We Are All Part of the Story
Daniel Chiat, a member of Harry Kay Leadership Institute’s Cohort 11, reflects on his experience in Israel.
Sunday marked our first jam-packed day of group programming in Israel, and we started the day at Ir David (City of David) located just outside of the Old City.
Early in the walking tour, our tour guide Hillary oriented us to the city’s geography. She mentioned a key reason why King David chose Jerusalem about 3,000 years ago was due to its central-ish location to the 12 tribes and also drew our gaze up toward Mount Moriah, where Avraham bound and nearly sacrificed Isaac, his only son with Sarah. As I was listening, I also couldn’t help but notice the names of the people in our group, including Dan, Benjamin, and Sarah. I thought about the children’s names of my fellow HKLI participants, including Avraham (my Avi) and Issac. It became natural then to reflect on the Jewish story’s incredibly long past, our opportunity in the present, and how much more of the story will be written by future generations.
A bit later in the morning, Hillary took us on an Old City tour. The past is certainly on full display in the Old City, but what particularly struck me on this visit was seeing the stunning new/rebuilt Hurva Synagogue and the soon to be completed new/rebuilt Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue.
Our main afternoon activity was hearing from Mohammad Darawshe, Director of Strategy at Givat Haviva and prominent peace activist. He began his talk by sharing that his family had lived in the same town near Nazareth for about 800 years, covering (at this point) 29 generations before discussing how the founding of the State of Israel in 1948 affected his grandfather and the repercussions to today. I was inspired to hear about his accomplishments in “building islands of success” in recent years to improve the lives of Arab-Israelis and by doing so, how all Israelis benefit. One such island is the cross-placement of Arab teachers in Jewish schools and Jewish teachers in Arab teachers, some 3,500 teachers in total. As Mohammad finished his remarks, he emphasized that a reason for his life’s work is to better the life of his granddaughter.
After Mohammad’s lecture, the rest of our travelling party arrived from Warsaw! It felt great to be reunited, and we soon had the opportunity to spend time together and on our own at the Kotelbefore settling into a wonderful group dinner at the Sephardic House.
After dinner, we had the honor of learning from Avram Infeld, President Emeritus of Hillel International and strong believer that Judaism is NOT A RELIGION (if you know, you know). As he wrapped up his engaging, passionate monologue about Am Yisroel, he described to us what he calls “The Five Legs of Being Jewish.” To me, this describes a sort of practical pluralism how we, as the Jewish People, can be unified without being uniform. If each and every Jew can consistently demonstrate and practice 3 of the 5 legs, then there will be something that unifies one Jew to another Jew – while still allowing for plenty of non-conformity. Avram’s fifth leg is Hebrew Language, and he provided examples of the language’s beauty. The one that struck me iskadimah, meaning forward, with the root of kuf – dalet – mem. The Hebrew word kedem, meaning ancient, shares that same root. As Avram stated, “There is no future without a past.”
It was quite an inspiring way to conclude our Sunday together; and I soon realized Monday would be a beautiful continuation. I was fortunate enough to spend quality time first thing in the morning with my dear teacher and friend, Rabbi Dr. Levi Cooper, who, as we said our good-byes, said something to the effect of: “So glad you and your group visited Israel in these times.We are all part of the story.”