Moderate Voices for Progress

The Play's the Thing

Twelve Jewish, Christian, and Muslim young adults from Israel stood on a throw rug, with instructions to turn it over without stepping off.

Pandemonium reigned. Everyone talked at once, all directing. No one was listening. When they realized it wasn’t working, they got off the rug and began to plan. That try failed, too. Then the students figured out they needed to fold the rug first, and the third time was the charm.

“To us,” says Scilla Wahrhaftig AFSC’s representative in Pittsburgh, “it was symbolic of the journey they have gone on these two weeks together.”

The group arrived in Pittsburgh in October to work with the Playback Theater and to participate in three AFSC conflict resolution workshops. The group learned basic listening skills such as using “I” messages, working in concert, and expressing their feelings. Such knowledge will improve the chances for reducing tension among their communities.

Scilla recalls two students who moved her. One young woman wanted to things differently, but she was deeply affected by her beloved grandparents who had lived through the Holocaust, and their need to feel safe. A young man spoke of his love for a Palestinian woman, but said pressures   from her community forced them to keep their relationship secret.

“We have watched them move from ‘I’ to ‘us,’ Scilla says.. “And struggle with how they can stay together in a society that pulls at them from every side. Will they keep the deep friendships they now have and help each other be part of the peace they long for? It has been an amazing, exhausting roller-coaster ride!”