Two weeks ago, my Conflict Resolution class took a tour of East Jerusalem with MEJDI Tours, an organization that runs dual-narrative tours--with both an Israeli and a Palestinian guide participating. I have been on a tour of East Jerusalem before, but not to the exact places we went on this trip. Without delving too much into the complicated politics of this land (and for those who know the language subtleties: while my language choices are deliberate, I am not trying to focus on them but instead convey my experience simply, so please forgive some of it), I wanted to share an important moment I had.
I have seen the wall that Israel has built--referred to by some as the Security Fence*, by others as the Separation** Wall--that generally divides the West Bank from Israel proper, and was erected in response to the violence carried out by certain Palestinians during the Second Intifada more than a decade ago (it's not even done being built yet, to my knowledge, and there are many sections without any barrier).
I have seen the wall from a bus on my way to visit people in Ramallah. I have seen it on my way to see the Church of the Nativity*** in Bethlehem. I have seen it driving to visit Jewish settlements across the Green Line. I have seen it represented in films--one, depicting a fictional love story of two Palestinians physically separated from a few streets over when the wall was erected; another, a dramatic rendition of a fictional terrorist suicide bombing at a checkpoint. I have seen it just during trips within Israel itself. So I have seen the wall for sure--but I had never gotten to touch it with my own hands.
A painting of Yasser Arafat on a section of the wall I saw many times when visiting Ramallah this year
I like to experience things by emotionally feeling a place--sitting quietly for a while, breathing in the essence, physically touching something there. At one point on this most recent tour I took, we exited the bus to stand right across the street from a section of the wall. I had always wondered--could I touch the wall? Were guards watching? Would I be shot for getting too close? But when I asked, the guides said that I could definitely cross the small street and touch the wall. So on that sunny day in East Jerusalem (a part of the city inhabited by many Palestinians, facing poverty and other hardships, with generally fewer services and rights than the Jewish residents of the same city), in sight of the minaret of a mosque (located on the other side of the wall), I walked ten feet away from the group of Jewish students from my yeshiva towards the towering cement structure in front of me.
The section of the wall we visited:
Minaret on the right side in the background, paint covering what was likely anti-occupation graffiti in the foreground
And I got to touch the Separation Wall for the first time. On that beautiful day in May, aware of my privilege to visit either side of the wall freely as an American Jew, I finally got the chance to touch the symbol of so much pain and suffering for the people living in this land--the people on both sides. I got to physically touch the thing that causes challenges for the Palestinian people forced to deal with the wall and its realities so often, those who cannot get permits to work, or to attend school, or to visit loved ones. The thing that so many Jews feel so tormented over on a very deep, existential level. I physically felt the pain.
Then, as I pressed my palms against the wall, I closed my eyes, and I prayed.
It may not have been a specifically interfaith moment, but it was a deep moment of feeling the suffering that conflict can cause. Many of you know about the issues surrounding liberal Jews being barred from praying in our own way at the Kotel. Perhaps you will then understand that while I expected my most spiritual experience of a wall in the Middle East to be at the Western Wall, a place which for most of my life I considered the holiest place**** in the world for Jews, instead--on a little side street in East Jerusalem, standing in front of a wall built by the Jewish state to in some way separate them from their Palestinian neighbors--I felt a much deeper sense of connection and prayer than I ever have at the Kotel.
An observant teacher of mine who has taught me so much about Judaism and the Torah this year also happens to be a Jewish settler. She lives across the Green Line, in an area known as Gush Etzion. Despite what might be considered unbreachable differences in opinion (her Orthodoxy versus my Reform, her more Right-Wing politics versus my more Left-Wing views on the subject of Israel and Palestine), she and I have discussed these and many other topics in great depth during our time together this year, and have formed a moving and close relationship in the process. She looked at me recently, and with a deep understanding on her face, she so acutely described my exact emotions on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: "Allyson, you are concerned with the human suffering on all sides."
Exactly--and that's what I prayed for so loudly in my heart at the wall that day:
I pray that this wall that I am touching should fall. Not so that security is breached, but in a time when we can all love each other and end this suffering. I feel the pain on all sides in my heart--the pain the Palestinians feel at being held behind the wall, the pain the Israeli population and Jews feel at having erected such a structure when we ourselves have known the intense pain of separation and oppression. May all of this suffering--and all the suffering around the world--end swiftly.
Now go out and let's figure out a way to truly love one another.
<3,
Allyson
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Sorry for the many notes; I feel I need to add in some historic/political background, but I wanted to keep the main post focused on the suffering and the prayer as much as I could. But here are some notes:
*It is apparently mostly a fence as opposed to a wall. But there are definitely sections where it is a large concrete wall, topped with barbed wire.
**Current estimates say that tens of thousands of Palestinians avoid the wall on a regular basis, generally in order to get to higher-paid construction and other jobs in Israel than those they could find in the West Bank. So there are (relatively) easy ways around it for anyone trying to avoid the intense and complicated permit system West Bank Palestinians have to deal with to come into Israel if they really want to do so. (One NYT article on the topic here.) Thus, critics of the barrier suggest that it is not really for security, but instead is part of a racist/land-grab situation. This is somewhat of an interfaith topic, but even more than that, its about human groups that have not yet managed to figure out true peace in this supposed Holy Land.
***Traditionally considered to mark the location of Jesus' birthplace.
****For those interested in the specifics of architecture, the Western Wall was the retaining wall for a hill known as Har HaBayit, or the "Temple Mount," on which the Jewish Temple once stood (the second one was destroyed in the year 70 CE. So long ago, it's insane!). So the Kotel is not actually the wall of a holy building but a supportive structure for the mound on which a Jewish holy building stood thousands of years ago. But given current politics/reality, Jews cannot visit/some would consider themselves religiously prohibited from visiting the location on top of the "Mountain" where the Temple once stood. Some Jews thus treat the Kotel as very holy, a spiritual focus. But the situation on Har HaBayit/Haram al-Sharif is a topic for another day.
