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This monthly newsletter will introduce you to stories, language and strategies that may feel unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and even at times threatening. Our goal is to build our muscle for thoughtful, nuanced conversations that dig beneath the surface of habitual assumptions and reactions. We want to create a space where relationships rather than slogans inform our thinking.
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At a time when polarization threatens to reduce every position to “acceptable” or “unacceptable,” we need to practice curiosity. At a time when people are taking language off the table, we must wrestle with the meaning of that language, and the reason it is being used.
At a time when we feel more compelled than ever to speak out, we must practice being good listeners.
As Rabbi Yael Saidoff says, “True listening is a spiritual practice. It is an offering of our sincere attention. It is an invitation for communion. True listening is bearing witness to the soul of another. It is also a means of rediscovering our own essence. As we gaze closely at the mirror of another soul, we see that we are all part of the same essence.”
Only through true listening can we begin to hear the meaning behind words and slogans and transform them into acts promoting justice and peace.
Just as “original sin” is understood in a multiplicity of ways, so too “Defund the Police,” “Pro-Life,” and “Black Lives Matter” are concepts that have been sloganized and at times weaponized without understanding. We seek to listen to the nuances and usages of such language so that we hear and speak in ways that build relationships with others, rather than avoiding or poisoning those relationships.
During the time of active warfare in Israel/Palestine and in its aftermath the need for this kind of work has come into full focus. As a Jew, I am not willing to denounce Zionism; but the Zionism I adhere to neither requires nor justifies the subjugation, terrorism or elimination of non-Jews from any place on earth, including the land that is currently under Israeli sovereignty. In order to have meaningful and productive conversations about the future of Israel/Palestine, I have to be willing to listen to those who experience the Jewish state as a threat to their sovereign rights, and hear their stories without dismissing or negating them. I can only hope that in the context of a valued relationship they will not hear me as an apologist for the Israeli government but as a person who has a deep connection to and love for the land. I have beloved friends and family members who live in Israel and are working alongside Palestinians to change assumptions, laws and policies that undermine the founding vision of the Jewish State. But if I want my perspective to be heard I have to be open to listen to those who use words like “Apartheid” to describe the actions of the Israeli government, recognizing that if I reject that term I may appear to be denying the injustice or illegality of acts committed by the Israeli government.
In a recent essay in The Atlantic, former deputy national security advisor in the Obama administration, Ben Rhodes, concluded: “To have any capacity to help fix what has gone wrong in the world, we have to begin fixing what has gone wrong with ourselves.” We earn the authority to speak when we first take time to listen. We at Faith Commons hope you will take time to listen to some of the voices presented in this newsletter. We invite you to share your questions and responses with us, so we can better engage in the sacred conversation our faiths and our common future require.
~ Rabbi Nancy Kasten
Chief Relationship Officer
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We recommend the following resources to further our capacity for listening to different perspectives in pursuit of understanding and compassion.
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- Nabeel Abboud Ashkar is Executive Director of Polyphony and has brought young Arab and Jewish Israelis to the Dallas for concerts and programs. We look forward to their next U.S. tour in 2022. Click here to read their recent newsletter.
- Dr. Rula Khoury-Mansour is the Director of Peace Studies at Nazareth Evangelical College where George and Nancy and the group they led visited in 2018. She wrote this essay reflecting on the conflict she and her family has witnessed.
- On the relationship between Palestinian rights and anti-semitism:
- On Palestinian Christians:
- Mahmoud Muna is known to some as the Bookseller of Jerusalem. He runs two family bookstores in East Jerusalem, the Educational Bookshop and the Bookshop at the American Colony Hotel.
- Sarah Bernstein is the Executive DIrector of the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue in Jerusalem. You may have met her when she has spoken here in Dallas, or during a visit to Israel/Palestine. This is a newsletter she wrote in response to the current conflict.
- Debate | Should we use the term ‘apartheid’ in discussing Israel? By Ari Hoffman and Joel Swanson for Forward, April 27, 2021.
- A Major Rights Group Says Israel Is Guilty of Apartheid. It Might Fracture the Status Quo in Washington, by H.A. Hellyer for Time, April 29, 2021.
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- Apeirogon: A Novel, Colum McCann, 2020
- The Children of the Ghetto: My Name is Adam, Elias Khoury, 2019
- Minor Detail, Adania Shibli, 2020
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