Rae Abileah

I am a social change strategist, creative consultant, and an advocate for human rights, economic, environmental and racial justice, and community wellness.

[raeabileah]

Powerful - and absolutely beautiful - new music video by artist Sariyah Idan. More...

[raeabileah]

Today is the longest day of the year, Solstice, and it feels appropriate that a huge church and an interfaith coalition just did something that shines a very bright light in these very dark times.  The Presbyterian Church USA just voted to divest $21 million dollars from three companies complicit in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.  This is a huge and moral step toward a just and lasting peace in Palestine and Israel.  Read the NY Times story on this historic vote here. 

It's crucial to give thanks in this moment to the Presbyterian clergy and communities who have taken this stand.  Sign a thank you card here.

I'm impressed by the strategic, smart, thoughtful, and compassionate organizing of Jewish Voice for Peace as a strong ally to the Presbyterian Church throughout this process.  

As MLK said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Ken yehi ratzon.  May it be so.   

[raeabileah]

Images of support for the Presbyterian Church vote to divest from three companies profiting from illegal Israeli occupation. 

Read my article on the images on the wall and the vote here. 

The last picture is of Israeli conscientious objectors Sahar and Maya and Israeli veteran Eran, all in support of Presbyterian divestment. 

Divestment isn’t taking sides.  It’s abstaining from gross violations of human rights.  It’s withdrawing from the destruction of the holy land and its people.  It’s listening to the oppressed and responding with moral action.  It’s the right thing to do.  And now is the right time.

[raeabileah]

Natural wonder... the beauty of Occupied Palestine and Israel.  This land is magnificent.  May it be free to be enjoyed and tended by all. 

[raeabileah]

Boycott this!  Pictures of corporations operating in Israel/Palestine that are the subject of international boycott campaigns: G4S (which the Gates Foundation and the Methodist Church just divested from), Veolia, Ahava (see www.stolenbeauty.org), and Israeli wines.  And you can not be sure whether the grapes come from Israel or the occupied territories, which brings me to the last picture which is of the state of Israel - this is a postcard with a map like the one we had in my synagogue growing up.  On this map there is no mention of Palestine, of Gaza or the West Bank.  It's as if Palestine doesn't exist.  This is a popular post card sold in tourist shops.  Reexamining the cartography of colonization and thinking about how BDS campaigns can be a meaningful and strategic action plan for a just peace. 

[raeabileah]

Sacred Scrolls: On the last day of our delegation we visited Yad VaShem, the Holocaust remembrance museum in Jerusalem.  In one display case there was a broken Torah and the inscription told of how Nazis would take sacred text apart to make purses, wallets, or other functional things.  I remembered being in the Tibetan national library in Dharamshala earlier this year and learning how the Tibetan Buddhist sacred texts (that were not managed to be smuggled out of Tibet to safety in India) were seized by the Chinese military and many were turned into soles of shoes (a particularly obtuse desecration).  I'm reflecting on how an occupier can destroy the spiritual artifacts, but not the spirit and artful resistance of the people. 

More on the Nazi destruction of Torah scrolls here.

[raeabileah]

The view from our hotel in Jerusalem

[raeabileah]

Creative Resistance 

We visited the Jenin Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp and witnessed the wild creativity of the actors, the beauty of how art can transform community - one child actor in one of the documentaries about the Theatre that we watched said that he wanted to become a suicide bomber, and after participating in the theater program, he wants to live, wants to die of old age.  This is the ignition of hope.  

We also saw a traditional Palestinian debke dancing performance by youth with the Yaffa youth organization in Balata Refugee Camp near Nablus.  

And we had traditional Palestinian kunafeh desert in the old city of Nablus. Amazing how even on streets lined with the names of martyrs, Palestinians who have died standing up for their freedom, there is still such sweetness and so many smiles.  

To resilience and creative resistance... ! 

[raeabileah]

Bassem's Memorial Pictures from the memorial site for Bassem Abu Rahmeh, who was killed in 2009 by the Israeli soldiers during a weekly protest in Bil'in.  His sister was also killed in a protest, by tear gas.  There is a rose garden here at Bassem's memorial, villagers are trying to grow flowers out of the American-made Israeli tear gas canisters.  Turning "swords into plowshares," rather literally.   The road leading back to the heart of the village hugs the olive trees.  They are so ancient and somehow they look so wise.  A few days later at the Tent of Nations, founder and farmer Daoud Nasser reminds me that olive trees take ten years to bear fruit.  So they are planted for the future generations.  Thus he says, "When you plant a tree, you believe in the future."   Trees are made of air (they are mostly carbon which they get from CO2) and they give us life, in the form of air, O2.  I look at these olive groves with their roots in the skin of the earth, and see how close to the land people in the villages live.  I look across the hills to see the settlements paved and encapsulated in barbed wire and cement and tremendously bright with blaring lights at night.  The juxtaposition is staggering.  As if the settlers have forgotten not only human dignity of people different from themselves, but also have lost touch with a deep and profound connection to nature, the nature from which we come and to which we will return and of which we are.  As Joni Mitchell sang: We are stardust We are golden And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden Here in this garden for Bassem the tears come easily.  This bright smiling amazingly courageous man who stood on the frontlines of justice and now stands no more.  A dear friend wrote to me, "The human spirit can be so incredibly resilient, particularly when faced with the harshest, most trying conditions," and then he taught me a song this week: "May the life I lead speak for me.  When I come to the end of the road and I lay down my heavy load, may the life I lead speak for me."  

[raeabileah]

Returning to Bil’in

Our delegation visited Bil’in and stayed with families who generously invited us into their homes. We were warmly welcomed and given a tour of this village by Iyad Burnat, who is a hero in my mind and organizes creative resistance here. Bil'in is a Palestinian village that was bisected by the Wall. Weekly Friday protests coordinated by the Popular Committee and many creative actions, many of which included international and Israeli activists in solidarity, have happened here over the years to oppose the wall and the occupation. As a result the wall was pushed back closer to the neighboring settlement. Protests continue. The IDF responds to peaceful protests, often including children, by firing tear gas (purchased from the US as part of military aid given to Israel with our tax dollars), rubber bullets, skunk water and other violent weapons. Tear gas killed Jawaher during a women's protest, and her brother Bassem was also killed by IDF excessive force during a demonstration.   Here's an excerpt from a note I sent to Iyad when he asked about my action in Congress: I was very inspired by visiting Bil’in five years ago in 2009 to take action in the US Capital in 2011 by calling out for Palestinian rights and equality during Bibi Netanyahu's address to Congress. I also spoke up to Bibi about Palestinian rights, freedom and equality twice before that, once while standing on a dinner table of Israeli generals at the national AIPAC conference in DC, and once at a major Jewish American conference (http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/jewish-values-vs-israeli-policies-why-five-young-jews-disrupted-pm-netanyahu-in-new-orleans.html). My lawsuit against the AIPAC lobbyist who assaulted me in Congress in 2011 was happening the same time as Bassem Tamimi’s trial in Nabi Saleh (I wrote this article about Bassem: http://mondoweiss.net/2011/06/meanwhile-in-nabi-saleh-reflections-on-the-physical-and-legal-assault-on-nonviolent-protesters.html) and so in interviews at that time I was constantly deferring comments about my heroism to talking about the tremendous courage and determination of the Popular Committee. I am not a hero. Speaking up to Netanyahu is only the most basic form of civic and spiritual responsibility I needed to take to be in harmony with justice. I gave a copy of Beautiful Trouble: An Activist Toolbox for Revolution (www.beautifultrouble.org) to Iyad and the Committee and hope it can be a useful resource for organizing. I also hope a case study on the successes of activism in Bil'in can be included in the growing Beautiful Trouble anthology of change making tools and stories. I’m so grateful to have visited all in Bil’in yesterday and feel so fortunate to be part of this global movement and to be an ally and friend to the Popular Committee and the struggle for freedom in Bil’in. 

[raeabileah]

Reflections from Sderot In the picture above, from an art installation in Jaffa, the distance to Gaza seems so close, yet so impossibly far away.  Of course, from the Israeli small city of Sderot, Gaza is less than two miles away. Also pictured is the Erez border, where our delegation stopped to witness the intensely militarized crossing, and to spend a moment in prayerful reflection and song for peace.  After we saw the Erez border, I read Palestinian-American poet Remi Kanazi’s “Poem for Gaza” - read it here.   I’ll include an excerpt of “Poem for Gaza" here: a .50 caliber bullet tore through his neck shredding his vocal cords too close to the wall his hammer must have been a weapon he must have been a weapon encroaching on settlement hills and demographics so his daughter studies mathematics seven explosions times eight bodies equals four congressional resolutions seven Apache helicopters times eight Palestinian villages equals silence and a second Nakba our birthrate minus their birthrate equals one sea and 400 villages re-erected one state plus two peoples …and she can’t stop crying never knew revolution or the proper equation tears at the paper with her fingertips searching for answers but only has teachers looks up to the sky to see Stars of David demolishing squalor with Hellfire missiles... In Sderot, Israel, we met with Nomika Zion, founder of Other Voice, whose talk had me and many of us in the room in tears by the end of it.  She is pictured above as well.  Sderot is the Israeli town that sits closest to the border with Gaza.  Nomika wrote a letter to the Israeli government during Operation Cast Lead to say “not in my name, not for my security” during the Israeli bombing of her neighbors in Gaza.  Nomika’s article on hopelessness and remembering humanity was published in the NY Review of Books and is a very worthwhile read. Here’s an excerpt from Nomika’s talk with our Interfaith Peace Builders delegation - this is her story in her words: “You get up in the morning and take your children to school.  Usually the Palestinains would send rockets around 7:30am in the morning when everyone is exposed and there's no shelter to run to.  You never know if there will be another rocket.  You hear the siren.  Luckily after 2002 we have a siren. Which has saved many, many lives.  When you hear the siren you have between 5-15 seconds to find a shelter.  When you live like this for so many years under so much stress, you go to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv to work but your mind is always preoccupied with this stress, you hear at 10am that a rocket has been fired so you call your children in school and they are afraid so you leave work and come back to get your children.  Going to a toilet, having a shower, what am I going to do if the siren goes off? My mother at 87 years old was visiting for Shabbat and she had to jump out of the bath and flee to the security room again and again.  People over the years started to go to bed with their clothes on.  You can't run in the middle of the night, pick up your children sleeping in their beds and get into the security room in time if you're trying to put on clothes.  If you are lucky to have a security room.  About 50% of people don't have a security room in their houses.  For many years people slept in the security room.  Put mattresses in the floor in there.  Because you can't jump up and flee every night. Think what happened to the family life, to the intimacy between couples.  And what about walking to the clinic or to go shopping?  It became an emotional project just to walk on the streets, to go shopping. You have to plan in advance which route you are going to take so that if you hear the sirens, which house will you run into, which shelter?  Sderot today is not the same Sderot we met when we arrived in the mid-80s.  Today it is a multi-cultural and multi-tribal city.  In this urban kibbutz there are about 100 people.  There are Moroccans, 50% are caucasian (came from the republics of the former Soviet Union), about 3% Ethiopian arriving in early 90s, also the ultra-orthodox Haredim and Chabadniks, and the National Religious Zionists aka Settlers who are extremely religious and have a right-wing agenda...  There are also Palestinians from Gaza living in Sderot who have been collaborators with the Israeli government.  I remember during the war seeing some of them with their cell phones talking to their relatives in Gaza.  It's a one-way ticket, you know?  You can never go back to Gaza after that collabroation.  So there are many voices here.  Over the years people became so depressed and also more and more extreme and violent.  And racist.  And things repeated over and over like "Pave over Gaza and make it a golf course" that used to singe your ears become legitimate. One day in January 2008 we gathered together and talked about the conflict and realized we have something in common - we are trapped in this senseless cycle of violence and revenge by both leaderships and we don't think that this is the way.  People came from different political backgrounds.  We decided that we wanted to reach out to the people in Gaza and see if they want to open a human channel of communication to show empathy, to listen to the voices since we can't meet in person.  We started to gather together every week.  For 3-4 months we discussed our feelings about the situation and built an identity as a group, and we created the name Other Voice (from Sderot).  We spoke for one hour with someone in Gaza in English, Arabic or Hebrew, and we started to build relationships.  They told us about what's going on there and the attacks of the Israeli army.  And we talked about what's going on here.  It was some kind of virtual relationship.  Then we decided to organize some public events.  In August 2008 we marched.  We asked them in Gaza if they would make a group like ours but of course in Gaza it is very difficult and to talk to us they risked their lives.  We wrote articles and continued organizing events.  I want to stop the story and make a general comment: We conduct our life from one war to another.  Since I remember since I was a little girl, these are the milestones in our life: the next war, the next war, the next war. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.  This is in our thinking, our public discourse, you hear it again and again as if it's the natural order in the world, the way things are, and it destroys you, your spirit.  Plus the occupation.  Israel has occupied Palestinians for 47 years (transcriber's note: it is more if you are going back to '48 of course) It has scratched our souls and minds deeply.  I think what happened to us over the years is that we lost our ability to see the other side.  To see the Palestinians as human beings.  For the majority of Israeli society (those who haven't totally committed their life to help and for the peace process) the Palestinians are invisible.  They don't have voices; they don't have faces, just when you meet them in the army.  They don't have personal stories.  They don't have personal identity.  There is only one collective identity which is of course Terrorists.  The Hamas.  The enemy.  This anonymous black enemy who is so easy to hate.  You can't hear about the banality of the Israeli occupation.  You hear about Palestinians only when involved in some terrorist event.  We lost the empathy skills.  When you lose your empathy skills, you lose part of your humanity.  The majority of Israeli society was born into this reality.  They don't know any other alternative.  It has become natural and tiring to talk about it.  Two people live in different planets.  I remember that a few years ago the people of Other Voice gathered together and read an article that said: "When you stop seeing others as human beings, eventually you stop being human yourself." And if I can take a lesson from my Jewish history, from the Holocaust, that is the lesson to take. So you become blind.  You choose to be blind, to live in self-denial, and become numb, and just don't care anymore.  This is so dangerous to our society.  And it's getting worse and worse all the time.  We want to reach out to those people.  To remember that there is another side to this equation and that it is just two miles from here.  In 2008, the Israeli and Hamas leaders signed a cease-fire.  I remember like a ceremony how I went into the bomb shelter in my house and opened the window and I could see the light.  But the Palestinians in that cease-fire still struggled under that blockade, the largest open-air prison in the world.  Fie months cease-fire. November 4th, 2008, Obama was elected and that same day the Israeli army invaded Gaza and killed 6 militants.  The next day there were more killings.  The people of Other Voice wrote a petition to Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, trying to explain how important the cease-fire was for us to get back to our sanity and normal life and begging Olmert and Barack to do whatever they could do to solve this incidence in a non-violent way and not start another escalation.  We invited the Israeli Minister of Defense to come here and meet us in my house.  He promised to come but he cancelled at the last minute and four days later the war was started.  Of course he didn't come, he knew already that he was going to start a war.  That war was the most traumatic for me.  Traumatic because that's what wars are.  You can't go through a war without emotional damage.  But it was more emotionally traumatic for me.  In a war it's much easier to choose a side - good guys and bad guys, just and evil.  It's much more difficult to cope during a war when you decide to see all the angles or stories of the war.  I felt committed to three groups: First, my physical and mental condition, the children, the people of my community. Half the residents took their kids and left Sderot during that war.  I decided to stay.  Second, Israeli soldiers - I was against this war from the beginning but Israel is like a big family and the soldiers can be your friend's and relatives' kids and I thought what will happen to the spirit and souls and hearts of these soldiers when they return? Because as I said before, there is no way to come out of a war without damage. We call it "Scratched Mind".  Third, the people from Gaza, our friends, the Palestinians.  We managed to communicate with them almost every day via cell phone, sometimes via internet.   It was the middle of January so it was very cold, no electricity or gas and a lack of food in Gaza.  It's difficult to imagine what happened there.  We heard their stories and it was like an absurd play.  They're supposed to be our enemy but we reached out.  One day we got a letter from one of our friends in Gaza, an email during the hours of electricity, and it was from a 14 year old girl in very good english talking about how Israeli army bombed the American school and how she saw her best friend get killed.  She said, "Help us!  Don't you understand we are human beings?"  I felt I don't have enough room in my heart to cope with all these angles.  And anyway you don't know if your house will be in one piece or your body.  There is a famous commandment in bible that says "When your enemy falls, you do not celebrate."  But Sderot was celebrating.  Cheerleader squads came from all over the country to cheer up the people of Sderot.  In the center where all the international media was there were flowers and celebrations.  On the second day we went to give interviews in the center against the war and I remember one of the locals said on TV "I've never been in a concert but the music that comes from Gaza is the most beautiful music I've heard." And that was the music of war and bombs and bombs 24 hours a day.  I was lying in bed thinking more of the people of Gaza than my own life.  So this music was the worst noise I've heard in my life.  It was almost impossible to make a crack in the media - the whole country was for it.  This was the glorification of war, lust for revenge, power drunkenness. People went up on the hill and watched the war and shouted exclamations of joy.  I thought to myself, "How can you be so thrilled watching other people's destruction?"  But this was the atmosphere in Sderot.  I couldn't stand it any more.  I decided to stand up and speak publicly against the war.  I wrote a letter "Not in My Name and Not for My Security" about the bloodbath in Gaza and the hundreds of demolished homes and lives.  I said even if I am a lone voice this is my civil obligation to talk.  I am ready to pay the price of social isolation but I am not ready to pay the price of fear.  As long as Israel is some kind of democracy this is my civil responsibility.  Overnight this article was translated into so many languages and distributed all over the world and I was receiving so many responses.  I realized I was not a lone voice, I was a muted or silenced voice.  The war ended.  We got a relatively long period of calm.  It's not easy to be in a political minority.  To be regarded as a traitor or enemy of the people.  But it's what you have to do.  It's getting harder and harder in Israel - it's getting more racist, fascist.  I don't know what the future holds for us.  At the moment the situation in Gaza is facing a catastrophe. It's still the largest prison in the world.  We try to help some of the young people leave Gaza and it's so difficult because of Hamas.  Two years after the war we managed to organize two seminars in Israel and let out some people in Gaza who were able to join us - they had to get two permits, from Hamas and from Israel.  We had a 4 days conference in a local college, Gaza to Sderot, from Crisis to Sustainability.  One of the Palestinian speakers when he went back to Gaza he faced torture repeatedly.  Now he is finally out.  He cannot go back.  So you think you do something good and  organize a conference and after such a success, and then one of our friends went through such trauma.  It just shows you how complicated the situation is here.  I meet so many groups like you because I believe that the only thing that will help is the international community putting pressure on us.  You are our hope."  More on Other Voice: http://www.othervoice.org/welcome-eng.htm

[raeabileah]

Street art in Ramallah and Jaffa

[raeabileah]

Ruins to the sky: Empty buildings in what was once a vibrant Palestinian town in the outskirts of Jerusalem prior to 1948.

Where once a Palestinian village stood, there are now wild flowers and thick cacti growing amongst the ruins in Lifta, a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Jerusalem that was depopulated in 1948. Fortunately plans to pave over these 200 year old ruins and make a new ritzy housing development for Jewish Israelis have been stalled for now. Wild flowers are tenacious and so they keep on growing here. May our collective memory be as strong.

We saw the central spring in the heart of the town which was being used for ritual bathing by religious Jews preparing for Shabbat and by Israeli teens having fun on a sunny summer afternoon. It was as if a soft bubble of invisibility for Palestinian history was floating around this ancient pool.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hatred cannot drive out hatred. Only love can do that." - MLK

Light shines through into abandoned Palestinian mosque and olive press building here in Lifta.

The IDF punched holes into the roofs of these structures to make them uninhabitable. Seeing the hole in the ceiling I thought about the holiness of this forgotten history and our sacred obligation to expose the truth in these dark times.

Thanks to Zochrot, an Israeli organization raising awareness in Israeli Jewish community about the Nakba, or catastrophe, of 1948.

[raeabileah]

Arrivals Gate 

Remember that montage in Love, Actually when all the couples and families are reuniting at the airport arrivals gate?  That montage turned my heart to mush.  And that scene in real life has the same effect.  Since I was a kid I can recall loving to pick people up at the airport, or be picked up after a long flight, greeted by my mom beaming with smiles as I returned from a faraway trip or my boyfriend holding a bouquet of flowers and wearing a suit and top hat for the occasion.  My high school friends were in the marching band and we used to go to the SFO arrivals gate and play welcome music for random strangers just for fun.  Throw in some free carnation flower hand outs and we had ourselves an amusing night out.  That moment of reuniting after a trip hasn’t lost it’s charm after all these years.  In Love, Actually, the British Prime Minister, played by Hugh Grant, says: “Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere.  Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.”

Of course, since 9/11, security protocols have pushed arrivals gate greeting out to the baggage claim area.  Nonetheless, the ritual continues.  Earlier today, when I arrived in Tel Aviv at Ben Gurion Airport I had a cheerful feeling.  Arriving in the country of my family heritage only days before a major Jewish holiday, Shavuot, and taking part in an interfaith delegation to meet with peace groups and nonviolent changemakers, despite grave concerns about Israeli politics, I felt grateful and excited to be arriving.  But between me and the “Promised Land” loomed the passport control area.  I filed into line with the rest of the bleary-eyed, jet-lagged passengers and waited my turn.  I approached the passport authorities window and flashed a toothy smile, as my silver Star of David necklace glistened in the fluorescent lights, spoke a short and cheery “Hello!  Shalom!” and passed in my passport to the girl on the other side of the glass.  She asked why I was there and I replied tourism.  She asked if I had relatives in Israel.  Yes.  I added how excited I was to celebrate Shavuot in Jerusalem, where I would be staying for the week.  She printed out my entry card and wished me a “Chag sameach!” Happy holidays!  And off I went.  If there was a hashtag for this brief, easy experience, it would be #whitejewishprivilege. 

Of our 26 person delegation (that’s 25 adults plus one adorable baby), not all were so fortunate.  Seven were initially pulled into “The Room” for more screening.  After a brief time five were released and two remained.  Minutes passed.  Then an hour.  I went back to “The Room” to wait with these two and started pulling distraction tricks out of my bag: Vogue, crossword puzzles, chocolate.  I was thinking about the segregation of the Jim Crow South, whites one way, blacks another, as I glanced around the detention waiting room and noticed most people appeared to be people of color.  Another hour and I’m asked to leave repeatedly and then escorted out and told that even though I’m an American escort with the delegation I’m not allowed to be there.  Off to baggage claim I go, where I’m greeted by a SMILE representative.  SMILE is an Israeli private tour greeting company that welcomes groups and helps them get their bags and go.  Their main client is Taglit-Birthright, and, hours and hours later, a SMILE representative offers me some chocolate chip cookie cake left over from an earlier Birthright trip arrival, and since I’ve hardly eaten all day, I take a few bites.  Heck, if you can’t have peace, you might as well have a piece of chocolate cake, right?! 

In the baggage claim area, I watched streams of Birthright kids and black hats and bubbies flow through customs effortlessly.  

I recalled my first trip to Israel in the summer of 1998, with the Jewish Israeli organizations Young Judeah and Haddasah.  I was one of those carefree kids in shorts and a t-shirt laughing and prancing my way through customs with a big suitcase and an even bigger smile.  Back in those days (listen to me sounding so old!) when planes landed on the Ben Gurion Airport tarmac they often deplaned with stairs.  I remember walking down those stairs and kneeling to feel the asphalt runway meet my palms and cheek, feeling like I had finally set foot on my ancestral soil.  Now, 16 years later, I’m ever more aware that while my ancestors walked these holy grounds, so too did the ancestors of many people - Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and most historically recently, the soles of my Palestinian brothers and sisters, many of whom were forcefully pushed out of their homes and farm land by Israeli military invasion and occupation.  In 1948.  In 1967.  And in recent years ongoing…

I remember back then having this feeling that if I was every persecuted as a Jew I could be safe here in Israel from persecution.  But now, understanding how that safety is built on the persecution of others, I can’t rationalize how my life and safety could be more important than another human being’s.  And so it is that I find myself returning to a place of “homeliness” while holding an acute realization of how this sense of place identity was born on the backs of oppression.  It’s an unreconcilable paradox, and I’m holding all the emotions jettisoning out from it like an octopus.  (Incidentally, my friend, Sariyah Idan, wrote a one woman play about this very feeling called “Homeless in Homeland”.)

Sitting in the baggage claim area outside the passport security area for one hour, and then two, and then four, I remembered Hugh Grant’s quote, and began to look for “love, actually,” even here. In this flourescent-lit giant baggage claim area.  The love I felt was for the Palestinian people who have to live daily under this kind of police state oppression and who engage in bold acts of resistance by simply living.  And for the world of change making that is happening all around the planet to stop occupation and promote a more just and equitable solution to the conflict here.  And, yes, also for the SMILE representative, who went out of his way to deliver notes and chocolate bars to the detained delegates for me, and continuously expressed his remorse at the terrible situation.  Sometimes resistance is small acts of support and simple acts of generosity and kindness. 

After nearly nine hours of waiting I’m informed that the two delegates are being transferred to be deported.  With no specific rhyme or reason given other than “Security”.  Could it be religious background or skin color?  Or whether one of them has visited the Palestinian Territories before?  (A place visited, by the way, by thousands of Christian pilgrims every year seeking out the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem.)  My heart sinks.  I think of these two brilliant people (yes brilliant, one an ivy league grad and the other one the most avid reader of theoretical and political nonfiction I know) and all they have to offer on this delegation, and to their communities back home after witnessing, listening, and learning on this meeting-packed trip.  I think of their goals and aspirations for coming and how hard they have both worked to get here, only to be turned back now.  But my heart is also buoyed by the resolve that I know these two have.  As the old civil rights song says, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around…”  They may be flying back home, but their courage at understanding the truth of what’s going on in the Middle East and taking action for a just peace is unwavering.  And as we know, there is no visa required to work for justice. 

I also think about the thousands of Palestinians who are denied entry into Israel, who were stripped of their homes and identities.  Yes, it’s heartbreaking that two very innocent American friends can’t get into Israel.  But the real tragedy is that of the masses of Palestinian refugees who can’t return.  (While, of course, the Israeli Law of Return extends entry and even citizenship to Jews regardless of whether they or their ancestors have ever stepped foot in the “Holy Land”.) 

There was some baggage that I didn’t wish to claim as I left Ben Gurion airport tonight.  Ancestral trauma from generations of persecution, most recently the Holocaust, which, unhealed, helps ferment an ongoing cycle of violence. The gnawing awareness of all I have seen tonight and in the past several years of exploring this conflict in more detail — wouldn’t it be easier to keep the blinders on as they were when I first came on that whirlwind Disneyland-esque Young Judea trip here 16 years ago?  But I will pick up my laptop and my carry-on bag and also this “Invisible Backpack” and I will use my privilege to stand up in the face of this outrageousness. 

In the midnight hours I finally take a cab from the airport up through the winding hills and arrive in Jerusalem to join the 22 members (and one now sleeping baby!) of the Interfaith Peace Builders delegation.  My hotel room has a balcony view of the Old City, a very sacred and special place in my heart and for my faith, as for many others.  Tomorrow night, on Shavuot, I imagine that this ancient city and Mt. Olives rising behind it will fill with Jews staying up all night to learn, inspired by the holiday’s origin: Moses’ receipt of the Ten Commandments on this day in the Hebrew calendar.  And as I fall asleep, I am thinking about one of those commandments in particular: “Love thy neighbor.”  Yes, even at the arrivals gate. 

[raeabileah]

Thank you Dr. Maya Angelou for showing us How to Make An American Quilt woven with words, fierce courage, bold love, deep tenderness. Thank you to Rha Goddess, Dana Balicki and all at Move the Crowd for this moving tribute to Dr. Angelou: "Thank You Dr. Angelou.  It's all a gift."  May her memory be a blessing.

[raeabileah]

Saying Yes to New Music & Supporting Female Artists

Reposting this letter from Taya Shere here - because it brings to life a moment in a thread of moments of female artist collaboration that I've been a part of recently.  "I write this update from Cafe Leila in Berkeley, surrounded by sister artist tribe.  Across the table powerhouse Joti is launching her Kickstarter, Jotifah's Debut Studio Album.  Joti arrived at the cafe from the home of singer-songwriter Ahri Golden, whose crowd-source campaign birthed the album Delve, a soulful journey of motherhood and love.

Rockstar-writer-activist Rae Abileah is here getting the word out about Sariyah Idan's new klezmer-hip-hop infused album Deeper Than Skin.  Over pancakes and omelets, she and public-relations priestess Ariel Vegosen encourage us as we manifest Jewish feminist sacred music magic.

Next to me, Sophie Vener is writing about ancient Jewish mystical experience and the contemporary tribe of Shechinah mystics cultivating roots in earth and body, "aka US!" she exclaims.  Sophie's paper is for a class at Cal taught by our friend, Jewish mystical scholar and DJ Yosef Rosen.  Her earbuds stream the astounding new release from Ayla Nereo, Hollow Bone.    

I look up to see Lior Tsarfaty sitting in the cafe garden. His album The Prayer Songs Project  was one of the first crowd-source funding projects I donated to and music collaborator Aharon Wheels Bolsta played on many of Lior's tracks. After I write this update, I'll walk a few blocks to the studio to meet with my engineer and co-producer Arik Labowitz to vision percussion for The Bliss Album.

This is real.  This is a waking dream. Now is the time for us to live our gifts.  The world desires YOUR unique expression.  When we support each other in power and possibility,dreams become real.   I love that you are living my dream with me.  I want to live yours with you."

- Taya Shere, posted to her indiegogo campaign here

[raeabileah]

Listen/purchase: Deeper Than Skin by Sariyah Idan

Soulful Sonic Communiqué on May Day

Today, May 1, on International Workers' Day and Beltane I want to honor the sacred work of women artists who are creating new beats infused with ancient rhythms and speaking truth about love, longing, desire, conflict, and vision. I recommend gifting yourself and someone you love this album - Deeper Than Skin - just released by Sariyah Idan today. It's a fierce blend of genres - from smooth, alternative soul to Latin percussion to jazz to Klezmer and beyond.  Sariyah is rapping on themes of love, longing, betrayal, and desire both intimate and global.  She's unafraid to speak truth about social movements and the need to "occupy vision".  This is my current life soundtrack and I think you'll love it too.

Thank you to all the female musicians in my life, particularly Sariyah Idan, Taya Shere, Joti Shephi, Ahri Golden, Melita Silberstein, Rakia Shemaya, Shoshana Jedwab, Suzannah Sosman, Ayla Nereo, Morley ... for the heart, soul, and wildly skillful talent you put into the music you bring forth.  May your music spread far and be both profitable and prophetable.

From Sariyah Idan's website: Trained in jazz and folk music, hip-hop educated, and influenced by the sounds of her Jewish roots, Sariyah Idan’s debut EP, Deeper Than Skin, is a unique blend of music genres ranging from soul and dub reggae, to disco and triphop.  The album’s smooth, alternative soul sound is seasoned with a passionate and hopeful longing, crossing boundaries between intimate love and the territories of international affairs.  Idan's soulful voice guides listeners on a lyrical journey through the realms of love, betrayal, desire, and vision.  Deeper Than Skin is a neo-infusion emergent from Idan’s cultural roots and the urban American landscape.  Ranging from the moan, a classic form of the African American spiritual cannon, to jazz and pop influenced arrangements, the music layers bass, keys and guitar over live and electronic drums. Flavors of Latin percussion, versatile trumpets and melodic elements from Ashkenazi Jewish music infuse the tracks with world music elements. Idan’s poetic lyricism illuminates the experience of interracial relationships and presents both a respect and skepticism for populist political struggles. Deeper Than Skin is a soulful sonic communiqué from an artist boldly making an entrance onto the global stage.

Coproduced by Sariyah Idan and Jordan Feinstein, the album began production in 2012 in San Francisco and was mixed and mastered in late 2013 in Los Angeles. The tunes were written in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Jaffa/Yafo, Israel/Palestine.