{"id":7741,"date":"2005-01-09T16:38:45","date_gmt":"2005-01-09T20:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wtb.org\/?p=7741"},"modified":"2018-12-30T21:56:01","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T01:56:01","slug":"communities-of-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/?p=7741","title":{"rendered":"Communities of Peace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Smita Rane<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Smita Rane, a native of India, one of the countries affected by the tsunami, lit a multi-flame lamp as the group observed a moment of silence for the tsunami victims. Smita also shared with us a large pictorial display she had created of the tsunami\u2019s devastation. Barbara Fought and Bonnie Shoultz explained that WTB has donated a tithe (ten percent) of its treasury ($250) for tsunami relief via UNICEF, and anonymous donors have given $1000. Members were invited to contribute, although many have already done so through other groups. These donations altogether netted $1775, which we will send to UNICEF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mara\nSapon-Shevin led a community-building exercise asking women to reflect quietly\nand imagine what peace in the Middle East would look like. We separated into\nsmall groups to share our visions of peace. Then, with all of us rejoined into\none large group, 12 women stood and called out a phrase to create a kind of\npeace poem. Nancy Sullivan Murray introduced the panel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gobind Sadan\u2014Jean Polly and Sara Farchione <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Gobind Sadan\nwas founded in Delhi by Baba Virsa Singh ji (Babaji), a holy man in India who\nbelieves that \u201cGod has no religion and no country.\u201d Although Gobind Sadan is\nbased on a Sikh tradition, it is an intentional community where people of all\nfaiths can gather to celebrate each other\u2019s holidays and religious festivals.\nBabaji believes that all prophets came from the same light with the same\nmessage, and that sectarian religious divisions occurred later. On the grounds\nof Gobind Sadan, one finds statues to various prophets, including Jesus. There are\na mosque and a menorah; there are many Hindu shrines. Gobind Sadan is a place\nwhere people come together to pray for peace, with round-the-clock devotions at\nthe havans, or sacred fires. Babaji teaches that \u201cGod is sitting inside you,\nnearer than your hands and feet. The distance between you and God is as thin as\nan insect\u2019s wing.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Babaji\ntook land that no one else could farm. He talks to his plants and asks them\nwhat they want. His farms have thrived so much that scientists from all over\nthe world, including some from Cornell University, have come to study them.\nThese farms sustain Gobind Sadan, which is a devotional center. No donations\nare requested. All that is asked is for visitors to love God. Out of the farms\u2019\nsurpluses, people in the community are fed, with all castes sitting side by\nside. There are free medical care and a free children\u2019s school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The town\nhall on the grounds is an educational institute for comparative religions. Sara\ntraveled there last February to attend an international conference on righteous\nwork in the service of God and others. Also present at the conference were people\nfrom all over the world and from many different traditions and professions. The\npanelists talked about their own faith scripture, most of them emphasizing that\nthe important thing is not what your hands are doing; if your mind is on God,\nthen your work is service. Sara reported a real sense of peace and joy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean and Sara also talked about Gobind Sadan USA, north of Syracuse in Central Square. They showed some fragments of prayer cloths that survived the 2001 fire that was set by several youths who, when drunk, mistook the words \u201cGobind Sadan\u201d for \u201cGo Bin Laden.\u201d Miraculously, even though the fire destroyed the building where it was enshrined, the sacred Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, escaped unharmed. The Guru Granth Sahib is wrapped in beautiful cloths and placed on soft pillows under a canopy. Two professors from the Newhouse School created a movie about the fire. Titled North of 49<\/em>, it is available on DVD. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neve Shalom\/Wahat\nal-Salam\u2014Elaine Rubenstein<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Neve\nShalom\/Wahat al-Salam, which means \u201cOasis of Peace\u201d in Hebrew and Arabic, respectively,\nis an everyday living community of about 53 families, comprising a virtually\nequal number of Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians. Founded in 1978, it is\nlocated between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The community has the facilities needed\nfor its members\u2019 lifestyle. It also has the first intercultural, bilingual\nschool in Israel, a school that has become a model for all Israeli schools,\nwhich are now tending to be bilingual. Begun at the nursery and primary levels,\nit has expanded to include a junior high school. The community has a guest\nhouse where families can come for vacation or where groups can stay for educational\npurposes. It also has a totally nondenominational spiritual center. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nbusiness of Neve Shalom\/Wahat al-Salam is its School for Peace, which brings\ntogether Arab and Jewish teenagers as well as teenagers from other countries.\nThe School for Peace\u2019s syllabus was partially funded by the Ford Foundation and\nis an organized way for students to dialogue and role play. The School for\nPeace has fostered dialogue among hundreds of thousands of students and is a\nmodel for schools in other countries. Its faculty members have acted as\nconsultants to other schools, including schools in Los Angeles dealing with\nproblems stemming from racism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elaine Rubenstein<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Elaine\nremembers visiting the first Jewish and Palestinian families who moved to Neve\nShalom\/Wahat al-Salam, located in a then very desolate area. The families had\nnothing, not even plumbing, but they were idealistic and put their lives where\ntheir hearts were. They sought first to understand, then to be understood. They\nlearned about each other\u2019s holidays and celebrated them together. They\ndeveloped a beautiful democracy, which has had political problems, as all\ndemocracies do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of\nthe greatest problems that has developed over the years stems from the fact\nthat the community\u2019s Jewish teenagers must serve in the Israeli military.\nSadly, one of these teens was killed. This created a very difficult situation\nin the community, first because the Jewish boys do not want to be in the army\nfighting the relatives of their friends, and second because the slain soldier was\none of their own. The people of the community reached out and supported one\nanother in their grief. The community\u2019s proximity to the West Bank also leaves\nit very vulnerable to violence; at times, the members must board up their\nwindows for protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elaine,\nwho is a member of the Syracuse Area Middle East Dialogue (SAMED), said that\nthere is always hope; and with the Palestinian Authority elections going on\ntoday, there is renewed optimism. Elaine wants the United States to support\nevery effort toward peace. Just as the schools in Neve Shalom\/Wahat al-Salam\nare models for other schools, the community itself offers hope for peace.\nElaine hosts community members who come to Syracuse to share their story, and she\nhopes that WTB members will be able to attend one of their future\npresentations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israeli\/Palestinian Situation\u2014Sultana Musa <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sultana\nis a Palestinian whose family was evicted from their home in 1948. She wants us\nto understand that the history of the partition of the country started long\nbefore that. Late in the 19th<\/sup> century, the Zionist movement in\nEurope began talking about a Jewish homeland because the Jewish people were\nscattered all over the world. They had in mind two countries at the time,\nArgentina and Palestine. In 1897, the Zionists, led by Theodore Herzl, met in\nSwitzerland and decided on Palestine. They sent a delegation to visit Palestine\nand received a cable back from them: \u201cThe bride is beautiful, but she is\nmarried to another man.\u201d Palestine, at that time, was a province of the Ottoman\nEmpire. Zionist leaders wanted to work with the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire,\nbut the Sultan refused to let the Jews come to Palestine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1917,\nPalestine was under a British mandate. The British, in the Balfour Declaration\n(named after Britain\u2019s foreign minister), told Zionist leaders that they could\nhave a small area of Palestine. By 1922, Jewish immigration had far exceeded\nthe limits set by the Balfour Declaration. Winston Churchill was upset over the\nimmigration and wrote a White Paper that limited Jewish immigration and excluded\nTrans-Jordan from receiving the immigrants. The Palestinians revolted between\n1936 and 1939. In 1942, the American Zionist Movement met at the Biltmore Hotel\nin New York City and, for the first time, talked openly about a Jewish state in\nPalestine that they hoped would include all the land there. In 1945, the\nBritish sought help from the United States regarding the partition of\nPalestine. In 1946, the question of partition went to the United Nations, which\nthe next year issued Resolution 181 agreeing to the partition of Palestine. On\nMay 14, 1948, the partition took effect, with 52 percent of the land going to\nthe State of Israel and 48 percent to the Palestinians. The first two countries\nto vote for the partition were the US and the USSR; Britain abstained. The\nPalestinians were upset because overnight they had lost more than half their land;\nthe Jews were upset because they had wanted all the land for a homeland. By\n1967, Sultana said, Israel was in possession of the rest of the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sultana\nexplained that the continuing Jewish settlements and the security wall have\nbeen very upsetting to the Palestinians. There are 250 miles of roads in the\nWest Bank that the Palestinians are not allowed to use. There are 700\ncheckpoints that the Palestinians must go through, often making it almost\nimpossible for them to get to their jobs, schools, hospitals, and even their\nown olive groves and fields. They cannot control the source of their water. Sultana\nsaid that the Palestinians want freedom, they want justice, they want to go to\ngood schools, they want good jobs, and they want to be able to get to their\nwater and their farms. The wall, constructed by the Israeli government on land\nowned by the Palestinians, has iron gates, which often are closed before the\nPalestinians can reach them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the\nJews and the Palestinians want the whole country, Sultana stated. It must be\nunderstood that both are there to stay. Both really want to live in peace, but\npeace will never come by the sword. Before the existence of the Jewish state,\nthere were Jews, Christians and Muslims living together in peace, so Sultana\nknows it can be done. In order to have peace, both sides have to work together,\nand there must be justice and freedom for all. Peace is a joint effort. Without\npeace, there can be no security. It is Sultana\u2019s hope that one day both sides\nwill work together and live together in peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nwas a question-and-comment period after the presentations, with much\nappreciation expressed to the speakers. The meeting ended with Linda Bergh\nspontaneously leading everyone in a song that expressed all our hopes that,\n\u201cEvery one \u2018neath their vine and fig tree shall live in peace and unafraid.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We learned about innovative communities Gobind Sadan in India and New York, based on a Sikh tradition, and Neve Shalom\/Wahat al-Salam, a community of Israeli Jews and Palestinians with an intercultural, bilingual school.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[23,15,16,17,25],"class_list":["post-7741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-programs","tag-advocacy","tag-christianity","tag-islam","tag-judaism","tag-sikhism",""],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7741"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8967,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7741\/revisions\/8967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wtb.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}