Peace shall be his legacy

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the memorial service for the 16th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination this past weekend. It was a very beautiful ceremony in Rabin Square with over 10,000 people in attendance. The weather was perfect, milder than it has been the past week and the crowd was a fascinating representation of the Israeli population. In the past, the memorial service has brought close to 20,000 people into Rabin Square, an impressive place, and even more so when it is filled with politically charged Israelis. There were only several thousand people there when we arrived and Elin, my madrichah, expressed her disappointment in the turnout and told me that she didn't want my thoughts towards Israel to be negatively impacted. The furthest thing from my mind was the "poor" turnout. In fact, the Americans in our group had just been discussing how we had never really been at an event like Rabin's memorial. Israel is so small that people from all over the country can gather and experience significant events all together.

Part of the Tikkun Olam program involves taking classes about different Israeli issues. An ongoing theme through several of our classes is the concept of "the anachnu" or "the we". Simply put, it's the sense of community and togetherness that connect the people of Israel. It is a concept I am struggling to understand. I was raised in a culture that encourages fierce competition and independence (although without deviating from the socially acceptable path). I love the idea of the anachnu. It sort of reminds me of summer camp. I like that everyone is connected, invested in and committed to working towards creating the best Israel, the strongest future they can collectively build. It seems beautifully simplistic and optimistic. Unfortunately, summer camp comes to an end, fall sports season begins and those best friends forever (and ever and ever) now face each other on the lacrosse field and human nature seems to trump the sanctity of BFF bracelets.

 How American of me. But Israel seems to make it work. I just don't get it! I see it daily in small ways and analyze it in my various classes, but nothing makes it more apparent than when I'm standing with 10,000 Israelis, peacefully celebrating the incredible life of a fellow Israeli. There were thousands of high school scouts, many of whom were probably in preschool when Rabin was shot, old hippies, families sitting close together, young activists, soldiers in uniform. People from all over the country came together, put aside politics (for the most part) for one evening and chose to celebrate the things they share, including, above all others, a love for their country. It's a different kind of patriotism from the "cheer obnoxiously during the National Anthem, slap a THESE COLORS DON'T RUN bumper sticker on our pickup trucks and start a movement where we want to stop paying taxes" patriotism in America. Israel has it's own set of problems, but the country must be doing something right...

Fountain in Rabin Square 

Graffiti tribute

Memorial on the site of Rabin's assassination 

Now time for my favorite part of my blog- Reasons why I love the ARDC! I've started teaching the Advanced English class there once a week. My students are 5 middle aged men from Sudan. They are some of the kindest, most polite, well meaning and appreciative people I've met- and that's saying something because I find almost everyone who comes in to the ARDC to be absolutely wonderful. They are very sweet to me, but take their learning seriously and have no problem telling me when they don't like my activites. I think I've finally gotten an idea of what they want, so we usually sit together and read a news article, define new vocabulary, and then discuss what we read. They are thoughtful and provide an insight unique to any I've been exposed to before. It's very comfortable to sit in a college lecture, surrounded by your peers and discuss what people in Africa need to do differently to control the population growth. It's much more challenging to speak to individuals who are from that culture, listen to them share their stories as both parties tiptoe carefully in an attempt to address the issues without insulting or placing a value judgement on the others lifestyle. I'm not working with children anymore, either. It's harder, not to mention uncomfortable, to offer shallow and diplomatic answers in an attempt to ease tension without offering real solutions. Thankfully, these men handled our discussion very well and I was excited to being searching for next weeks news article.

This part is going to sound silly.... I know that a lot, if not most, of the news we read is bad, sad, depressing, makes you question your faith in humanity, ect. We sort of know what to expect when we log on to our news site. Something about these men makes me want to shield them from the bad news. I don't want my class to be 2 hours of despair. Many of the news articles I read involved countries in NE Africa or the struggles individuals face as they seek refuge in other countries. It seems terribly insensitive of me to bring these kind of articles in. After searching for an hour this week, I settled on an article about extinct rhinos- mostly just bad news for those rhinos.

Meeting with these men really puts things in perspective for me. They have faced unknown hardships beyond what I could ever imagine. Their lives are so much more difficult than my own. We sit together for several hours a week, all in Israel, but myself by choice, because I could afford the luxury of taking time off work to volunteer and live in a place that I chose, and them, refugees who fled their war torn home, left their families and friends, in search of security and prosperity. We sit together, sharing our lives for a brief moment in time, and despite the fact that our lives couldn't be more different, it feels very normal. Their kindness, good humor and optimism remind me that how we view our situation, how we react to circumstances, is completely within our control. Life is as good or as bad as we decide it is, and if these men can decide that life is pretty good, I can do that too. I always find myself walking home from the ARDC smiling, buzzing with a sense of purpose and contentment and admiring the beauty that surrounds me.