Peacecamp

3/19/2005

Hello to all from sunny Israel and thank you for coming to the screening of the project’s movie.

I felt that even though I am far away in Israel – I would like to tell you about the importance of the work we try to realize by this project.
I am an Israeli-Jew, born to a Polish Jewish father who came to Israel in 1950 as a refugee after the second world war, and to an Iraqi-Jewish mother, who was smuggled into Israel in 1950 all by herself in the age of 12. Their meeting was able only in Israel – the new home of the Jewish people. But Israel was not empty when the Jews came to settle down on its land. A big population of Palestinians was living here for decades.

The result of this is knows to all – the 1948 war known to the Jews by it’s name – The Independence War, or to the Palestinians as “Al Nakba” (the disaster).
Since, both people experience years of wars, bloodsheds and loss. Each generation is praying for new life of peace and quite, which never come.
In the meanwhile those Palestinians, who were not deported or did not escape in 1948, became what we call “The Israeli-Arabs” or “The Israeli-Palestinians”. They are torn between their Palestinian Identity and the Israeli Identity.
The Jewish population, from the other side, is torn between the Jewish Identity and the Israeli Identity.

Processing the crucial questions about these issues are not being done in the regular educational system. Not only it is not being done, it is being ignored by purpose.
Not dealing with these issues means that they are solved or do not exist?
Of course not – they are growing and growing without being able to solve them or building a bridge to a common identity to both the Israeli-Arabs and the Israeli-Jews. Not dealing with the important questions makes thing worse and worse.

From the other side – the Jews try to struggle their Holocaust trauma – the first generation, the second generation and now the third one. The third generation of Austrian youth has also to deal with what has been done by their grandfathers or their people as a whole.
Again, not dealing with these issues – don’t solve the trauma, but enlarge it by acting it out and not working it through.
And how does the third generation of Israeli Palestinians is being effected by the Holocaust trauma? That is another important question we deal with.

Our project is trying to do what the Educational Systems of countries don’t always manage to do. With only a good will, deep commitment, work of thousand of voluntarily work, and the understanding that this must be done – we try to take youth of these 3 cultural-religious groups and to make them face and understand those issues.
We - the team - don’t only struggle with funding the project, the long work ours - but also with the important essential questions that are being raised by the parents and kids concerning the project, and overcoming our own differences of culture and behavioral cods.
Realizing such a project with a mixed team of Palestinians-Israeli, Jewish-Israeli and Austrians is not an easy task, and we learn not less than the kids themselves.

The first project has been done successfully, and we try to implicate its lessons.
The second project with the same groups now on its way to be, and we still face the difficulty of funding it.

Any contribution for this important project will be received with deep thank of all the participants. And hopefully we will be able to go on with this major important work with more and more youth of different cultural groups.

Thank you in advance, Nili Gross

dear Nili, beautiful essai, I liked it very much. Greetings from Austria, Erika Trappl