|
Dina: Tanjila,
without a doubt. Occasionally we would butt heads but I think the conversations
we had most often, off camera at night, were invaluable and definitely helped
me understand another side of global issues.
Back To Top
Tanjila: Of
all the people I met, Dina definitely made the biggest impression on me. She
was my roommate also during our stay throughout the whole trip so we had a lot
of fun together. We are very different people and we definitely have a lot of
different views on various issues but it was great because she is very adamant
about her views. She really defends what she believes in and she is a great
person. We were able to have a lot of very productive conversations and also
become very good friends. And I think it really shows that this dialogue can
really achieve great results even if you have different views with someone. You
can listen to the other side and see where they are coming from and establish a
relationship with that person, which I think is very important.
Back To Top
Brie: The
person who made the greatest impression on me was Sandra. She was a woman, a
Muslim. I just found her to be so close to me. The way she looked, aside from
wearing the hijab, she looked like she could be part of my family and I thought
that was a real turning point for me in understanding Islam and Muslims. I then
met other American Muslims but it challenged conceptions of and those
abstractions of what Muslim and Arab...what Muslim means.
Back To Top
Joseph: Two
people I would say. Mohammad, I don't remember his last name, in Oklahoma City.
I felt that of all the people in our group, I could somehow identify with him
because I had some experience. I was in Israel for a year and a half for a part
of that rigid religious schooling in Beersheva and I understood the sort of
way, he was very controlled. He had, there was something very special about
him. Something special I have seen in religious Jewish people and I have never
seen in a Muslim person. He was so gracious and he gave us these gifts and was
very genuine and holy. I think he was a holy person and I felt like, you know,
here is a Muslim, someone like him, you know he is not a terrorist and it is
not what he is about and it is not how he relates to people. He really seemed
interested in talking to us, and gracious, and I am sure if I called him on the
phone tomorrow , he would be interested in talking to me. I mean he was
influential.
The other person who made a big impact on me was Mouzon Biggs, who is sort of a
famous Billy Graham-type preacher in Oklahoma City. The fact that he was part
of that group, he was sort of dressed very well...in his cultural setting, I
guess that would be the polite way to put it, and the way he related to the
other members of the group was great. I guess we didn't realize what an
influential man he was until the other members of the group explained that. You
know, he has this huge church and a really large following in Tulsa, and you
know, he was really from a leadership position. The other people there were
also but were not as well known. For example, the Muslim woman, I don't know,
for example, if other people in Tulsa would have known who she was. Or the
Jewish man, the dean of the law school, well he seemed like he was, it was
important for him and the members of his church, as a clergyman, to make sure
that all of his constituents understood that interfaith work was something very
important, and working with other members of the community.
Back To Top
Daniel: You
know when I look back on the project, I think some of my, the most memorable
experiences and the most heart warming stories came out of Hadassah Hospital in
Jerusalem for a couple of reasons. One, I think that hospital demonstrates the
way medicine ought to be practiced around the world. When a doctor takes the
Hippocratic oath, they pledge to themselves and to the world that they are
going to help everyone who walks into their front doors and I very much
appreciate that. But above and beyond that, we had the privilege of speaking to
a gentleman by the name of Eugene Goldstein, from New York. Eugene told a heart
warming story of traveling to Israel with his wife and son and recent
daughter-in-law, traveling on a road at night, and told us of that drive. His
car was shot by Arab terrorists and his son was killed instantly and he and his
wife both had bullets lodged in their bodies.
I remember asking him after what must have been a very painful story, how it was
to sit in a hospital that prides itself and gives the same great quality of
care to everyone who walks in their doors, including, but not limited to Jews,
Israelis, Arabs, even terrorists. He said that it felt good and he had an
opportunity to spend some time with a neighbor down the hall who he thought was
of Arab descent. He also shared his thoughts about the whole experience and how
he pictured another grandfather sitting in an Arab village, hoping what he was
hoping for...hoping to see the day when they see their grandkids live long,
meaningful lives and I thought that really, as I say in the film, defied human
nature to talk passionately about peace, given what he and his family had just
gone through. I think it really emphasizes that we have a moral obligation to
search for basic 'commonalities' and find those shared visions, dreams and
goals and work hard, work harder than we have ever worked before, to reach
those.
Back To Top
Zachariah:
I guess there would probably be two people or two things that struck me most
powerfully. Joza, the Israeli guy we had in the Sinai. You could say that he
had almost gone native in many ways. That is what you would say at least in a
different era. He was a very interesting man because he had come out of the
Israeli army but had a very deep love of the Sinai and the people of the Sinai
and a great appreciation for that culture. I was also very much struck by, not
anyone in particular, but the faculty and students at Bethlehem University. It
was very impressive to me, their sort of resilience in the face of adversity
that they constantly demonstrated and their stories were very powerful in a
number of ways.
|