. Over the years, many worked at rebuilding this social harmony and religious tolerance that has very ancient roots. Haifa, in fact, is built on the slopes and foot of Mount Carmel, where, according to tradition, the prophet Elijah has lived. A cave called Elijah’s Grotto is inside a Carmelite monastery and is venerated by Jewish, Christian and Muslim pilgrims.
The effort to integrate social, cultural, and religious identity in an area with a high risk of conflict has warranted the continued commitment of all the groups present in the area to administer it. The civic and religious communities both have a decisive role.
I have been blessed to participate in some of the efforts to maintain and even improve the harmony between faiths and cultures in Haifa. Each month for the past six years I have participated in an interfaith study session promoted by the Catholic Focolare. Rabbi Edgar Nof developed this activity within the Jewish community. The Focolare does a myriad of spiritual, cultural, social, and economic programs worldwide- based on their primary tenet "Unity for All". Their members live by the golden rule "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." We studied each other's faiths with the goal of understanding not changing each others views and values. We have hosted and promoted an interfaith Choir performance which took part in a four day interfaith spiritual retreat at Kibbutz Nes Ammim in the Galilee.
The event was done in the summers of 2009 and 2010. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian border took part in a four day interfaith spiritual retreat at Kibbutz Nes Ammim in the Galilee. We studied each others holy books, prayed together, and enjoyed meeting participants from dozens of countries. Our only real source of contention was the nature of the cuisine! We were the first Jewish participants in this convention in the history of Israel and Palestine.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DaJoxj63Es
We also sent a delegation to the world renowned Run4Unity. It was held for the first time ever in Haifa in the year 2008. Youth from Israel and Palestine participated in a variety of sports activities held at Haifa's Carmel Beach. Several hundred youth from Israel and Palestine shared this activity without contention. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim young people participated. The last event was held in Caesarea in May last year.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jhF6oRrbRU
My favorite interfaith experience took place in November of 2009. We joined our friends from the local Muslim Ahmadiyya School in Haifa to host a youth "Soccer for Peace" program at their school in the Cababir part of Haifa. Jewish youth from Temple Or Hadash played soccer with the Ahmadi team from Cababir in a tournament of a three game event. The Ahmadiyya are peaceful followers of Islam. They have more than one hundred million followers in the world. Many live in Indonesia, Pakistan and England. .
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Showing posts with label Christians. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christians. Show all posts
Monday, February 10, 2014
Haifa Israel Peace and Coexistence.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Hamas- But Yet Hope for Israelis and Palestinians?
This current round of battling in our South has been depressing in the fact that it had to happen. There has not been any political way of getting the Hamas terrorists to stop firing explosives at our civilians. This tragically has been the history of life in Israel since the Jewish people returned to our ancestral homeland in 1948. Many of my friends and neighbors have fought in several wars. Many of them spent their early childhoods sleeping in bomb shelters. Our only real crime is that we have returned to our homeland that began in the days of Abraham and Sarah.
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a resolution adopted on 29 November 1947 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Its title was United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) Future Government of Palestine. The resolution was passed while the British still controlled Palestine. It was neither a Jewish homeland nor a Palestinian state at the time. The British Mandate for Palestine, or simply the Mandate for Palestine, was a legal commission for the administration of the territory that had formerly constituted part of the Ottoman Empire. The draft of the Mandate was formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922. The mandate ended at midnight on 14 May 1948.
The resolution recommended the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the partition of the territory into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area being under special international protection, administered by the United Nations.
However, war broke out and the partition plan was never implemented by the Security Council. The UN blamed the Arabs for the violence. The UN Palestine Commission was never permitted by the Arabs or British to go to Palestine to implement the resolution. On February 16, 1948, the Commission reported to the Security Council:
"Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein."
The Arabs were blunt in taking responsibility for starting the war. Jamal Husseini told the Security Council on April 16, 1948:
"The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight."
The proposed plan was accepted by the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine and many local Christians, Muslims, and Druze. However, the plan was rejected by leaders of the Arab community (the Palestine Arab Higher Committee etc.) who were supported in their rejection by the states of the Arab League. In a communication to the United Nations Palestine Commission dated 19 January 1948, the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine stated that it was "determined [to] persist in rejection [to the] partition and in refusal [to] recognize UN resolution [with] this respect and anything deriving. The Jews accepted partition into a gerrymandered crazy quilt and even accepted the internationalization of Jerusalem. This diminished and indefensible territory was to be the dreamed-of Jewish homeland and the haven for the pitiful remnants of Nazi Holocaust survivors.
The Arab League attacked the new Jewish and Palestinian homelands in 1948 prompting thousands of Jews, Christians, and Muslims to flee their homes. The invading Arab nations captured and confiscated the Palestinian homeland until the 1967 war. The city of Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan. Access of Jews to all holy sites was refused in spite of United Nations resolutions to the contrary.
Today, sixty four years later, Jordan and Egypt are our only neighbors that recognize our right to exist. Israel, still respects the right of the Palestinians to their own homeland. They now control much of the territory granted to them by The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. Twenty per cent of the citizens of pre-1967 Israel are Muslims and Christians who live in the only true democracy in this region. Many if not most Jews, Christians, Druze, and Muslims on both sides of our borders hope to live in peace and with dignity.
I am convinced as are many Israelis that Hamas does not represent the true nature of our Palestinian friends and neighbors. Many Israelis and Palestinians hope for the day that the fighting will end and that we can be an example to the rest of the world that nations can live together in peace.
Hopefully by the time it ends there will be some important changes in the "rules of the game" here, so that the people who have been enduring such rocket fire will be able to live normal lives. The missile attacks have spread from the south to much of Israel including Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Jerusalem is holy to both Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
If a ground invasion of Gaza could be avoided that would seem much cleaner and less distasteful. However, no one knows which way this engagement will turn, and we are bracing ourselves for the worst yet still hoping for the best. We are all saddened by the deaths and injuries of everyone on both sides of this battle. It is a shame that the assassination of the Gaza Chief of Military staff became necessary. He had the blood of Israeli men, women, and children on his hands. He believed in terrorism and mass murder. He called for the destruction of our nation.
Defeat in this region is not an option for us Jews, even though clear-cut winning/victory is also often not an option. The greatest hope is for a political settlement. Peace treaties will surely involve compromise. Settling the feuds will feel like a victory of sorts for all sides, and peace will allow our children and grandchildren and their grandchildren to live without fear of being bombed. They will attend their schools safely, without the need for air raid sirens and bomb shelters.
Until that day, We in Israel do not despair of the situation, and make the best of what has been, until now, a satisfying and fulfilling life within the shadow and pain of the constant state of military engagement with many enemies on many fronts.
The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a resolution adopted on 29 November 1947 by the General Assembly of the United Nations. Its title was United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) Future Government of Palestine. The resolution was passed while the British still controlled Palestine. It was neither a Jewish homeland nor a Palestinian state at the time. The British Mandate for Palestine, or simply the Mandate for Palestine, was a legal commission for the administration of the territory that had formerly constituted part of the Ottoman Empire. The draft of the Mandate was formally confirmed by the Council of the League of Nations on 24 July 1922. The mandate ended at midnight on 14 May 1948.
The resolution recommended the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the partition of the territory into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, with the Jerusalem-Bethlehem area being under special international protection, administered by the United Nations.
However, war broke out and the partition plan was never implemented by the Security Council. The UN blamed the Arabs for the violence. The UN Palestine Commission was never permitted by the Arabs or British to go to Palestine to implement the resolution. On February 16, 1948, the Commission reported to the Security Council:
"Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein."
The Arabs were blunt in taking responsibility for starting the war. Jamal Husseini told the Security Council on April 16, 1948:
"The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight."
The proposed plan was accepted by the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine and many local Christians, Muslims, and Druze. However, the plan was rejected by leaders of the Arab community (the Palestine Arab Higher Committee etc.) who were supported in their rejection by the states of the Arab League. In a communication to the United Nations Palestine Commission dated 19 January 1948, the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine stated that it was "determined [to] persist in rejection [to the] partition and in refusal [to] recognize UN resolution [with] this respect and anything deriving. The Jews accepted partition into a gerrymandered crazy quilt and even accepted the internationalization of Jerusalem. This diminished and indefensible territory was to be the dreamed-of Jewish homeland and the haven for the pitiful remnants of Nazi Holocaust survivors.
The Arab League attacked the new Jewish and Palestinian homelands in 1948 prompting thousands of Jews, Christians, and Muslims to flee their homes. The invading Arab nations captured and confiscated the Palestinian homeland until the 1967 war. The city of Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan. Access of Jews to all holy sites was refused in spite of United Nations resolutions to the contrary.
Today, sixty four years later, Jordan and Egypt are our only neighbors that recognize our right to exist. Israel, still respects the right of the Palestinians to their own homeland. They now control much of the territory granted to them by The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. Twenty per cent of the citizens of pre-1967 Israel are Muslims and Christians who live in the only true democracy in this region. Many if not most Jews, Christians, Druze, and Muslims on both sides of our borders hope to live in peace and with dignity.
I am convinced as are many Israelis that Hamas does not represent the true nature of our Palestinian friends and neighbors. Many Israelis and Palestinians hope for the day that the fighting will end and that we can be an example to the rest of the world that nations can live together in peace.
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