Commentary; Documenting a Shared Pain, Hope in Middle East

Summary

---

On an overcast Friday this past March, I sat down for lunch in Bethlehem with a 30-ish Palestinian man.

Three days earlier, the Israeli-occupied territories had been roiled by an army siege on a prison in Jericho, another West Bank city. Swiss, Australian, French, South Korean and American citizens in Gaza and the West Bank temporarily were taken hostage in an expression of Palestinian outrage. A British cultural center, a European Union compound and an American company providing English classes were set afire. The International Red Cross announced it was temporarily pulling out of the region.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Commentary; Documenting a Shared Pain, Hope in Middle East

But Bethlehem was serene that Friday. My partner, Barb Tabak, and her adult daughter, Shana, were my tickets to this lunch. Shana, who was living in Israel at the time, was one of the coordinators of a program that offered foreign rabbinical students the opportunity to meet Palestinians in the West Bank, talk and eat with them, and ev...

See the full content of this document

---