Have you ever felt the
need to pick up and leave your life? I mean, to literally move to another place, another
country, another continent, and start over? I’ve felt that urge approximately every
six months since I was a teenager, and I have been fortunate to get to follow that
urge many times over the years.
I felt something like
that urge when I decided to move abroad in 2016. For a variety of factors, I decided that the
right next step for me would be to attend a yeshiva—a place of Jewish
learning—in Israel. Many of you know this part of the story—in September 2016, I
packed what I could fit into two big suitcases, and headed off to Jerusalem for
a year of learning. And I went over there knowing nothing about the conflict/Conflict I
was walking into.
Well, not “nothing.” I
am Jewish, and had heard one side of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict for
years. Going to Hebrew School, attending synagogue, all these things had given
me a pretty one-sided view of things.
But a few months before
this, I had also met Palestinians for the first time, and became close enough
with some of them to have very regular contact. So I knew a bit more than
I had before, but I also knew enough from all my years as an active Jewish
individual that Israel was not my focus in life, that the “Conflict” as it is
called was not my purpose for being, nor my fight to fight. I chose other
causes, focused on other issues (#interfaithallthetime), and tried to put aside the fighting I knew was
such a focus for so many Jews and others around the world. I was (and in some ways, still am) glad to be a Jew in the Diaspora, living outside of Israel, focused on being the best Jew and best person I could be here in the West, with minimal interaction with Israel.
Now, I started this post talking about that tickle to move somewhere else, to try something new. By 2016, I had already done this three times previously—moved abroad, alone.
And each time had brought its own challenges. Learning about new cultures,
sometimes new languages, trying to fit in while still standing out in my own
way—but it had to be an intentional act, a willingness to learn. So while I was moving over to Israel to learn about my religion, I was also going there to learn about the humans in this place, the
people who were suffering so much every single day on both sides as a result of the Conflict.
I just didn’t expect to
have to learn so much so fast. I’d like to share a story from my first two
weeks in Israel.
I arrived in Jerusalem in
early September, and started school a day or two later. The first day of school
we were greeted with great warmth and welcome, and we were told that our first
Shabbaton—a weekend trip over Shabbat—would be held in just two weeks, and we all needed to put
down a small deposit right away if we wanted to go. This would be our first time to
bond as a community, a lot of our teachers would be joining, we would go and
learn together at a retreat center, and start off our year of learning together
in a meaningful way. Of course we all gave our money right away.
I didn’t think much
more about it until a few days later, when I was speaking with someone from the West Bank. He asked where we were going for our trip the following weekend, and
when I told him the name of the place, he paused, then said, “...you do know that’s across the
Green Line, right?”
Now, for those of you who
are not in the know about the whole Palestinian Israel conflict, the Green Line
is an armistice line from 1949. It is a fictional line, not an obvious thing,
that today is accepted by many folks as the potential borders of an independent
Palestinian state on one side, and an independent Israeli state on the other. Jews who intentionally go across it for specific purposes—a
Jewish Shabbaton like this, for example—are seen as in some way laying Jewish claim to the
whole land.
(You may have heard the term “Settlers” before—this a term given to Jewish
people who not only cross that line into potential Palestinian territory, but
actually build their homes and communities across this Green Line, usually in
an attempt to show that Jews should be able to live everywhere in the land. I
had learned very soon before heading to Israel that many of my teachers did,
indeed, live across the Green Line, which meant in the broadest of terms that
we would disagree about our politics a great deal.)
But here I was, one week
into my year in Israel, finding out that I was supposed to be traveling in just
a few days on an important trip with my new Jewish community, to a place that
had I realized ahead of time was where it was, I would not have agreed to visit. To put it mildly, it was quite the introduction to my year in Israel and Palestine. I was frustrated mainly because I came into this year knowing I had so much to learn, yet I was forced to make this decision so quickly and before any real learning had taken place.
And I was torn. I had
been taken into this yeshiva specifically as a Conflict Resolution
Fellow—brought in to learn and teach about how we handle conflict and
disagreements between people. Missing our first trip and community-building would set me
back significantly in my attempts to build trust with my peers. But going to
this place would also go against my moral understanding of how we could best forge a
peaceful solution between Israel and the Palestinians. I was alone, in a
foreign country, with strangers, forced to make a moral decision this huge
about an issue I knew little about, almost immediately. I had no idea what decision to make.
So I did what I always do when I am stuck: I asked questions, of basically everybody. I set up meetings with different
teachers—including one who lived across the Green Line and one who purposely does not. I had calls with a Palestinian friend. I spoke with family and friends back home. I had four days
to decide if I would even go on this trip, and I filled all of my time just
trying to learn more.
During this process,
two of my new classmates had also figured out that we were going to be traveling
across the Green Line (until that point, it had not yet been formally announced in school, even as we were causing a small ruckus among the faculty and staff by making it an issue), and they expressed similar concerns to me about where the kibbutz was located. The three of
us decided that this was a time when we could step up and turn this whole issue into a time of learning. The school blessedly gave us the space to hold
a session on the Conflict during the Shabbaton.* So we formed what I called to
myself, “the Rebel Group.” We met outside a small café on a street near our
house late at night, very French-Revolution-Les-Mis-esque, and we planned our session. Even with all of this, I was undecided until the very last minute about whether I would go on this trip.
In the end, I went, and I am so glad I did because the
session we led that weekend was incredibly meaningful. The first part involved a lecture by
someone who could give the historic facts of the Conflict as
impartially as possible, especially regarding the inception of the Green Line and its
meaning today. For the second part, we broke up into smaller groups of maybe twelve people to
give everyone the chance to share how they felt about being where we were.
The
outcomes of these conversations were less important than the fact that everybody—those on the
right, those on the left; those who lived across the Green Line and those who
actively opposed those who did—were able to come together and talk, even if
only for a short time. We were brought together by our love of Judaism and our care and concern for this tiny strip of land that is Israel and Palestine, and came into this conversation with what felt like a very refreshing honesty all around. Since we did this on Shabbat we could not take photos, but I felt very moved by having this opportunity to at least open the year of learning with a conversation. The conversation, the engagement, the makhloket lashem shemayim (disagreement for the sake of heaven)—that was what stuck with me the most.
So I return to the way I
began—that itch to move somewhere, to start over, it absolutely must be accompanied by a genuine willingness to grow, to learn. I want to
share a favorite quote that really speaks to me from Mormon thinker Stephen Covey:
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” (My emphasis.) If we expect others to listen to us and our opinions, we must first be willing to offer others that same level of respect by listening to them. Some of the most meaningful relationships I had had in my life to this point have come from my willingness to listen to those with whom I disagree. Sometimes this willingness to engage can lead to the most incredible discoveries—about others, and about ourselves.
Now go out and
love one another.
<3,
Allyson
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Please note: This post came came out of an exercise we did this year at my school on public speaking. I presented this orally to my classmates in a practice session in the fall, and have edited it here to share it with you.
*We came to understand that our yeshiva did not intend to avoid the issue of the trip's location altogether. There was an oversight during initial discussions of the trip with the students, due to the unfortunate circumstance of one of the faculty being out sick on the exact day they presented the trip to us. I give much credit to the way our yeshiva handled it all when we raised the issue.
