13/04/2025
My name is Ayelet, I’m Jewish, and was part of a group of Arab Palestinian and Jewish educators who had been meeting regularly to build understanding and connection. At one point, we traveled together to Northern Ireland to learn firsthand how Catholics and Protestants—once bitter enemies—found a way to end the violence and live, more or less, in peace.
During a bus tour, we stopped at a memorial wall honoring Palestinians who had been killed in Gaza since the war began. There was no mention of the Jews who were r***d and murdered on October 7th or of the alive and dead hostages or of the soldiers killed in the war.
The Palestinian participants walked over to the wall to pay their respects, to mourn. I joined them.
The other Jews in our group stayed back. Maybe they felt hurt, angry, erased. Maybe they couldn’t bring themselves to approach that wall.
Later that evening, back at the hostel as we cooked dinner together, we talked about it—openly, honestly. We listened. And somehow, in that conversation, we found our way back to each other.
A story that came up in one of our playback theater performances as shared with me by Effie and Rina.
