Pilgrims of Ibillin – Page 7

David Fainsilber’s Challenge – He Did it!!

October 28 update: He did it! Introducing David’s new look:

And as of the Dreads-cutting Day, David has raised $3,126 for interfaith education through the Mar Elias Educational Institutions in Ibillin. Thank you, David!

October 24, 2012: A blog post from David Fainsilber:

In just four days, gathering with my family in Montreal on Sunday, I will cut off my 13-year signature dreadlocks. As you can imagine, this is going to be a big transition!

Thirteen years ago, at the age of 19, I was attending a youth group overnight, when three very cute young women sat me down and said, “We are gonna make your hair into dreadlocks!” I agreed. Who am I am to turn down such a request?

As the first years of growing these dreads passed, I learned perseverance. It’s not easy growing dreads with thin, straight hair. Most people thought I should just give up. I took that as a challenge to keep on trying. But as my dreads started to fully form, even my mom had to agree that she liked them (although they never quite caught on for my grandmother).

Not long after, I began wearing a kippah/yarmulka too. The combination of dreads and kippah has been an intentional act of bringing awareness:

First, raising my own consciousness around complex identities, giving myself permission to be myself, even if that meant being a bit outside of the mold.

Second, bringing awareness to others of what it takes to cross boundaries, and finding contact with others where we may never have connected otherwise.

For years now, I have been getting ‘the nod’ from the dreadlocked black Caribbeans walking down the street, who say to me, “Nice dreads maaan.” Or there was the heated debate with the 70-year-old black woman about why white people absolutely can’t have dreads. After a grueling hour of learning about each other, we ended with a hug. Where does my community end and yours begin?

Or that moment a year ago in Haifa on the human rights walk where someone turned to me, patting me on the kippah, saying: “We need more of your kind [aka religious Jews] here at this march. Good for you.” Can we hold two competing/complementary identities, modern and traditional?

I am, 13 years later, that same old David. But by way of countless stories like these, I have grown with these dreads – found my voice, matured, re-thought assumptions, and crossed boundaries I did not know existed.

Just like with my triathlon two months ago, while I pursue my own personal transformations, I seek to make a larger impact. While I am proud of my own resiliency and consciousness-raising, these efforts are a small matter compared to what it will take to make peace between Israel and Palestine.

I am cutting my dreads, just as I competed in my triathlon, to raise money for two organizations working for peace in the Middle East. Like growing my dreads has helped me and others around me confront assumptions about identity, social groups and belonging, so too do these programs Pilgrims of Ibillin, and Peace it Together. In the words of one participant from Peace It Together’s program: “I definitely had to re-think some assumptions I walked into the program with, and they were assumptions I didn’t even realize I really had.”

I want our youth to know that they are supported when they cross boundaries towards peace and non-violence.

As I prepare to cut my dreads, I want to thank all of you for reading these emails and my blog, writing me letters of support. So far we have raised $7000 for the cause!!! (Note: $2600+ so far for Pilgrims of Ibillin. Watch comments below for updates on this amount.)

Can we reach $10,000 before this is over? “CUT” one of my dreads by supporting one of these amazing programs:

Pilgrims of Ibillin (recommended for Americans)
http://bos.etapestry.com/fundraiser/PilgrimsofIbillin/cuttingthedreds_runningtherace-forpeace/aboutEvent.do

Peace it Together (recommended for Canadians)
peaceittogether.com/get-involved/david-campaign

Be prepared to see pictures next week of a new look for me!

L’Shalom, towards peace,

David

Join Bob Sawyer for a Living Stones Pilgrimage – Jan/Feb 2013

Living Stones Pilgrimage Opportunity — Travel with a Purpose

January 29—February 11, 2013
Led by Rev. Bob Sawyer & George Shalabi ~ pilgrims@triad.rr.com or 336-499-5310

The winter Pilgrims of Ibillin Living Stones Pilgrimage still has openings, but the registration deadline is around the corner. Join us for a tour that’s more than a tourist experience of Israel/Palestine. Check our website for full brochure and registration form.

Cost: $1600 program fee to Pilgrims of Ibillin; pay airfare separately to our travel agent for the New York-Tel Aviv round trip, plus the cost of your connecting flight from wherever you live to New York.

Registration deadline—October 15, 2012. (We have a few days wiggle room on this deadline, but do call today for more information.)

Click here for the full pdf brochure and registration form.

More information: call or email Bob Sawyer, 336-499-5310 or mailto:pilgrims@triad.rr.com.

Viral Fundraising: Cutting the Dreds, Running the Race – for Peace

Following his 2011-12 Hebrew College year in Israel, rabbinical student David Fainsilber committed himself to supporting grassroots organizations working for a non-violent resolution to the conflict in Israel and Palestine. To fulfill this promise, on August 14th David launched a fundraising campaign: “Cutting the Dreds, Running the Race – for Peace.” He’s working toward a goal of $3600 to benefit Mar Elias Educational Institutions this fall. Thanks, David!

Why? David was inspired to visit Mar Elias after his Boston-based group of students spent an electrifying hour with Archbishop Elias Chacour during their year of studies in Haifa. Abuna’s story of Building Peace on Desktops made David eager to see the school and meet the people. Once in Ibillin, a conversation with Elias Abu Ghanima, Mar Elias’ spokesperson, sealed David’s commitment to work after he returned home to support this school where the dream of overcoming differences and finding a neighbor in “the Other” is lived out every day.

As a result: On September 1, 2012, David will run his first ever competitive race in the Lake George Triathlon (upstate NY) to raise funds and awareness for Pilgrims of Ibillin in the USA and Peace it Together in Canada. Both organizations support programs in Israel that bring young people together across religious lines to cultivate peace and mutual understanding. Later in September, he plans to cut his dreds, which have been 13 years in the making.

Want to know more about what David’s doing and why he’s doing it? Check out his blog at http://www.twominutesiren.blogspot.ca. Or read his story (and then make a donation) on his MEEI fundraising page.

Watch David’s video — and please respond generously! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdj4Plg0l98.

Hailing from Montreal, David Fainsilber currently lives with his wife, Alison, and toddler, Adar, in Jamaica Plain, MA, where he is entering his fourth year at Hebrew College’s rabbinical school. David has been involved in social justice and interfaith work for many years as a Kol Tzedek Voices of Justice Speaking Fellow for American Jewish World Service, and as a Spiritual Mentor at the Interfaith Youth Initiative. David has also served as a Hebrew College-Andover Newton CIRCLE Fellow, developing and implementing an Interfaith Hospitality initiative for seminarians of various faiths. Working in the Jewish community for more than a dozen years, David has led High Holiday services at Kolot Chayeinu in Brooklyn and MIT Hillel, and will bring in this coming year with Tufts Hillel. He is currently the rabbinic intern at Nehar Shalom, with a focus on community organizing and creating musical, soulful prayer experiences for the community.

Check out his fundraising site: https://bos.etapestry.com/fundraiser/PilgrimsofIbillin/cuttingthedreds_runningtherace-forpeace/. Better yet, make a contribution! It will directly benefit the students of Mar Elias. Then invite your friends and family, through emails or your own social networks, to join you in supporting this worthy cause!

We’ll keep updating David’s results through comments on this page. So come back often!

With Technology, Seeing is Believing!

Over the last 2 years, Mar Elias High School’s science labs have been radically improved, thanks to generous grants through Pilgrims of Ibillin from F.I.S.H. Foundation, Inc., of Plainsboro, NJ. One major grant for technology upgrades came from F.I.S.H. Foundation through the Clinton Global Initiative. Pilgrims of Ibillin offers heartfelt thanks. But the most important gratitude comes from Mar Elias teachers and students themselves:

THANK YOU! — From a Teacher:

Mr. Ehab Far, a Mar Elias High School science teacher, warmly thanks Pilgrims of Ibillin for providing the technology he needs to teach his students. “Before,” he said, “I used to have to make a drawing on the board and say to the students, “Imagine a piece of electronic equipment that looks like this…‟

Mr. Far illustrated on paper what he used to draw for his students to depict the lab equipment so he could verbally describe the result it produced. Now the students in his lab can observe directly using state of the art tools. He says with a laugh, “With religion, we praise believing without seeing, but with science you must see.”

And From a Student:

“I am being fully equipped with all that is needed for university life while I am still in high school. I tell my friends who graduated from MEEI about the labs we have now. They say that I have nothing to worry about when I am enrolled in university because of the simple fact that I’m already familiar with most of the equipment.”

Girls’ Sports = Leadership Development in Bethlehem

When Pastor Mitri Raheb of Bethlehem’s Christmas Lutheran Church launched a Young Adult Leadership Development effort in 2007, he didn’t yet have program funding, but he knew training young leaders was important. Pilgrims of Ibillin provided early and ongoing funds to help with this highly successful program which helps young leaders develop both personal and professional strengths.

For the first two years a group of 25 young adults met weekly with Pastor Raheb and other community leaders. Then the 25 were challenged to go out into the community to use what they had learned — to BE leaders in some-thing creative they care about.

One member of this group, Honey Thaljieh, applied her newly minted leadership skills to developing a women’s soccer program in the Bethlehem area through the Diyar Consortium’s Dar al Kalima Health and Wellness program. Through Diyar, in turn, Honey has also helped launch a national women’s soccer program in the West Bank. In May 2011, the Diyar Women’s Soccer Team won first place in the first-ever Palestinian national women’s soccer tournament!
Honey’s initiative laid the groundwork for key successes in the last two years:

A trip to Germany gave the Diyar soccer team a chance to play against German teams and enroll in an in-tensive athletic leadership program.
A return visit by German coaches trained local coaches—not only to improve players’ skills, but also to organize and coach soccer programs for kids from refugee camps and the streets.
Many Diyar team members also play on Palestine’s first-ever na-tional Women’s Soccer Team, thus contributing to Palestinian women’s success in international sports.
The German soccer team paid a return visit to the Bethlehem soccer team in June 2012 (see photo above)

In 2011 Honey and the other Diyar Young Leaders met together again — to reflect on their leadership experiences, and dream of next steps.

Honey, however, left in mid-2011 to become the first Arab woman ever accepted into FIFA’s prestigious Master’s Program—a 9-month training program set in Europe. She graduated this summer and brings her considerable skills home to Bethlehem. Congratulations, Honey! (Watch “Captain Honey” on YouTube!)

The program Honey launched 2 years ago has borne fruit, even through her absence. Coaches trained through the women’s sports program of Diyar now run basketball and soccer programs for girls: sixty 6-9 year-olds, and sixty 10-12 year-olds.

Diyar asks, “How can you bring people together? How can you build bridges? How can you witness great communication among humans? SPORTS Indeed!”

Zababdeh’s St. George Melkite Church Serves Children & Families

Fr. Firas Khoury Diab and his Melkite congregation in the upper West Bank village of Zababdeh have had a very busy couple of years! Abuna’s passionate concern for “the Living Stones” of Zababdeh led him to expand his church’s activities beyond just meeting spiritual needs to create a Kindergarten and a new Community Park.

Pilgrims of Ibillin has been a partner of St. George’s Church since 2008, providing annual peace-making grants to help create jobs, build a new kindergarten building, and most recently, prepare for a new park for youth and families.

The new kindergarten (in its brand new building next to the church) serves Muslim and Christian children, age 1 month to 5 years. Two college graduates are employed as teachers. Enrollment numbers have been low in the first year, but Abuna expects more children to enroll when another school year opens. Very low tuition makes the kindergarten affordable but only covers part of the cost. Donations from international friends help, but kindergarten expenses are also supported by the sale of olive oil soap and olive wood products made by St. George’s church members. Note: if your church or group is interested in selling soap or olive-wood carvings to help with kindergarten expenses, contact Joan Deming for information: jdeming7@gmail.com

Abuna’s newest venture, Mar Elias Community Park, fulfills another dream of a safe place for parents to send their children when school’s out. Since Zababdeh has no public parks or recreation centers, the playground next to the church fills a community-wide need, especially for teens. Separate basketball and volleyball courts located in front of the church offer recreation options for teens, both boys and girls. And indoors, a ping pong table and weight-lifting equipment are in almost constant use by neighboring youth.

Mar Elias Community Park will also be the location of a summer camp for about 100 youth in August 2012. Abuna Firas and community leaders are working overtime this summer to plan activities and supervision so that the first ever summer camp for children and youth at St. George’s Melkite Church will be a rousing success.

For more information visit http://stgeorgeinzababdeh.com.

Top Projects for 2012

Wondering what your gifts can accomplish this year?

The “Wish List” from Mar Elias and our other partners is always greater than our resources, but these are projects where your giving in 2013 can truly make a difference:

Fitness Center Exercise Equipment. Pilgrims of Ibillin raised funds to renovate several rooms in the gymnasium so they could be opened as a community-oriented Fitness Center. The exercise rooms and new locker rooms are finished, thanks to $35,000 sent by Pilgrims of Ibillin donors in the past. However, until we can send an additional $30,000 for exercise equipment, the fitness center can’t open for public use. The leaders at MEEI place a very high priority on finishing this, both to enhance the Phy.Ed. program at MEEI and to build better relationships and give positive opportunities to community members.
Scholarships are always deeply needed. Already 65% of MEEI students need financial aid, even though tuition is very low for private schooling. Then in the last few months, Israel cut the subsidy they give private Christian schools by another 20%, meaning tuition will have to be raised again in 2012. We also give scholarship funds to The Open House in Ramle, The Friends Schools in Ramallah, and the Lutheran Schools in the West Bank.
The high school needs 60 new computers and monitors to upgrade the computer labs. The library also needs a new server and just two up-to-date computers. We had hoped to send money for these projects in 2011, but fell short of our goals, even though we had more individual donors and donations than ever before. The old computers can’t run updated software for science and tech classes, so we hope to meet this need soon.
SMARTboards for high school classrooms and the middle school science lab are on 2012’s priority list, along with training for teachers in using these critical new classroom tools. So far Mar Elias only has 2 SMARTboards. One is in the physics lab, and a physics teacher says he can now teach in one week a lesson that used to take a month to convey with older methods.

“We Belong to the Land” – A One Man Play

Shakespearean actor and writer Bruce G. Bradley has created a captivating adaptation of the book We Belong to the Land—the inspirational autobiography of Abuna Elias Chacour. Bradley has presented his 45-minute performance in Wisconsin, California, and Illinois, and is eager for more opportunities to share Abuna Chacour’s important story and vision. Bradley lives near Madison, WI.

With stunning accuracy, the actor “becomes” Archbishop Chacour as he tells about working for peace in Israel/Palestine over the past 45 years. Audiences hear how Abuna (“Father” in Arabic) Elias Chacour, against all odds, established the multi-cultural Mar Elias Educational Institutions in Ibillin, where Christians, Jews, Muslims and Druze are educated without regard to religion or ethnic background.

Proceeds from these dramatic performances will support the Mar Elias Schools, part of Archbishop Chacour‟s ongoing effort to “Build Peace on Desktops.” A time for questions will follow each performance. Interestingly, a few questions after every performance so far reveal that some in the audiencee forget that Bruce is an actor portraying Abuna Chacour. The questions are addressed as if to Abuna himself.

For further information, or to discuss sponsoring Bruce Bradley’s dramatic reading in your area, please call Joan Deming at 608-235-1046.

Ted & Jane Settle, Volunteers at Mar Elias

Ted and Jane Settle, volunteers from New Jersey, spent from November through January living at Mar Elias, and they blogged about their excellent adventures.

“One day in December we taught two senior English classes, helping students prepare for their important national English exams. Part of the exam requires students to engage in conversation, answering questions based on an essay they wrote earlier in the exam. To simulate this experience we used cards from “The Ungame” to elicit stories. Then we asked follow-up questions. Three students’ responses stood out:

One girl was asked to tell about something beautiful she had seen this week, and she said she could not. We asked about her bus ride to school every day, but this she said was just a bus ride.
Another student was asked about a special gift he had received, and he lit up as he described a shirt his father had given him with the name of his favorite soccer team on it. Of course we asked which soccer team this was—Spain’s team—and we talked back and forth about soccer.
A third student talked about his special gift; spending Christmas in Bethlehem with his family. (Understand that this is a Palestinian Israeli family going into the West Bank where Bethlehem is located, having to endure humiliation at the check point to get in and back out.)
The girl who had not been able to think of anything beautiful asked if she could tell about a meaningful gift instead. She described how, when she was 10, her mother gave her a special book of stories written in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. The book also gave her places on the pages on which she could draw.

Of all the students we have met, this last student’s English is the best. She speaks without an accent. In talking with her after class, we learned that she is also teaching herself Korean. Her choice of Korean is based on her listening to popular music from Korea. She helps us see again the range of interests and scholastic excellence typical of Mar Elias students.

During the morning break after class, the students invited us to share in a celebration for St. Barbara’s day. We were happy to join them and enjoyed a bowl of this holy day’s special food: boiled wheat mixed with fruits, nuts, and candies. A student’s mother had prepared a very large pot of the dish and it was the best we had tasted yet.”

~ Ted and Jane Settle, Volunteers from November 2011 through January 2012, Mar Elias Educational Institutions

Resources by & about Archbishop Elias Chacour

Hear Archbishop Chacour’s contribution to a panel at the Vatican in October 2010 on Preventing Conflict.
Click here to watch or download a podcast of Abuna’s lecture, “Unity within Diversity: Myth or Reality?” – part of Calvin College’s excellent January Series in Grand Rapids, MI, January 26, 2010.
“Making the Holy Land Holy,” a PBS episode of “Inner Compass,” features an interview from January 2010 with Archbishop Elias Chacour in Grand Rapids, MI. View it here, or download the podcast through the iTunes Store.
Watch YouTube video greetings from Four Mar Elias Seniors and one MEEI Graduate: hear their thoughts about school & the future.

View a 23-minute video about Abuna Chacour and the Schools he founded in Ibillin: “A Man of Galilee” on Vimeo.

Finally: have you read these books by or about Abuna Chacour?

Blood Brothers, by Elias Chacour with David Hazard, foreword by James A. Baker III
We Belong to the Land, by Elias Chacour with Mary E. Jensen
Blessed Are the Peacemakers, by Patricia Griggs with Elias Chacour (for middle school readers and above)

Download an order form here.