Gathering of light festival in Jerusalem

I knew Hubby would not join me on this - not for the entire time anyways - but he so generously bought me a tent which requires no effort to put up and an air matress, because I'm like the Princess and the Pea, and would probably feel an ant crawling underneath a sleeping bag. So with those two new things in tow, I arrived at the campsite at the top of the Jerusalem Forest. We pitched our tent near the main bonfire (big mistake). Most of the people there were hippies in their twenties and thirties. There were a handful of them our age. The bringing in of the Sabbath was the most beautiful part of the evening with everyone getting out their musical instruments, and my friend Eliyahu leading the prayers. The sun was setting and the scene seemed like a fairy tale in the forest. Everyone was singing so loudly and beautifully it seemed so magical.

Even though I brought stuff to eat, dinner was communal and the organizers were very careful about hygiene. No paper/plastic plates were allowed, and if you didn't bring your own, they provided it for you. Everyone pitched in and I was asked to be one of the "servers". I took an area, asked people what they wanted to eat - the people dishing out the food were careful that no plate hovered over the food, because dirt might get onto the food, so each plate was placed on the side of the pots not over it.

An announcement was made that Eliyahu brought in Palestinians from Jenin, Ramallah and Jericho and I recognized Sulieman and some of the women. This was after some young man engaged me in a debate about whether the extremist late Rabbi Kahane was right about transferring Arabs out of the country. He looked up to see me hug and kiss the new arrivals. Soon after some young kids, who looked like the "hilltop settlers" who harass Arabs, spoke between themselves.

"Why are these people here?" they asked each other.

I intervened - "They were invited. Would you like me to introduce them to you?"

The young man walked away quickly - "No No, they killed 4 of my friends"

"THOSE PEOPLE killed 4 of your friends? I don't think you have the right people, because killers won't come to a peace and light gathering (and I was wondering what people like these who aren't for peace were doing here). We are both affected by this conflict."

He nodded his head annoyingly at me - like yeah right and walked away. I alerted Eliyahu and told him to get these people together. He promptly ran to look for them. He came back 1/2 hour later - "The guy said he loves Arabs, but just not in this country."

"OK - that's a start" I laughed. We both knew there was alot of work to be done.

I went up to the top of the hill to do midnight meditation. Hubby looked at our circle and told them - I don't like circles, I like squares - and left back to the tent. The crowd kept me up until 3 am - Hubby had gone home to fetch a few things, and brought a young neighbor who wanted to visit us and instead ended up here at the campsite. She was thrilled. At 2 am I hear strains of the song Give Peace a Chance. Hubby wakes me up -

"You'll never believe who is singing this"

"Who?"

"Dov Shurin"

"WHO???" Was this the same anti-Arab singer who came out with an album called "Nekama" (Revenge)? Yes it was.

Hubby continued - "and the Palestinian women are singing behind him - like his backup singers."

Unfortunately I was glued to the air mattress at that hour, because I would have loved to have taken a photo of THAT. Yes, the new reformed Shurin, with his new peace album, featuring backup vocalists from Ramallah and Jenin. I laughed so hard the tent began to shake.

Next morning I searched the campsite for coffee. After about 1/2 hour, some guy wrapped in a sarong, offered to make a cup for me, but I cut the visit short to do laughter yoga with Alex. I had been meaning to do it for a while, it sounded so hilarious, but he is 2 buses away early on Friday mornings. Seems God sends these people to me when I can't get to them. Alex was so cute, with long blonde hair, looking a bit like Axel Rose in his younger years, without the tatooes. He started by having us shake each other's hand and laughing hysterically, we then did these stretching exercises which ended up by us laughing and then went on to regress like kids, pretending to put stuff down each other's back and speaking gibberish to each other. Then we pretended some calamity was about to happen, like missing a plane and running with our luggage laughing through the airport. We coupled off, bending down to look at each other upside down and laughing at each other. He explained all of the exercises went a bit deeper than it seemed and he pretended to get a call saying he was fired from his job, and he jumped up and down, whooping with laughter. "Now I'll have more free time!" Always look on the bright side of life.

Ibrahim came later that morning, during Laughter Yoga with several moustached men carrying cases of danishes and vegetables and fruit. I'm sure he paid for it all. The moustached men disappeared, they were only the deliverers of the food.

By end of the afternoon the Palestinians spoke to the crowd about themselves a bit and the young Jewish settler-like kids hovered behind them back and forth. I was getting a bit nervous. After the presentation, and a question and answer session, Eliyahu told the Palestinians to talk to those "extremist" kids, which they did. The kids didn't back away and ended up talking to them. I was thrilled. I tried to eavesdrop. What are those beginning awkward conversations like? I heard smatterings of the conversations. They asked the Palestinians if they were Sufis. I guess they must have thought that only spiritual sufis would want peace with the other, not regular Palestinians. What an eye opener this would be for them.

I was high watching all this. Their conversations lasted 5 minutes, but it was civil and it was a start. Nothing could top what I had just witnessed and I felt it was time, before the sun set, to leave the campgrounds back for a much-needed, long hot shower.