Email this page

News from the Region

Reconciliation

A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, Indiana, December 10th 2006

Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia is a Unitarian Universalist minister, and was a member of the American Friends Service Committee/Interfaith Peace-Builders 2006 Olive Harvest delegation. Below is a sermon she gave upon her return.

By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

Last week I said that I went to Israel/Palestine to test myself.  At the heart of that test was the question – if my life were threatened – if I or my family were in danger would I stand by my principles of non-violence.  I’m not talking about those hypothetical situations draft boards ask about – but about whether or not my ideals of non-violence could stand up to a violent conflict.  To be honest, I found there violence beyond my expectation – it was the right place – to test myself and confront my toughest questions.

I arrived in Israel on Sunday night November 5th.  We got in fairly early – around five in the evening.  We all cleared passport security easily – except for Miryam Rashid – our Palestinian American delegate.  We traveled as a tour group – human rights groups are frowned upon in Israel.  Miryam was detained for a couple of hours – in a windowless room while Israeli officers came and went interrogating her and then leaving her to wait. In solidarity – though unobtrusively -- we waited for her at our bus – getting our first impressions of the Holy Land in the airport parking lot.

My love for my Jewish heritage is deep and strong and my yearning for justice and for peace arise directly from that heritage – those two things – so long easily living inside me began a rising tension there in the airport – I was already plunged into the challenge that Israel posed for me – a challenge I needed to reconcile within me. 

By the time Miryam was released and we arrived at our lodgings in Jerusalem, we had missed dinner but I was stocked on Triscuits from home and restless.  I wanted to get to the Old City.  I didn’t want to waste a minute of precious time.  I found a companion – John – as eager to make the pilgrimage as I and we headed down the few blocks to the Damascus Gate and into the Old City.

Jerusalem

Every year of my life in the spring at Passover I had said – “Next year in Jerusalem” and here I was – that very moment in Jerusalem.  Yerushalayim. 

The history of the region of Israel and Palestine is complex in some ways – and quite simple in others - home, human rights, holy land. It is a holy land, perhaps as every land is a holy land.  It is the chosen holy land and the home land of many peoples.  In its very sacredness it provides the testing ground for more than small persons like myself – for the ideas that good people every where hold sacred – that justice is more important than law, that peace is more important than security, that human rights are the first rights, and that life is sacred. 

In the Muslim quarter the stores were either closed or people were working at cleaning up from the day.  Passing a smoke house I could see the men inside gathered around their hookahs and outside I could smell the sweet smell of fruit-flavored tobaccos.  By vegetable and meat stands garbage was piled high waiting for sparse city services.

We turned down narrow hallway-like streets, letting the tangle of streets bring surprises – as ancient carved stones would great us.  At the museum as a kid, the carved tops of columns, the facades of temples and palaces were like disembodied teasing whispers from a lost past I couldn’t quite reach.  On the streets of Old Jerusalem that past was at hand, beneath my feet and arching over my head. 

“I smell Christians – well – Orthodox Christians” John said.  Sure enough there were lingering smells of incense in the air – we had passed into the Christian Quarter and the smell of devotion was present. We kept walking and reached a place where the streets were suddenly clean enough to eat off and the city became visibly more ancient.  Careful excavation had revealed columns, walls.  I stood on 16th century streets that looked down into the remnants of a society 2000 years lost.  The Jewish Quarter.   My heart was full.

Eretz Israel

The land of Israel had called forth its claim from my blood.  This trip would touch me to my core.  It exposed my own ancient grief and my contemporary turmoil.  I arrived in Israel carrying the sorrow of 2000 years of exile, refugee existence, being scarcely tolerated, vilified, massacred, expelled, pogromed, ghettoized, and, finally, taken to gas chambers.  I wanted to experience – return.  I knew the conflict before I went – but it was a complex maze – like the streets of the old city.  In Israel/Palestine – off the tourist beat – in my daily experience, it rose into dimension and clarity.

What I found was an Israeli society trying to thrive in a harsh Arab environment – facing a history of conflict and carrying a heavy weight of fear – fear that drives the machinery of government – among other forces.  I found Israeli society to be still traumatized by the Holocaust, by history, by suicide bombers and hijackers, and by people in their government who exploit their fears as eagerly as our own government has exploited American fears.  I found a very different Israeli society than the one that I had hoped for -- joyful, just, and warm.  There was heaviness everywhere – fatigue from the constant drain on the spirit (as well as the resources – intellectual and financial) -- that an endless state of war creates. At checkpoint after checkpoint I saw young Israeli soldiers – their faces alternating between hard, routine, or anxious.  Being efficient and following orders.  I found on the fringes of Israeli society settlers – mad as hatters, worse than our own fundamentalists – who beat up Palestinian children on their way to school, poison wells, steal water, uproot olive trees, kill herds, and rain trash and bricks down on people going about their daily lives.  I found West Bank villages completely surrounded by illegal settlements – cities with electricity, water, clinics, roads, all provided by the state – while the villages lost their water rights, found their own roads blocked, and their electricity sporadic – if available at all. One shopkeeper in Jerusalem described the Palestinian situation like being in a bottle, the lid screwed shut -- slowly suffocating.

An entire people seem to be suffering for security reasons.  I saw and learned more than I can press into a sermon – more than I can express. 

We went to harvest olives – but I harvested hope

In the midst of all this rubble – and in the harsh landscape – both natural and political I found such blossoming of spirit – that instead of returning carrying despair I have returned inspired, because I saw beauty and goodness and an indomitable will to peace in Palestinians and Israelis – a side of the situation we are never given to see here in the United States – because it might make us think twice – but I have returned having thought more than twice.

We went to harvest olives – but I harvested hope and heart in a way that I hadn’t expected. 

Nearly every time we met with people we would be given marvelous hospitality – cookies, cakes, tea, coffee, water bottles, and it was no different on the day that we met with a group called Combatants for Peace – men who have either served in the military in Israel or been militant Palestinians and all of whom have forsaken force as a means to settle this conflict.  They listen to each others stories – but more than that they speak to groups, write, and make witness to their belief that a better answer can be found in non-violence on both sides.  Elik Elhanan, a young Israeli had served a year and a half of his service and then had refused to return to uniform.  He said that he had seen such acts of cruelty in his time as a soldier and thus he became opposed to violence.  He had served four separate jail sentences for refusing.  He said that he would not cross the green line again – the line that separated Israeli and Palestinian states in 1948 – until both sides had jurisdiction over their own sides of the line.  This, in spite of the fact that nine years before his sister had been killed by a suicide bomber in Jerusalem.  We met Suleiman, a Palestinian man who wanted to practice his Hebrew so he spoke to us in Hebrew while Elhanan translated. “I joined the “Fatah” movement at the age of 12.  At the age of 14, I stabbed Israeli soldiers with a friend of mine. We were arrested. I was sentenced to 15 years in jail and my friend to 18 years. In 1997, after 10 years and 5 months in jail, I was freed. In spite of numerous difficulties, such as the separation wall, the curfews, the settlements and more, some of us believe that combatants, who personally paid a price for their active involvement in the conflict, are the ones who can significantly change the situation.”

These men were under fire from both sides – but drew strength from one another.  At first, they had only met to support one another and then they had decided that it was important to spread their message of peace.  In February they’d been able to speak to the European Parliament and they hoped to come to the United States to speak to our Congress.  For the group even to meet is a challenge – Israelis are not allowed to go to the West Bank and Gaza – except to settlements and Palestinians never know if they will be allowed to enter Jerusalem.  The men seemed deeply connected – as are any group of people who have spent hours sharing their stories and insights and struggling toward new truths and profound changes of heart.

A few days later we met with an Israeli in Jerusalem – the father, it turned out, of the Israeli ex-soldier.  Rami Elhanan told us of the day, nine years before, when their 14 year old daughter, Smadar had been out with friends.  He said “On the fourth of September 1997, I lost my fourteen-year-old daughter, Smadar in a suicide attack. It was afternoon and the beginning of a very long and dark night.  At first, I heard the news of a suicide bombing near where my daughter and her friends were shopping on Ben-Yehuda St. Then, I found myself running in the streets, from hospital to hospital looking for her… later on, in the morgue, this horrible finger turned and faced me right between the eyes. It was a sight and time I will never ever be able to forget, and it changed my life completely.”

It was some time later that Rami discovered the Bereaved Families for Peace Circle.  A friend took him to a meeting.  I want to quote him a little more – “it is a joint venture of the two sides. It is a venture of people who paid the highest price possible yet are still able to put aside the anger and the natural will to retaliate by talking. They see this path as the only means of … breaking the endless and meaningless cycle of violence… meeting these people, listening to their message of forgiveness and healing, touched me deep inside. From that moment on I have a reason to get out of bed every morning!  I devote my life to convey this very simple message: We must break down this wall of hatred and fear that divides our two nations. We are not doomed! It is not our destiny to keep on dying here in this Holy Land forever! We must turn our pain into hope.”

When Rami finished talking I was in tears once again.  Rabbi Hillel – said: "B'makom she’ein anashim, hishtadeil lih'yot ish." In a place where no one behaves like a human being, you must strive to be human! 

Sometimes that seems nearly impossible.  Yet in a land where it might seem beyond belief I met people who daily faced hurt and danger, people who daily had their rights violated, who lost all they held dear in the way of material things, and lost people they held dear in acts of violence at checkpoints, on the front steps of their houses while eating lunch – and who again and again – followers of Moses, of Muhammad, and of Jesus – choose the path of life, healing, justice and peace. 

In Hebron – a city besieged by settlers – the shopkeepers have retreated under a rain of stones, bricks, trash, and bullets.  Settlers would break into homes in the night, drive families away at gun point and take over the dwellings. Hebron depressed me and gave me that feeling of suffocation.  Walking under the wire netting that Palestinians had put up to protect themselves from the debris thrown down on them, finding road after road blocked and building after building abandoned was bleak.  But at the very edge of Hebron I met with a group of Christian peacemakers among them a man who was not Christian but a Muslim – Nayef Hashlamoun.  With his cameras at his feet – he’s a Reuter’s photographer – he told about his early life as a militant - until 15 years ago when he lay awake surrounded by weapons and realized that violence was no longer his path.  At that time he went to Jordan to study journalism – as he said – to fight through his camera.  He has been shot three times and injured many times by Israelis but his conviction does not waver.  

Into Hebron he had brought Marshall Rosenberg.  Some of you are familiar with Rosenberg’s work on non-violent communication and my enthusiasm for his work.  Rosenberg came to Hebron with his Jackal and his Giraffe to help teach the tools of non-violent thinking, acting and speaking.  I remembered Rosenberg chose the giraffe as his symbol of non-violent communication because it’s the land animal with the largest heart. We sat only yards away from armed soldiers, armed settlers with a man who spoke with firm love and gentleness about the need for deep non-violence.  I rejoiced to find this anchor for my own non-violence so far from home.  How connected we are! 

On our last day we visited Sami Awad of the Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem.  The Holy Land Trust does training in non-violent activism and this past year trained over 800 trainers throughout the West Bank.  In their many peaceful protests no hand is raised.  In an article, Awad wrote about his thoughts at a conference he had attended in Portugal this summer: “As I closed my eyes I go back to the holy land. I see a land, that isn’t a fictional land.... It is the land of today, the people of today. But there is a powerful sense of peace and calmness. The mountains, the flowers, the people. There was no Arab, or Muslim, or Jew or Christian -- just people. Those who have come here to work for peace and for justice should know this. This is part of the network that we will build -- that we will be one. We will not have any nationality between us. We will not have any religion between us. We work together on Earth, but we are not from here. We are all part of this universe; the greater existence that we are part of. Going to India is like going to the next village. Just go. Go and serve. Go and heal. Go and love.  I go back with what I feel is the power that makes this things happen which is the power of non-violence…through non-violence you show solidarity, compassion, you show your ability to stand and to resist injustice. Remember always to respect yourself, to love yourself, to find the strength that is within you because this is the power that is able to change the world.” 

Living Hope, and Reconciliation

I hope that every one of us is able to remember Awad’s words.  I was able to meet so many remarkable people in the Holy Land – it is they who make the Land Holy.  These people and so many others that I met are building the possibility of reconciliation by seeing the light in themselves and even in their enemies – resisters, oppressors, victims, survivors – they become peacemakers by working for justice, restoration, and by teaching the methods of peace that have shaken empires and liberated millions.  They are what Scott Kennedy – one of our group leaders called “living hope.” Because, as Scott says – they do not have hope – they are hope. 

We don’t get news of these non-violent movements here in the US.  I’ve wondered why we have such monolithic pictures of Israelis and Palestinians painted for us.  I believe that to allow silence to persist is to doom Israelis and Palestinians both.  And to doom us all to endless cycles of violence.  The truth needs to come out and the struggles of noble people need to be known and supported. I cannot express the depth of my gratitude that I was able to make this journey and to bear witness. 

I am reminded of the words of Alice Walker – with whom I am in passionate agreement – “There is always a moment in any kind of struggle when one feels in full bloom. Vivid. Alive. To be such a person or to witness anyone at this moment of transcendent presence is to know that what is human is linked, by a daring compassion, to what is divine. I have seen fear turn into courage. Sorrow into joy. Funerals into celebrations. Because whatever the consequences, people, standing side by side, have expressed who they really are, and that ultimately they believe in the love of the world and each other enough to be that--which is the foundation of activism.”  The power of Alice Walker's words are witnessed in the people I met on my journey.  And I feel them in my own heart.

The history of the region of Israel and Palestine is complex in some ways – and quite simple in others home, human rights, holy land – it is a holy land – perhaps as every land is a holy land.  It is the chosen holy land and the home land of many peoples.  In its very sacredness it provides the testing ground for more than small persons like myself –for the ideas that good people every where hold sacred – that justice is more important than law, that peace is more important than security, that human rights are the first rights, and that life is sacred. 

I have returned with a wider sense of the word reconciliation. 

Reconciliation is a big word – it can mean so many things – but above it means reconciling ourselves to the state of being human above all else – vulnerable, powerful, and capable of soul force – the force of love and truth – the force that reconciles us to one another and makes us something more than human in the very same moment.

The Reverend Hilary Landau Krivchenia is the minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, Indiana. Of proud Jewish ancestry, Rev. Krivchenia believes that justice, tzedek, is a universal value, to be shared by all people.  She has held a lifelong commitment to non-violence saw that ideal tested in Israel/Palestine under the harshest conditions and flourishing among inspiring people there.  She said that the American Friends Service Committee/Interfaith Peace-builder Delegation has been a turning point in her life – more deeply inspiring her to work for peace with justice in the Holy Land.

^ Top of page