At the security check before entering the Wall plaza we had a little incident: when the police saw that the group included Arabs, we were stopped at the line before security check. Of course I tried to explain who the group was and expressed my strong opinion that they should go through security check like everybody else. But the police decided to call the commander of the post. {While we were passing in the streets, we got some cynical remarks from passersby for still believing in co-existence, so by now I was getting a bit upset.} In the meantime, the line started growing from behind. One religious Jewish woman from North African origin realized what was happening and spontaneously shouted to the policemen “let them pass, can’t you see this is humiliating?” Soon the commander arrived and called me outside the security booth. He wanted to hear who the young people were. He was an Ethiopian immigrant with beautiful gentle eyes. After hearing me he said, “I am sorry for the inconvenience. Of course you understand why we must double check. I truly apologize. May God give you strength to continue your work. Your group is free to enter”. And again it seemed to me that in Jerusalem one can meet the unexpected for better or for worse a bit more often than in any other place.

Since most of our Muslim and Christian participants have never been to the Wall, they were at first somewhat afraid to enter the area of prayer, “what if they see that I am an Arab and they look at me?” Biyan and Manaar, from the Bedouin neighborhood, Gan Hakal, near Ramle, were particularly wary since they were wearing the hijab and a full length black galabiya. So, the Jewish participants enveloped their Arab friends and so we entered the prayer area, the women to the women’s section and the men to theirs. Everybody was eager to stick a note in the Wall, so we were maneuvering through the people. Biyan and Manaar drew no particular attention, maybe because enough observant Jewish women dress similarly or perhaps because the women minded their prayers.  On gathering again at the plaza, it seemed to me that there was the excitement of having passed a test of courage.

One of the more challenging days of the journey was with Moshe from Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot {Ghetto Fighters}, and Muhammad from Al Samriya, a destroyed village on the grounds of which the kibbutz is built. Moshe tried to share what it was like to grow as the son of Holocaust survivors in the oppressive silence that hung over the kibbutz. He then took the group to the cemetery of the kibbutz where stood the monument for the relatives of the kibbutz members who perished in the Holocaust. Muhammad also took our young people to the ancestral cemetery of his destroyed village, a cemetery that was wired all around and was not in use since 1948. All that is left of Al-Samriya is the blocked mosque and the not in use cemetery. Moshe and Muhammad seem to have been conducting a dialogue for who knows how long. Moshe says that we have to look forward and create a future and not retain our consciousness in the past. But Muhammad wants an answer “what about my story, my land on which your kibbutz is sitting? I am not asking you to pack your things and go back where you came from, but at least you need to acknowledge that I have rights here and that you drove me out of here and that we need to find a solution for this together.” Moshe understands, he can acknowledge Muhammad’s experience. He even shares this experience with other people, yet he asks Muhammad to understand that he cannot return to his original village.

This dialogue is conducted in the Jewish cemetery of kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot on the fast day of the 9th of Av, with most of our young Jewish participants keeping the fast in the summer heat.

In the evening, back in the hostel in Peki’in, the day’s experiences are being processed and the topic of ‘narrative’ is discussed.

Some of the connections between people on this trip were really inspiring–as religious people, Manaar, a devout Muslim, and Aviad, an observant Jewish boy from Beit Shemesh, discovered that they had a lot in common.

On the last day, each person was invited to share how this journey was for them. Our young people expressed their initial fears, their positive feelings about each other now and how they have gone from a state of blindness before ‘The Journey’ to understanding the other side of the story a little better.