On Holocaust Memorial Day people mourn the loss of their families to the Nazis - however, ironically, on that day I found family I never knew I had - from London. Distant cousins but cousins nonetheless. Richard's grandfather is my dad's first cousin. Apparently he was part of the Kindertransport from Germany in 1938 and changed his last name so who would know how to track him down? So that was happily freaky.

That day we had our interfaith meeting - a one year celebration of our group called Friendship/Sedeka (Arabic) /Reut (Hebrew). If there is anything in common between Jews and Arabs - be they Christians or Moslems - it's food. And we sat around the table together in that small oasis of peace in that room.

Our Jewish friend, Hadassah read her poem which went like this:

If there's a thread
A red thread
A thread I draw from within
Across the abyss
For a bridge
A passage
A way open
To vistas
People
Children
As yet undestroyed

If such a thread
From heart to mouth and beyond exists
Fine, simple to extend like a
Hand
A smile
A flower that flies on the wind
Uplifted
We'll reach the other side

as well as one from our Moslem friend, Mufida

In that lonely home
My soul began to roam
Through this restless land
Looking for a helpful hand
From this chaos
I wish to fly
To the deepest oceans
Or to the sky
There is nothing more to say
Just to sit and pray.

That peace will come one day
And watch our children play
Let's sing together
Forever and ever

With one loud call
The sun is not for one
But for all
But for all