Stardate: January 30, 2020
I awoke in the morning to the sound of Rami praying. I don’t know what time it was, but it was early. It was before my alarm had gone off and there was the sound of Rami calling his prayer as he started his day, as he and DilNaz left us to head back to the US. There was something very comforting about hearing Rami pray in that place and that time after the night before when we had the opportunity to pray together with Rami and the others .
We went to Ako and we were told that we would have some free time and we had the opportunity to just sit and drink coffee which is what I thought I would do and then there was no place to touch the water where we were exactly, and Trevor and I were very determined to find a place that we could touch the water, so we traversed the city at a bit of a break neck speed, trying to find a place where we could touch the water. Eventually we opened up to this beautiful beach that had shells and this beautiful view of fishing boats and the Mediterranean Sea and it was peaceful and it was perfect. And I didn’t regret not sitting and drinking coffee. It was absolutely gorgeous.
We went to the Hand-In-Hand school and it was so awesome. What a great school. The administrator was so excited, he was so proud of his kids and so excited for who they were and what they were doing and how this group of kids – Palestinian and Israeli, were learning side-by-side. It was wonderful to see books that were the same books but in two different languages and to hear of the teachers and how they are working together and a have the parent come in and speak to us and tell us how these kids are making friends across a line that has been drawn by governments and fear and hate and yet the kids. The kids shall lead us. It was absolutely amazing.
I’ve spent much of my career as a paralegal working in the legal system in the United States. I was very fascinated to meet with the Qadi of the Sharia court. It was fascinating and I had so many questions. I wish that he had spoken English because I’m fairly certain that some of what he said was lost in translation. I would have liked to have really explored that legal system because I think that there’s so much fear in the United States about Sharia Law and about what Sharia Law means and how that might be acted out in our country. I really would be very interested to have a much deeper conversation about the legal system and how it works. I was a bit distressed to find that in a jurisdictional issue there was no appeal process to be able to move it from a State Court to the Sharih Court or from the Sharia Court to the State Court. The jurisdictional issue was only decided by who got there first. I was also a bit distressed to find that that Sharia Court was also worldwide, so they did not have any jurisdictional bounds as far as where they felt they could decide a case because it was a religious court they believed that the opportunity was available for anyone to bring a case to Sharia Court. From a legal standpoint in the United States, at least, that really kind of rankled me a bit. I would have liked to have explored that further. I did take a picture of the gavel for my friend who was a judge.
I really had a very difficult time tabling my Americanism to listen to details of Sharia Court. The separation of church and state is so deeply ingrained in me that the ability to hear about a religious court that is on an equal footing with a state court was a bit difficult for me.
Meeting with Nazrene and the Israeli Democracy Institute was very enlightening. She had a lot of really good things to say and it was incredibly wonderful of her to open her home to us.
The thing that I want to note for today is the importance of tea in this society. Everywhere we went I felt that there were very few places where we were not offered tea, where we were not offered a beverage while we were there. And I understand that it’s a customary thing, that it’s a cultural thing, but the way that it comes across, the hospitality of it, even when we were in places where you wouldn’t expect it. It just was an unexpected joy and something that perhaps we and our American society have lost. We’ve lost the social graces to be able to welcome everyone. To welcome people who may see the world differently than we do. I think it’s something that we need to take away from this journey, what it feels like or what it would be like to offer hospitality as a minimum to everyone.
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