The Waging Peace Podcast

Bridging Divides: Elie Printz's Inspiring Story of Peace Education in Jerusalem

• Diana Oestreich • Season 2 • Episode 1

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Elie was born and raised in Jerusalem to Christian parents who are neither Jewish nor Palestinian. Elie’s life experiences of growing up in Israel/Palestine is why she chose to pursue graduate studies in Conflict & Reconciliation and Creative Writing. Her research and writing skills are the foundation for the collection of stories of Peace Heroes from all around the world.

Peace Heroes was born out of a desire to empower children living in the shadow of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to face the challenges around them and overcome them in positive, life-giving, and healing ways. It began its journey in 2013 when a Palestinian school in Jerusalem decided to purposefully teach its students peace in an environment marked by violence. The heroic warrior is a very strong concept/image within Palestinian and Israeli society, but for both communities it is completely tied in with militaristic achievements.

Peace Heroes aimed to reframe the students’ sense of who is a hero by introducing them to a different kind of hero—real-life heroes who prioritize peace as a way of living over and above everything else. We believed that these remarkable women and men would not only inspire students with their stories but would also model the ways in which each and every one of us can make a difference for good in the world around us


Support Elie and find out more about this work:
 www.globalpeaceheroes.org
https://www.instagram.com/globalpeaceheroes/

Connect with Peacemakers in Israel/Palestine
https://www.friendsofroots.net/
https://www.theparentscircle.org/en/about_eng-2/
https://bethbc.edu/christ-at-the-checkpoint/
https://tentofnations.com/



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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the show. I am super excited to get to talk to somebody who grew up in Jerusalem and is currently doing some incredible work, and I can't wait for you to hear the stories of the peace heroes that our guest is bringing. But I think that it's so important that we get to connect with people who are holding these stories that we're not hearing on the media right now, and so I met Ellie Prince, who is our guest, when I was on a peacemaking kind of trip in Jerusalem. So I have I'm so excited for you to meet her. I loved her when I met her and I've never forgotten the things that I've heard her say and the things that I've seen her work has done. So the last time we met was in Jerusalem, and now she is joining us on the podcast. So welcome, welcome, ellie. We are so happy to have you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, it's my privilege to be here.

Speaker 1:

And then tell us where are you at right now.

Speaker 2:

I am. I live in a suburb just outside Jerusalem, just west of Jerusalem.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, and I have just I remember when I mean people are gonna, people are gonna get to hear your whole story of, like, how you grew up in Jerusalem. But I really want to tell everybody this quote that you have just written, and it says peace makers are often the first to be sidelined in a war. But I believe it is precisely these people who are doing the hardest work of all, the work of daily choosing to live out a different reality, a reality that says to people across the divide you matter and I will live my life in a way that manifests this conviction and upholds your dignity. This is the only reality that promises any kind of viable, shared future in this land. Amen, ellie, amen, sing it loud and proud.

Speaker 1:

But because I was a soldier, I feel like peacemakers are definitely sidelined and and it turns into this mental gymnastics of military might or strategy or things that I think your story is so compelling, because you live in Jerusalem and you have been centering children who they had, they were born into and underneath the shadow of a conflict they did not create, and these are their childhoods and they aren't in charge and they're living out under the consequences of adults who have been making these decisions. So I love that your work starts with kids. So if you could just give me how. One how did you, why did you grow up in Jerusalem, if you tell people your parents are? And then two how did peace heroes happen?

Speaker 2:

Sure, so I get this question all the time. I am not Jewish, I'm not Palestinian, but I was born in Jerusalem, as were my sisters. I have two sisters, so my parents. I have an American father and a Swiss mother and they met in Israel in the 1970s. My dad was actually also from a military family.

Speaker 2:

He was in the US Air Force and he was just finishing up his his 10 years with the Air Force and kind of just jumping on all the free flights that you can take, you know, just kind of touring the world, and Israel was one of his stops, so it was just one of many other countries along the way, and he stopped here for a few months to work on a dig. And then my mom was joining the many people from Europe who thought it was just the coolest thing in the world to come work on a kaboots in the 1970s. So she was here for me and they met through a group of young people that were all here, similar stories, and they ended up falling in love and getting married and because of their background.

Speaker 1:

Like, isn't that pretty. Like I think there could have been a little movie the, you know, the soldier who's done see in the world meets the girl.

Speaker 2:

So they ended up staying here, and my dad, he's actually a biblical scholar and so he ended up doing his master's, his PhD, at Hebrew University and they just ended up settling here. It was easier than deciding where to live, since they were from two different places, and so my sisters and I were all born here in Jerusalem and just grew up here, and my parents were very intentional from, you know, from the beginning, to just have us kind of mix in both worlds. So I grew up, my earliest years were living in an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem. We lived in a building that belonged to. Our landlord was a Palestinian, israeli, christian, arab, and you know his family, like the grandma, the aunties, are all on the top floor, and then he and his daughter were on the middle floor. We were on the bottom floor and ended up becoming really good friends with his daughter and spent a lot of time in their home and upstairs with the aunties and the grandma and just very much in that milieu, within the house, within the home. But then my parents sent us to Israeli school. So, you know, on a daily basis we were kind of like walking in and out of these two different realities and for the longest time. I didn't know that they're, that that's not normal. I didn't know that, kids, the world revolves around you. So, like everything, your life is kind of the. That's just how it is. And it wasn't until I was probably nine or so that it started to dawn on me that there might be a problem here at this land.

Speaker 2:

So I grew up in a very kind of very diverse setting, that way, just mixing in with the people, and it wasn't until the first time in Tifada that things kind of started to. I started to question things, and that was because my upstairs neighbor, she, went to school in East Jerusalem and East Jerusalem was shut down during the first into Fada, her long stretches of time, and so her dad decided to eventually send her to school with me. It is really school, and so I just thought it was great fun. I was like you know, she gets to come with me to school, yay, and we did that, I don't know for how long, and eventually her school opened up again, and this is a moment I it's still like.

Speaker 2:

One of those moments I remember so clearly is the first day I went to school without her and the teacher said to all the kids she said you know so, and so was a very special guest in our classroom. And do you know why? And I remember sitting on the edge of my seat, I just I was so curious why, like why she's so special. And the teacher said, you know, she's Arab. And it was such a let down for me.

Speaker 2:

It was like such an anticlimactic moment because I was like, well, of course she's Arab, but that's not interesting. Like I was like what's? What does that have to do with anything? But that was the first time where something, even just watching the reaction of the kids in my class and something clicked as in wait a minute, maybe this isn't normal. So that's how I grew up, grew up here, did all of my schooling at Israeli public schools and then ended up doing my secondary education like abroad and in Canada and in Ireland. But this is home, right, this is where I grew up and where I still have childhood friends and community here from way back.

Speaker 1:

I love that story because there are moments my family is multiracial and when you grow up one way you don't notice it.

Speaker 1:

But I remember the first time that I have two sons, and one is Lily White, who looks like me the Irish-German situation and then one is stunningly Ethiopian, but they're barely a year apart, so they kind of grew up as twins. It was like having twins, and so they pretty much did everything together and remember the first time they ever separated outside of our house was in preschool, and so I brought the older one for the two-hour preschool which every mom thinks is awesome. But I look back and I'm like you just read the paper in your car. It's not very much to break. So we just sat there and I remember walking out there and this other mom and this little boy were there and the little boy looks at his mom and looks at my son and is like mom, why is he black? And I remember being like, oh, you know, like this, because I grew up with all my siblings looking the same and so I don't ever like I didn't even, and because he was just my son. I never really heard that before.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

And I was like, oh, so he's like three, this is going to be a resounding narrative, right. And I don't think he knew that until that kid said that and he was like, why is he yelling that at me? And I'm like, yeah, why is he, you know? So just those moments in childhood where you, someone says something that means something to them, but it is lackluster to you, right?

Speaker 2:

So that's a new narrative, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you can you can tell like this is going to be a thing, right?

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Outside of our house. Yeah, so. So you grew up in Jerusalem and then you have this work called Peace Heroes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so you wanted me to tell you how that started.

Speaker 1:

Well, first I think I think you should tell people what it is, because when I was on your website everybody, if you go to Peace Heroes there were some really cool quotes that I feel like you won't really see anywhere else. And you know, like most websites, you've seen them. They all are kind of the same flavor, but there are some quotes on there that I really love. That caught my eye. So one says we let peace tell the story. Another one says if we don't teach our kids peace, someone else will teach them violence. So I just wanted you to tell people like what is Peace Heroes and why is it so different than what is the status quo in schools?

Speaker 2:

Sure, and in our culture really, yeah, yeah, it's a really good question. So Peace Heroes is a program that uses the life stories of Peace Heroes, of amazing people from all over the world who have, who have made changes for good. And I mean, I always have to start with the definition of a Peace Hero. Like, the definition is anyone who's working to mend what's broken in their world. So anyone can be a Peace Hero and you can use, you know, we have in the program. We have people who are activists, but we also have people who are musicians and architects and doctors and you know any, any. You can use any gift or any ability to mend what's broken in your world. So we teach the kids, like you know, peace Heroes is anyone who's who's actually making healing as opposed to breaking. And the program so maybe I'll. Essentially we do that through telling the stories of people from all over the world and empowering the kids to feel like they can be Peace Heroes too, through the modeling that we do of other stories. But I'll give you the background because it helps situate what the program is and how we got to where it was.

Speaker 2:

So I am when I came back to, when I came back home just over a decade ago. I've been studying abroad. I've done a masters in conflict and reconciliation no surprises there and when I done another masters in creative writing. And I came home and I wasn't sure what I was going to be doing and I ended up talking to the director of the Jerusalem School, as it was called at the time. It was a school in East Jerusalem, palestinian school. At the time. It had over 1000 students, mostly Muslim, and the director of the school had a real passion for peace education and he had had a revelation a year or two previous where he realized this is an amazing platform. I can really use this platform to create change in these kids lives. And so he'd been experimenting with different things and trying out different things.

Speaker 2:

When I came back, I ended up sitting and talking to him for hours. We were just talking about ways that he could do things at the school and he ended up hiring me to do a variety of projects at the school, but the Peace Heroes project was, he said, I just I want these kids to recognize the names of peace heroes. You know, like you know he was thinking, the obvious ones, like Martin Luther King Jr, gandhi. I want them to know who these people are. But he also just gave me 100% like free reign to create whatever program I wanted, and so, based on my my own childhood and also the studies that I'd done, I decided to to create this program where what we wanted to do was we wanted to challenge the kids. Look in Israel and in Palestine. In both cultures the heroic is always militaristic. That's just the cultures. That's how it is, and I'm sure that's true of many places, Amen yeah all over the world.

Speaker 2:

And so we wanted to challenge that.

Speaker 2:

We wanted to say, actually, maybe the heroic are people who are working for peace. So we wanted to shift that worldview by giving them examples of people who, non-violently, actually brought about massive change and created, you know, not just we wanted to challenge their ideas of what nine violence sorry, non-violence is and you know the perception that it's weak and it's passive and all that stuff. So I ended up writing the stories of. I wanted it to be as diverse as possible. I wanted them to meet people from all over the world, from every continent and diverse religions and ethnicities, to make it as diverse as possible and then to also just expose them to hardships all over the world. You know, because I think one of the things about growing up in Israel, palestine and, it's probably true, in other parts of the world Well, maybe not, maybe not, but one of the things about growing up here is you can be very, you can get into the mindset that you're the center of the world and that your situation, your conflict is, you know, the most important one.

Speaker 1:

Right, and I don't even think that is.

Speaker 2:

I think that is unfortunately universal and I think it's that like it's great for an agent stage of a toddler where everything is supposed to be self-centered, but maturity is where you start to let your worldview include more people Exactly, and other situations and realizing that there's actually hardship and suffering in other parts of the world some of it really, really awful and that just that gives you a first of all, puts your own conflict in some kind of perspective. But it also helps kids develop a sense of solidarity and empathy and I had that experience when I was doing my first masters. I did it in Belfast and a lot of that master's focused on the Northern Irish conflict and it was so helpful for me to actually be taken out of this context to learn about another conflict, to be in another, like geography, where they have a long history. It gave me the ability to actually understand and dismantle the conflict I'd grown up in in a much better way. Like it gave me vocabulary, it gave me framework, I wasn't as emotionally involved. So it was really helpful and I wanted to do that for the kids too. I said let's, let's take you out of your own conflict, let's take you out of your own reality for a moment, let's learn about other places around the world.

Speaker 2:

And then it was a four year program, so at the end of every year we would bring them back to Israel, palestine, with the final quarter, where they would learn about local peace heroes. So the whole year they spent learning about other parts of the world. And then they came home and by then they had if we'd started at home, all their defenses would have been up, all of the. You know, you're just, you're much more set in your ways of thinking about your own context. But we had given them a different way of viewing the world and a different. We'd empowered them to actually understand that, like non-violence can be this tremendous tool for change. And so then, when we introduced them to Palestinian and Israeli peace heroes, there was validity to what we were telling them and they could really buy into it in ways that they wouldn't have if we hadn't actually given them a wider framework. And it was amazing because we were able to bring some of these people are still alive, we were able to bring them to the school. They could be a real, real live peace hero and just kind of model to them. Like you can be this, like you can choose to do this yourself, like every peace hero chose what they chose to do. It was, you know, ordinary people doing extraordinary things, making extraordinary choices.

Speaker 2:

So that's how it started and that was kind of the rationale behind it, as I was writing this for the kids, but you know it took me several years to write the entire curriculum and then we realized, you know, this should go beyond the school, like there's a lot of other schools who could benefit from this, and so that's when I actually set up an organization.

Speaker 2:

We started piling it in other schools and other parts of the world, but the rationale works everywhere, it doesn't.

Speaker 2:

It started in a Palestinian school, but the whole idea, the whole concept of reducing kids to diverse stories, to otherness, to other situations, like kind of widening their scope, widening their worldview and then growing their empathy through kind of taking them into really difficult, dark situations in different parts of the world, where you just get them emotionally invested and they really want to hear how this problem was resolved, and then you tell them the story of a person.

Speaker 2:

And so, because they were emotionally invested and there's a lot I can say about this in terms of just storytelling and the neuroscience of storytelling and what actually happens in people's brains when they go through this process of actually experiencing somebody else's story you've just empowered them to feel what it's like to make those choices, you know, in hard situations, and so it's a program that I've seen over and over and over again really work because it's using stories, it's not just information, it's not just giving them tools and skills, which are really important. I'm not saying it's not important in piecework, but it's using the imagination to actually get to people's empathy and to empower them to be changemakers, and that's something that's. That's what you asked me, what sets us apart, I would say, in terms of the peacemaking community. That's what sets us apart. I'm a big believer in the imagination for a tool for change, and yeah, so I think that that is just one of those.

Speaker 1:

You know, even in the moment that we're in imagination. I think there's this incredible gap between what we have today and then we're kind of whatever story you've been told and whatever group you're part of has told you this is how it is or we need to keep it this way. But there is this incredible failure of imagination Like nobody's looking forward. And I just got the honor of doing a Martin Luther King keynote in Akron, ohio, with this community center, with this diverse amount of kids, and we did a workshop, a wage and piece workshop. But the wild thing that Martin Luther King, I think we always forget about this is that he dared to imagine something that had never existed, not a single person in America had ever dreamed up an America that didn't have two separate pools and two separate water fountains and wasn't segregated, like that had never existed.

Speaker 1:

So the wild idea that somebody could imagine something and then like speak it, dream it and then like work for it, I do feel like that's clutch, like that is where the lynchpin, where we either just settle for kind of staying alive or we come fully alive and we find our purpose. Because I think, like you said, anybody has what you have, whether you're an artist, whether you're a third grader, whether you're a 60 year old. I think that we all have a purpose and if we get connected to our possibility, everything changes.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So what are some of the Palestinian or Israeli, some of the local peace heroes? What are their stories that you told the kids when you said you brought them home? Oh, wow or what's like one of your favorites? I don't know. Tell us.

Speaker 2:

There's so many. I'm just trying to think. I mean it's been obviously with what's been going on now since October 7th. It's been interesting watching these people that I've written on, that I've known for years, that were part of the program, and how are they responding to what is happening now? Because this is a real challenging moment for the peace camp in Israel and Palestine and a lot of people have withdrawn from that work and have. You know, there's just people need time to go into themselves, to reflect, to grieve, to process, and it's been a little bit sad to watch some of these people do that. I completely understand why. But what's what has been so encouraging and empowering for me, like just giving me hope, is that these, some of these people that we brought to the school and met the kids, they're the ones who are standing firm right now in ways that, like I'm, I feel like I'm clinging to them right now, in this moment, I'm just like I just need to hold on to you because of the way that you're navigating this moment and the way that you've dedicated your life to the work that you've done isn't so easily. It can't be dashed as easily because of what you believe in. So some of the people, some of the people.

Speaker 2:

I'll give you a couple of names. For example, one peace hero who was always a favorite with the kids and I don't know if any of the kids presented to you on him, but it's Aliya Bawad. He's a Palestinian from the Hebron area and he has been working for many years to create the Palestinian national non-violence movement and he's he's really just trying to. I mean, his story is amazing. There's a lot more I could talk about him, but how he got to that, he's typical Palestinian story in some ways, typical quote unquote, but in the sense of you know, when he was younger he was involved in violence, he was arrested, he was put in Israeli prisons.

Speaker 2:

In prison he experienced the power of non-violence for the first time, where he went on hunger strike to meet his mom, who was also in prison, and they actually got their way from for hunger striking. And that was the first time he realized like, wait, non-violence got me what I wanted, but all the violence I ever committed never got me what I wanted. So that for him, was like this revelation and he ended up like learning more about non-violence. Gandhi, martin Luther King, all the you know the people that we typically think of, and he decided to commit his life to non-violence and when he got out of prison with the Oslo Accords, he started down this path. Can you see a little bit more about?

Speaker 1:

for people who don't know getting out of prison. Oslo Accords what's the connection there?

Speaker 2:

Oh, so the Oslo Accords were were in the early 1990s. It was the first time Israel and the Palestinians actually sat down to try to reach some kind of agreement and in as part of the Oslo Accords, israel agreed to release a large number of Palestinian prisoners that it was holding. And I mean there's a lot we can say about the Oslo Accords, but in the moment it released the Lea Boload and he was able to come out and start his life. And I mean his story is it's a long story because it involves also just the fact that in the middle of his commitment to non-violence, his brother was killed, shot by the army and killed, and so for him that was a huge test of his ability to stick to the non-violence, because he really wanted revenge. And through his I mean it's a long, it's through that experience he actually met Israelis who had also lost family members.

Speaker 2:

That was his first encounter with the bereaved families, the parent circle. It's one of the organizations I would highly recommend people to follow. It's called the Parent Circle Family Forum. It's a group of both Palestinian and Israeli bereaved families. They've lost someone as a result of the conflict and their grief unites them far more than anything else, and they have been working together for a couple of decades to try to change the landscape here in a way that really just brings dignity to all the people of this land. Their goal is for nobody else to join their group. You don't want more people joining them because they don't want more bereaved families in this region.

Speaker 2:

So, ali, his first encounter with Israelis who weren't soldiers or prison guards or whatever was to the parent circle, and it was the first time he actually the way he says it was the first time I saw Jewish tears and it shocked him. It was his first experience of the humanity of the other side and that kind of put him on a journey within himself to kind of realize that he had a lot of hate inside himself and he needed to address that. And he said I felt like I was being occupied in myself and I didn't want that to define who I am. I wanted my identity to be an identity of non-violence, and so it's a long story. But he ended up setting up an organization called Roots, which is also an incredible organization which I would highly recommend people to look into. But it was working with, believe it or not, jewish settlers in the Hebron area.

Speaker 1:

What was he doing with?

Speaker 2:

them, that's the.

Speaker 1:

Thing.

Speaker 2:

Another one of my PCros is his story comes out of Ali's story. I can tell you that one in a second. Anyway, he set up Roots, this organization where it's Jewish settlers and Palestinian activists who are working together to actually create a different reality. It's really interesting. Three of them came to the school once when I was working there, to meet with the high school students, and it was Aliyah Boawad and Rabbi Settler and another Christian Palestinian from Bethlehem. The high school students were so stunned by this combination of people that they actually sat in dead silence. I mean, usually it was all chaotic and whatever, but they just couldn't even believe that these three people were sitting together as friends on stage.

Speaker 2:

But anyway, ali set this organization up and then, once it was up and running, he's, since that happened, he's been dedicating all his time to creating this non-violence movement in Palestine of just trying to change the violent identity and saying that's not who we are as people. We are non-violent people and our circumstances have turned us into in the direction of violence, but it's not who we are. And so he's been trying to create this non-violence movement and he's just an incredible person. Again, I would say, look him up online, but he was such an inspiration to students at the school. I mean, they just loved his story because they could relate to so many elements in his story. But the way that he actually changed the narrative in the middle was very inspiring to the kids. So he's one of our PCOs.

Speaker 2:

I'll tell you his friend, which is the rabbi Hanan Shlesinger, who is a settler and he'd been living in the Hebron area settlements for he's an American Jew but he'd made Aliyah to Israel I don't know how many decades ago, but he'd been living in the settlements for many, many years. And the way he says it is, he says I was blind to the Palestinian people there. I just didn't see them. I was living in my own bubble and just Like so many of us, I think, could.

Speaker 1:

I think that's just a reality that we had met, born into our own little bubbles, and we're kind of we're absolutely born into.

Speaker 2:

I mean, the difference between Israelis and Palestinians is that Palestinians are super hyper aware of Israel and Israelis because they live in circumstances that make it impossible for them to not be, whereas for a lot of Israelis they live in a kind of ignorance. They don't see things. So it's Often the stories are different, they're often quite similar, but there's a different journey that people go on on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side in terms of reaching that place, of wanting to actually work for a better future. And on the Israeli side, it really is an awakening. So many stories that I've heard of people who've joined the peace camp are stories of people who've awakened to the realities they weren't aware of in terms of Palestinian reality, and so Rabbi Schlesinger is one of these people who for years, decades, had been living in the settlements, had never really seen a Palestinian as an equal. And so, ali, I have to go back. Ali, when he set up roots, he actually had a little piece of land in between, surrounded by five or six Jewish settlements. It was a little piece of land that his family owned, and that's where he set up his little roots, which he called the Karama Center, which means the dignity center and that's where he started inviting people to come in and talk and learn and whatever. And one day a friend of Rabbi Schlesinger said there's this Palestinian 20 minutes from your house. Why don't we go visit him? And the Rabbi was like are you kidding, I don't want to die. So he was really afraid. But his friend actually convinced him to go and so they literally walked through the vineyards that's how close people are here, it's that close and they walked to Aliyah Boa-Wad's little plot of land and that night changed Rabbi Schlesinger's life. It was the first time he actually met Palestinians as equals.

Speaker 2:

He heard Aliyah Boa-Wad's story and it just rocked the foundations of his world. I mean, it just shook the foundations Because he was hearing things he had never heard before and he was really. He just didn't know what to do with that information. He went home and started doing research and the way that he says it is, the blinder just started falling from his eyes and he started to realize one of the things that he says that I really love. He said. I started to realize that my truth had blocked out somebody else's truth and his process was coming to the realization that I only had half a truth, he said, and I needed the other half for the full truth to be real. And that was the process he went to and he ended up he would return to Aliyah's place many, many times over the following months to just every time he researched something, found something out new, he'd go and talk to Aliyah about it and say tell me your side. And they ended up becoming really good friends.

Speaker 2:

And that's how Rabbi Schlesinger joined the initiative for Roots, as did, and then he started going around and trying to tell other people in the settlements about what he was learning and trying to introduce them to Palestinians. So it's a really fascinating story because it's the most unlikely, I mean, of all the people in this land. These are the kind of the two most unlikely people you'd expect to be in conversation with each other. But Aliyah also says he says I don't need to be talking to the peace camp in Israel. He says I need to be talking to the people who are my worst enemies, which to him would be the settlers. He says I'm not going to get anywhere if I don't. I can't solve any problems and create a new future if I'm talking to all the people who think like me I need to be talking to those who are diametrically opposed. That was kind of his way of thinking, which is also incredible.

Speaker 2:

And so, anyway, those are two examples, two stories that we told the kids at the school. We even invited Rabbi Shlesinger to the school to meet with the high school students at one point, and just for them to even be able to have that encounter. That was only possible because of P-Seroes, because we'd been telling them these stories that had made that space for them to actually be willing to meet Israelis and listen to their story. But actually, when Rabbi Shlesinger came to the school, it wasn't even about them listening to his story, it was him listening to them. I remember sitting in the class and I was just so impressed with they had so much anger and grief and there was so much that they wanted to say to him.

Speaker 2:

Just in terms of the heightened emotions and not in a friendly way. They weren't being friendly about it and here was an Israeli sitting in their classroom and they just were going to let him have it. They were going to let him know exactly what he thought. They thought, which is very understandable, but he sat there and he just listened. It was like he didn't feel the need to defend himself. He didn't feel the need. He just sat there and gave them the room, made room for them to tell them their story.

Speaker 2:

And the more he listened, the more disarmed they became. They realized he's not here to argue with us. He's not here to dismantle our identity or our narrative. He's just here to listen to us. And it was something so beautiful in that moment where I was sitting in that room watching this unfold and I realized I was like you know what? This is exactly why these peace heroes are amazing Ali and Hanna Shlesinger and others is because they've realized that I don't need to dismantle your identity or my identity to exist. I can make room for you and for your identity and for who you are and still be myself, and I can honor both identities. And people who have come to this place are the people who blow my mind. They're just amazing people.

Speaker 1:

And they're those people that when you meet them, it's evident that they belong to something greater, that nothing can shake them and they aren't hustling for their worth and they're not demeaning another and they don't have to overpower. And when you meet somebody like that, I feel like it physically hits you because you're like something is different here and it only shows you how normalized it is to only acknowledge our truth and only fight for our group to have what we have, or have more or have power over. And when you see somebody who has reckoned, like you said, had that awakening, either an awakening to a truth or also awakening to violence, violence is taking from me and it can never give me the future I want. But when you see people and I've met them all across the world, as you have where they have found, like they have their identity, but their identity is a thread to something bigger and somehow they're sure of themselves, they can listen to other opinions and they have a good will, that is kind of undeniable, absolutely, and I think that is what is so inviting about them. That's what makes the imagination wild of like.

Speaker 1:

How is this person like this? Because, like you said, abiy Awad, what he experienced and is living under, like how can that be possible? And then, like the settler rabbi, he was living under this whole other thing, you know. And so I think that's the imagination, but it's also the power of belonging to something greater, like they belong and they're not threatened because they believe in a better future and in some way they've seen it and they're just like you can go as slow as you want, they're not gonna rush you, they're not gonna push you around, they're not desperate to convert you, they just have this calm about them that there is a better thing and they've tasted it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and, like we were talking about before, it's the ability to envision something else, a different kind of reality, and I think I mean you also touched on this, but I think one of the a friend of mine recently asked me. She said, because we were talking about the way that people have or haven't whether this October 7th, you know and beyond war, and she said, what are some of the disciplines or the skills that you know I should be practicing if I come into a moment of crisis, like, what are you witnessing from these people who are managing to stand their ground in terms of their belief in a better future for both people of this land? And I thought about that for a while, but you know I was because I've been tracking with the groups of people that are trying to stay like, trying to stay solid in all of this and not lose that vision for a shared future of mutual thriving and mutual dignity, and mutual, you know, just justice and dignity. Like, oh, I'm repeating myself, but, and the more I thought about it, you know these are people who for many, many years, practice the art of listening.

Speaker 2:

These are people who are able to learn how to just sit back and listen to somebody else's story and not feel threatened by their story. And I thought this is, you know, maybe one of the disciplines that all of us can, you know, those of us who are working for peace is and I mean, I think everybody but just to develop that discipline of being able to listen to difference, being able to listen to somebody who has a different narrative and not feel threatened by that narrative and just be able to receive that. I mean, I think this is one of the things that has enabled these people, in this very dark moment where people are really experiencing the realities of the war very, very differently on both sides, and even though their conversations now are so agonized and painful and I've sat in on some of them, they're just hard but they're listening, they're still showing up and they're still listening to each other, which is more than most people on this land are doing right now.

Speaker 1:

And I feel like that's one of the hardest things for me, being someone who is a survivor of war, who is sent to a war that was a response and a revenge to a terrorist attack of 9-11.

Speaker 1:

I know it doesn't work and I know it was costly. So the hard thing, I think, for me and also other people who have been thrown into violence and revenge and unjust things, is why is it so hard for people who are not paying a cost to this? Like there's no skin off their nose, like why can't they listen? Why can't they allow a truth that there are thousands of dead children and orphans and the generational trauma of this is not going to end? You know, like I'm like why is it so hard for them to just admit that things are crazy hard for another group of people? Like that there's a cost. Like I mean and I know that's kind of a dumb question, because obviously that's why people do what they do it's a defense mechanism. It means that I never have to make space for someone else's pain or the truth that someone else is paying a price for something and I am not.

Speaker 1:

It is not equal and it is not fair and I don't know when the world will be, but that's why we work so hard for our humanity. There's this Iraqi professor that I randomly met in my city and there's like one Iraqi family in my city and I remember sitting on his couch and he told me he was like Diana when one of us is cut, we all bleed. That is humanity. I remember sitting there listening to him being like, oh like truth. But why is it in the culture I was raised and many folks there's a 100% heck no to that Like if you have a problem, you have a problem Like those people. I don't see it Like there's not a communal acknowledgement that when one of us is cut, we all bleed because we're connected Right.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it's a family of humanity, like the eight billion, is real. We're all in it together.

Speaker 2:

There's so many layers of complexity. I absolutely agree with you, but there's so many layers of complexity and then, in this case here, as in many cases around the world, you add trauma into it, and that just complicates things on so many levels, because the natural response to trauma is to turn in on yourself, right, whether it's you as an individual or as a group. Trauma can't see outside of its own hurt, and that's what we're seeing playing out right now and what has played out here for many, many years. But the current war has just heightened it is you have two deeply traumatized groups of people who are responding to current events, the way that traumatized people respond to grief and to, I mean, all the things, and so it's.

Speaker 2:

And when you're in that kind of moment, trauma is very isolating as well, and so it's the people who are able to reach out and try to reach out across that divide. That's what is tremendously hard work. I mean this is when I was writing that newsletter that you wrote the quote for at the beginning. I find it amazing that it's the peacemakers, the people who are trying to reach across it, are sidelined because they are actually doing like I said in that quote. It's the hardest thing in the world to reach out across the divide, when you are living in a deep, deep trauma and a trauma that's full of grief and pain and brokenness and anger and all the feelings, and you still make that unbelievable effort to try to reach the other side. I mean that is tremendous. Who does that?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm always like-. I'm always like-.

Speaker 2:

I'm full of strength to do that, but these are the people who are sidelined. They're the ones who are called like oh, it's just-.

Speaker 1:

Like all the names in the books that they're not. They get rejected from each camp. And yet the science actually has said that when traumatic things happen, be it violence or a hurricane or a tornado, it shows that when the community can actively be part of rebuilding after that trauma, so if people can get out there with the shovels and they can dig their neighbor out, if they can sandbag, if they can put some type of physical action after, long-term they say that they experience less trauma, like it in some ways like rewires the damage of that trauma Absolutely, then by being able to take action and like, do it as a community. And so, as unlikely it is is, I also know that this is, this is the healthiest thing to heal and this can create resilience if people can take some sort of action when traumatic things hit their communities, right. So, kind of leading off of that, I know that I'm a mom, there's so many moms and we're all like looking at the effect, like kids are being just impacted by this conflict, past and present.

Speaker 1:

And so I guess what are one of the ways from your work in the schools, doing peace heroes? You know you talked about listening, you talked about helping them see other conflicts, connecting them to empathy and solidarity and then finding their own power of like. Well, what can I do? Cause it's always just a choice to mend what's broken. What is one thing that as communities, whether we are parents, whether we're friends, caregivers, what's one thing that we can practice or put into action for kids right now, as they're wherever they're at whether it's a question or an action, I don't know from like you're, wherever you sit, like what would you tell us that?

Speaker 2:

is helpful.

Speaker 1:

That's a big question, I know you can like do to everyone with it. There's no wrong answer.

Speaker 2:

No, I mean, there's so many answers, but one off the top of my head which is just, it's so obvious. And, yeah, I think it's one of the hardest things for all of us to do as adults is to just model to them what's the world you want for them, what's the world you want for your kids. Model that, and sometimes it means making really hard choices. Or what does it look like to reach across the divide? What does it look like to actually invite into your space someone who's different than you? What does it look like to you know, what kind of person do you want your kids to be? And, depending, like, in what kind of future do you want to get them? What do we always talk about, Like what's the future we want to get? Well, why don't we model that to them? Like, even in the smallest ways, like it doesn't have to be, like go, you know, build world peace. But like choose, you know, I don't know to actually look at the person on the street and smile and say good day, and you know, whatever it is like.

Speaker 2:

Let's start with modeling to them how we want them to be, like what we would like for them, but also, I'd say like just really one of the things that I think hard situations, conflicts and all kinds of things.

Speaker 2:

What it does is we often get very caught up in the blame game, and I think one of the hardest things to do is to actually self reflect and take responsibility. And so I think some of the people I've written about you know around the world are people who are able to actually look at themselves in their own communities, even while they were in the middle of a terrible situation, and say, hey, like we've got to take responsibility and be accountable for our own actions and the things that we do, as opposed to being the victim and pointing fingers. And so I think even just modeling to our kids what it looks like to take responsibility and to self reflect and, even if we are wronged, to find the ways in which we ourselves have wronged and just try to be the ones who are seeking from the inside out to make change. Not from the outside in. It has to start inside each of us, right?

Speaker 1:

Right because it's got to be real and it's got to be true. And one of the things that you've said so many things, but one of the things that is still like resonating in my bones, is when you said those three men came to the high school and the high schoolers couldn't believe these three people would ever be in the same room together and they listened to them. Because I think the truth telling the most powerful thing that has ever been healing to me or changed my perspective or my possibility, is when I see people tell the truth on themselves.

Speaker 2:

Exactly.

Speaker 1:

And for that settler rabbi to tell the truth on himself of something he didn't know. I think that's powerful as adults and I think if we look around and can just be brave enough to tell the truth on ourselves, not somebody else Pretty easy to tell the truth on somebody else, but the power on the vulnerability and the honesty of being able to tell the truth on ourselves tells our kids that they don't have to be afraid of being truthful and admitting that we're not Switzerland, we are not the people who are born on the right side of history, in the right country, in the right religion. I think it's so comforting to be told that everything about you is right, as unrealistic as we know that is. I think it's a very status quo thing. So I think maybe being able to show our kids it's OK to be truthful really empowers them to be truthful and start to envision and imagine what could be truth and to say your truth is never going to be the whole truth.

Speaker 1:

Right, which we get it, but we don't get it Because it's not easy to make room for people. But I think that would be so powerful as parents, as community members, as people on the internet, to just start telling the truth on yourself. And there's two movies, depending what age is. I mean, I don't know how this translates, but there are two peacemaking movies that I always tell people you should watch with a lens of peace, and one is Hotta Tame, your Dragon. That is hilarious, also a kids movie, but the other one is Iron man. And I think if you watch these two movies and you'll see a bit of the truth telling of it, you'll be wowed and it might be a way to start having conversations with your kids, because they're a story and they kind of open up possibility.

Speaker 1:

So in the wrap up, we do a little bit of a rapid fire. And if these were not your favorite, ellie, we don't have to do them. But there is no wrong answer and it's kind of fun. So I'm going to ask you three questions, rapid in the row, you can say whatever you want. So the first one is what's your purpose?

Speaker 2:

These aren't the ones you sent me.

Speaker 1:

No one knows. I cheated and told you I had it.

Speaker 2:

Except that you didn't. What's my purpose? My purpose is I don't know. Now you've caught me off guard. I think, in the life that I live, my purpose is to be a bridge builder. And actually I was just talking to a friend. I've been in touch with Daly since the war broke out because he has friends in Gaza and so we're just working. I'm constantly in touch with him about this community that is sheltering at the church in Gaza. But he said something the other day that just made me laugh. He said because just having this experience of always like I'm always in the middle and being in the middle isn't a fun place to be when you're in a war, in terms of just and so he said well, I guess that's the nature of a bridge you just get walked on. And I thought, oh, that's perfect, that's exactly what it feels like. I feel like I'm trampled all the time, but it's because I guess that's my purpose is to be that bridge that people trample over. But it's because I'm trying to make connections right.

Speaker 1:

I think it's 100% like amen. It's true that you are a bridge builder and my oldest son we named him Bridger In our in. You know, what we were imagining with like giving him this name is that he would be something that was able to connect two different people or places that could never connect without having a bridge between him Between them. His name is Bridger and we always were like hoping that he would be able to like bridge divides and he would get to connect things that had never thought they could be connected before. However, that worked, but so anyways he. But we also got engaged at Bridger Bowl, montana, and we couldn't make a name for him and someone said you can do it.

Speaker 1:

You know, like somewhere important, we're like Bridger Bowl. But I was like I don't really care about a ski hill, but I do care about bridge building. So yeah, now that you said, bridges get walked over, making me rethink that a little bit. All right, so the next one is what is your favorite place on the planet?

Speaker 2:

Oh, switzerland. So my mom's family is all still there and ever since I was a kid, that was like you know, even just coming from Israel. We'd go from like dry, hot, you know, brown Israel. In the summer We'd just even flying into Switzerland. To me it just looked like heaven on earth from the, you know, from the airplane. I was just like, wow, places can be green and lush and beautiful.

Speaker 1:

So I love it. I've actually heard that about Switzerland too. People have said it's kind of like amazing.

Speaker 2:

It is kind of amazing and I'm just. It's always been kind of my little shelter, like if I need to get away, switzerland's the place to go, so I love it.

Speaker 1:

That's beautiful. Ok, last one. How do you play? How do I?

Speaker 2:

play Kids. I love being with kids, and especially my nephews and nieces. They're the joy of my life. When I'm with them, I have more joy than I have with anybody else.

Speaker 1:

So Ellie, thank you so much. I think this is you just been an inspiration, and you are leading the way on making peace heroes something that we endeavor to be and can create an imagination where we choose to mend the breaks that we see. So thank you so much for joining us and tell Jerusalem hello. From the Wage and Peace podcast, I will Well, thank you for having me.

Speaker 2:

I'm really privileged to be on your podcast.

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Diana K Oestreich

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