Army of Healers: Nitsan Joy Gordon and Jawdat Kasam

Rabbi Lizzi spoke with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the Army of Healing movement. Nitsan Joy Gordon and Jawdat Kasab of Together Beyond Words are the recent recipients of the 2025 IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East. This was a powerful conversation that unfolded slowly and with trust, and we felt really honored to welcome Jawdat and Nitsan into the community to share about their transformational work.

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

Hello jodot, and hello nitsan. And now I feel like I should introduce you to the community, to the folks who are listening and who are here with us, so that they know who you are, and you can see we've got a bunch of people who are here because they are really eager to hear your story and learn from you. So it's one of my great honors and pleasures as a rabbi to get to talk to people. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna move locations. I don't know if you can hear all the noise in the room, but it's bothering me. So I'm just gonna move.

Can I just say something quick. Oh, sure, go ahead. Um, my father passed away about three months ago. So wonderful that I got to hear and say in my heart the mourner Scottish just now. So

I'm so glad you did, and may his memory be a blessing. He is a Honolulu.

Thank you,

yeah. Okay, all right, this is, this is definitely less nice background, much quieter. Okay, so for anybody who spent time in the Mishkan community, you know that the way that we like to approach talking about what's happening in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank is through the lens of the peacemakers, like the people who are working every single day against against culture and against all odds, to transcend the binaries of us and them and actually try to create the conditions for peace that you know, that just seems like the thing that a spiritual community should be invested in, and amplifying the voices of the people who are doing that, and finding the people who are doing that, and helping in any way that we can. And so it's an honor today to talk to nitsan and to talk to Joe dat who are involved in together beyond words, and specifically the army of healers initiative, which has gained international attention and won awards and and I don't know what is possible by by zoom, but Maybe we'll even get a little taste of the work that you do. You know, in workshops, as we talk here together, shall I give a little bio, just the you know, the paragraph that you sent me, just to introduce the two of you. Okay, so nitsan Joy Gordon is the director of together beyond words, and the founder of army of healers, which trains facilitators and promotes healing across divides. A dance and movement therapist by training, she has taught in Israel and in the US, on empowerment, emotional awareness and healing prejudice. She's the author of together beyond words, women on a quest for peace in the Middle East, and the trilingual book, the magic of tears. So welcome nitsan. Is it nitsan joy or nitsan?

Either one is fine, okay, okay,

and then am I pronouncing this right? Zhao, dot, okay. Is a non violent communication practitioner, a lawyer and community builder. He plays a role in the army of healers initiative, co leading facilitator trainings, group work and data analysis. Previously, he coordinated programs for Elham the day after and the aravat Institute for Environmental Studies. And co founded falahi. Is that correct? Does that I pronounce that correctly? Falahi? Okay, a project using dialog, storytelling and nonviolent communication for collective healing that holds law degrees and LLB and LLM from Kingston and what's BPP, what does that

stand for? It doesn't stand for anything. It's just in London.

It's just in London. It is a law school with an acronym for a name where the acronym doesn't mean anything, okay? And BPP universities in London, and is an alumnus of the ARAVA Institute. So welcome, welcome to the two of you. I'm actually, I'm going to spotlight, I'm going to spotlight the two of you. And I guess my first question is like, how are you doing today?

So I'm actually, right now visiting my grandchildren near Nazareth. I just came here for the day. Most of the time I'm near KWA Saba, but right now I came to be near my children, grandchildren, and near my mother, who's in Nahariya. So I'm kind of for a few days just in between. Between and

where are you? Well, I'm sitting in the city of Chicago, in the Mishkan Chicago office space in a room actually, I don't know if you can see this. It says Maggie's place on the door, but I feel like if we were doing a workshop, this is the room that you'd be in, because this is sort of our space for healing and wellness. So, so that's where I'm sitting, and Dad, how about you?

I'm right now in Tel Aviv, and center, center of Tel Aviv, just dropped off my dad from the hospital. He just went under under, went through a surgery, kidney surgery went well, there's the question of, like, how are we doing today? And I feel like, I'm like, there's a lot of fatigue. I'm exhausted. And I think this is the situation for many people around this region. So just coming into this room and hearing at the Brachot, the blessing from God, being in a spiritual space that's already like soothing for me. So I'm very delighted to be in this room. I'm very happy, and we're I'm already learning a lot as well. So thank you. That's very calming.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad that you got to catch the end of our spiritual practice, our Minion. So where is a good place to start with, the beginning of together, beyond words or with army of healers? To tell us a little bit about the genesis of this work that you do, training facilitators in healing.

I can, I can. I'm also excited to be here. I didn't know there were going to be so many people. I just thought it was the three of us, and suddenly these beautiful faces, and wow, and

oh, I must not have communicated that well when we were going back and forth. So nitsan reached out, because she's going to be in town, and so we were, they're going to be in town, and so wanting to do maybe a workshop or something. And I was like, well, we can't do a workshop, but what about our I sort of, I don't, I should not have assumed that you knew what this was, but here we are. We've got a bunch of our community and people who are deeply interested in what you're doing and definitely want to learn more. So

so that's yeah, okay, so I'll just tell you how I began this journey. I was born in a border kibbutz in Israel, and when I was 10, we moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Or 11, we moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee. My father was doing his doctoral degree in Nashville, Peabody College. And for the first time in my life, I was the only Jew in the school, and I there was as an 1112 year old. There was a lot of prejudice against I felt a lot of prejudice against me. I was called a dirty Jew almost every day, when I walked home, some guys would walk behind me and throw rocks at me. And one time in junior high school, in that school in eighth grade, when the teacher was trying to teach the class about the Holocaust, then a bunch of two people actually sat next to me and just whispered in my ear how wonderful it was that all the Jews were murdered in the Holocaust and the Too bad I wasn't one of them, and they kept whispering. They were trying to get me to react in some way. And after so many times that I called a dirty Jew and all that, I felt like I couldn't sit quietly. It was one of those moments when I just had to do something. So I just jumped up and screamed enough and ran out of the room, and I ran all the way to my house at two or three miles. And that evening, I told my parents what had been going on for over a year and that I never shared. And the next day, my father came into the school, and he walked into the class, I don't know. Maybe the teacher invited him. I don't remember. Yeah, and he walked into the class, and I didn't know what he was going to do. He was going to scream at the children. He was going to give him a lecture. I didn't know. And he just stood there in front of the whole class, and he shared two stories from the Holocaust, of two stories of courage, and then he thanked them and he walked out. I think that moment was really meaningful, because after that, the teasing and the abuse stopped, and so living in that place, I had a chance to feel what prejudice is like. And after I studied dance movement therapy and came back to Israel, it was the First Intifada, and I wanted to do something for coexistence and peace. And so I started a program with a Muslim colleague, and we started working with kindergarten teachers, and slowly it evolved, and we had about two three groups a year where we would meet, and the idea was to create a space for the pain so that people wouldn't act out their pain in the world. We believe that pain that is not pain that is not transformed, is transmitted, and so we want people to have the place to feel their trauma, to feel their pain, so they wouldn't act it out in the world. And that's where I started, and I'm going to stop for now, and maybe Joe dot can share his story, and then later, when I speak, I'll share with you how the army of healers began.

That's such a meaningful context. Thank you for sharing that. Go ahead.

I'm very moved to hear your stories, and every time I hear it, it's just lensed differently and more powerfully in my body, I don't know where to start from. To be honest, I was born and raised in Nazareth in Israel. It's an Arab town here, and it's kind of isolated from the rest of like the Jewish population in Israel. I come from a family that's my mother's from Nazareth, and my dad's from him and his his dad was actually our family comes from an expelled village that's called their refugees from Emil fahem, from a village called El which now is known As Miguel. There's a kibbutz on it, Kibbutz mikando, instead of where they used to live. And so I grew up with this trauma in and in my family, and I witnessed my dad telling me stories about my grandfather because I never met him, but stories that he was almost spent most of his childhood, my dad's childhood, his grandmother, his grandfather was his father was in my grandfather was in in prison, and so he grew up without A father, basically, and and so many times the stories were about nonviolent action as one demonstration of the family heritage is that we kind of got some of our lands back by going to court procedures. And thus I grew up to a father who was a lawyer, and I also became a lawyer because we believed in the justice system. Few years later, after I was born, my dad when in 2004 2005 2006 he and my family, they established the first Holocaust Museum in Arabic, both in Nazareth and the West Bank. So when I was nine years old, I used to spend a lot of my time in Yad Vashem, in the Museum of the Holocaust, about around the stories and the pain of people, just people in general. And I couldn't fathom until today, like my mind, how it works that something like this happened in humanity and hasn't been dealt with, and there is not even a safe space for it to be mourned and grieved and dealt with. Few years later, I after I finished my studies, I came back. Correct and to work as a lawyer, and I quickly lost my faith in the justice system here, it seemed like it was very complex, very chaotic. There are so many symptoms that are covering the root cause of things. And so I started getting interested into grassroots social activism and political activism, and I got introduced to non binary communication, participatory leadership and storytelling and playback, theater and dance and so a variety of different tools on how we can express our pain and how we can express our stories while avoiding to transmute transfer the shame and guilt and fear and oppression towards one another, and hopefully it will create spaces where we can feel safer with each other and deal with the prejudice and assumptions that we have towards each other. Yeah, so I was part of a co founding the community of diverse community different backgrounds. Of now it's 300 people, and it was after it gathered together after the seventh of October, also. So it gives me hope and optimism, once I see that these things are possible even. And few months, a few months after the seventh of October, I met in it San, and we started this initiative of the army of helix that we will speak about it later. But I think the power of dialog in these times is something that gives you strength and power and deals with the fear that lets me, when I'm having it, walk around here feeling more safer and that I could actually understand where people are coming from, and opens my heart and gets me more in touch with who I am supposed to be without confusing what others behaviors are for this is basically it not true, but I'm hoping that you will have questions.

Thank you. I actually wondered if I could share, you know, you send me this article that you wrote in the Jerusalem Post about army of healers nitsan. And I wonder if that's a good way to kind of give a vision and a, like, a short synopsis, you know, like that you wrote for the paper, and then you could talk more about, kind of the behind the scenes of how this came together, and what you know, what you're doing, and what your hopes are for what you can do. Is that a good place to start? Sounds great. Okay, so I just, I want to show folks. So Nitzan wrote this piece, the birth of an army of healers, Jews, Palestinians, offering support during war. And then the sub headline is, the army of healers, a growing network of Arab Palestinian and Jewish facilitators trained in trauma informed methods, has been supporting both Israelis and Palestinians for the past year and a half. And this was written already. Let's see, over the summer, in July, so maybe I won't read the whole thing, but just like the kind of opening scene on the evening of October 8, as the scale of the horror became clear, our Arab, Palestinian and Jewish playback theater group was scheduled to meet, one by one, participants canceled. My Palestinian co leader said, you know, let's at least meet on Zoom. It's a terrible time, but we can still be together. So we did, and for a brief, brief moment, it brought comfort. However, that was the last time our group met, Arab and Jewish for four months, the pain and trauma on both sides was overwhelming. On the Jewish side, there was a sense of rupture, rage and the terrifying realization that even in our own land, we were not safe. For some it reopened the wound of our long history, pogroms, persecution, the Holocaust. At the Palestinian side, there was shock, fear and grief and fury as the bombing of Gaza intensified, the death toll of civilians, women and children climbed for many Palestinians, this violence echoed a long and painful story, one that stretches back through decades of occupation, dispossession and the ongoing trauma of the Nakba it became too painful to sit in one space together. I remember a Jewish woman, a lifelong peace activist who had spent years driving sick Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza to Israeli hospitals. Just a week after October 7, she came to a workshop seething with rage, gripping a padded bag. At she struck a pillow again and again, screaming, I want to kill you. I want to kill all of you. And then she collapsed in tears, finally able to touch the pain beneath the rage held in the arms of fellow Jewish participants who wept with her. It wasn't hatred, it was grief. It was betrayal, and it was unbearable at another workshop in California, a young Jewish mother described hiding knives around her house and mapping out an escape route, afraid Hamas would come for her family, even across an ocean. This wasn't just trauma from one terrible day, this was a reactivation of legacy burdens carried in Jewish and Palestinian bodies for generations, pain that has not been transformed will be transmitted and unprocessed emotions can easily drive harmful actions on the streets, in policy and in war, my Palestinian friends were also in shock, some afraid of being targeted, others drowning in despair as images from Gaza reached their phones, all of us were unraveling as always in the background, there was this unbearable knowledge that the hostages were still being held in Gaza. Their faces haunted every conversation, every gathering. Their absence sharpened the pain and deepened the urgency. What does it mean to try to heal in a time of devastating loss. How do we carry the pain of our own community while staying open to the suffering of others? How do we hold on to our humanity when everything around us urges us to harden, to hate and to turn away such a powerful framing of what I feel like we've all been witnessing and praying for. So can you describe what your answer to that question was? How can we hold on to our humanity when everything around us urges us to harden, to hate, to turn away?

Well, I would recommend people read the end of the article. Well,

I didn't. I didn't want to read the end of the article unless you wanted to talk about, I can I can just read to the end of the article if you want. You can pick it up on there.

Okay, I can talk. I remember one of the first workshops immediately after October 7, we we led several workshops because there was so much trauma. And as I said, the workshops in the beginning, in the first couple of months, were separate. People weren't willing to feel their grief carefully, because sometimes when we meet Israelis and Palestinians together, we don't say certain things. We say other things, what we're always watching out for each other. We want to maintain the dialog, say difficult things, cry, but also maintain a sense of connection. And after October 7, it was a sense of each community, each peoples wanted to just have time to feel their grief alone without having to worry about the other side. So that's what we were doing for a while. And I remember one of the workshop. It's like I feel my I still feel the pain of it. What can I say it. Just remember one man who just came from Aza, the communities around Gaza, and he just was in a small group. And when I looked over at his small group, he was lying on the earth on with his face on the ground, just sobbing, and it felt like it was a time when we we needed something larger than ourselves, the earth itself, to hold so much pain that was present for people in their thoughts, in their hearts, in their bodies, and what was, I'll just say that one of the things we say to people, and I'm saying it to all of you right now, is we say thank you for feeling what is yours to feel? Because that's what we need to do so we can come back to connection. We need to feel what is ours to feel each one of us. And after those workshops, I came to the United States, to Denver, Colorado for a few days to lead a workshop at the IFS conference, internal family systems conference, and there I found a few people who helped me organize 80 therapists who would support Israelis and Palestinians in. In, in dealing with the trauma, and they've been doing that for the past year and a half, and that's been so meaningful. It's been a lifesaver. They just, we just match them up, and they do zoom calls. They work with our facilitators so our facilitators are ready to hold spaces for people who are going through so much. And as Joe Dutt said, in February, we began leading groups. We gathered 30 facilitators. We called it an army of healers, because that's what we feel is most needed now, not only in our part of the world, everywhere, not an army of soldiers holding weapons, but an army of healers creating spaces to feel and heal. And so we gathered 30 facilitators, Arabs and Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, and we did a short training. All of them had experience. And then we started meeting in groups together, and it felt like it was the right thing. After a few months, it felt like we wanted to be together. We wanted to be in connection. We wanted to hear the other side, so that's what we've been doing for as I said, we've had 22 groups. We worked with almost 400 people, and we're now opening more groups.

Joe Dodd, can you talk about the role that you've been playing in the army of healers?

Yeah. Well, this question is, comes, brings with it a lot of pain, also, with everything that is unfolding right now, it's like there's a lot of helplessness here, a lot of hopelessness. I don't want to, like, pretend like I have the answer for this kind of question, or what we can do, and all this work is, for me, that we perceive it is that we're trying our best, and it has a theory. And the theory of it is just faith, you know, for me, it's faith you read a lot about what is the ethics of conflict, you know, and ethics of conflict is built like on prejudice and dehumanization and victimhood and justifications and all of that just thrives on the reality of separation. The longer that we are separated from each other, the longer that we're scared from each other, then this conflict and pain will stay and we are be reinforced, and we'll take a different manifestation, even like a more extreme one. So coming together, creating these spaces where we can deal with the pain in a different lens, not from the same place that caused the situation to happen. It is kind of like exposure and prevention. You know, we get exposed, like, I just want to acknowledge, like, here in the room, there's a lot of pain, especially in the past two years, for 1000s of years, for some people, and ongoingly, with this fame comes a lot of thoughts, thoughts towards me. I'm here standing in front of you or sitting, but presented in front of you, and I hold a certain mold, a certain shape, a certain identity that is perceived by each one of you differently. And I just want to acknowledge that growing up with this pain, growing up with this environment, growing up with experiences that each of us has been through, it's only valid that you would think what you think towards me and what I think, what I think towards you as well and others, and from there, I would if I put myself in your shoes, I would think the same way. So if we start from this point, then some compassion could happen, some kind of common objective could happen. Yeah, I want to say a story, maybe

job dad, also tell them what you've been doing in the army of healers after you share your story.

Yeah, okay, I will, just maybe later. Okay, I will sorry. I'm a bit like confused all over the place. Today is, like, not a really good day for me. But, yeah, I. We co facilitated group for people, around 20 people for three months here, like mixed Jews, Palestinians, Israelis and Arabs and some internationals as well. And we went through a process together, and we also help, kind of give some insight in the army of healers about how we can provide a space where the needs of all people from different backgrounds are actually met. So we're kind of producing all the time and bringing people together in the space so they can acquire, like, new tools on how to deal with each other and their pain. Yeah, so far, I'll just stop here. I feel like I took too much space. Yeah,

no, but to tell your story

and and let me also just say, jodot, it's unusual. It's unusual for Palestinians to take up space in Jewish spaces. So you're fine. You're fine. Go ahead.

I like to start it like I give like a story of myself, of my own experience, and how I experience these things. And on the seventh of October, I was actually on on a kibbutz on the rabbi Institute for a month already. It's a program where around 40 people, diverse from like Palestinian Israelis and like Jewish and Arabs and internationals, come together for four months, and they do dialog every Wednesday, three hours a week, and they live together, and they learn about the environment and social aspects. So for a whole month, we're learning about each other. We're coming to learn and love each other and get exposed to each other. But on the seventh of October, actually, it was, I was on a kibbutz. It is like my trauma, you know, in my history, but I'm there somehow, because of this space. And I remember, like in the morning, I see pictures of two elderly Jewish people from the massacre that happened on the seventh of October shot down. I remember the white hair of the old lady, and she's wearing a dress that is blue with the pink flowers on it and blood all over the floor, and I'm thinking to myself, and I'm crying, and how did we get here? The job was just in shock. I was in disbelief. For me, it's humans punching themselves in the face, and this frustration about this situation escalating and taking it deeper and deeper, and more vicious form, more atrocious form, and I immediately scared for the future. I got scared for the future. What's gonna happen, and this cycle is gonna again, and it feels so small. On that night, at the same time, I saw three of my Jewish friends get called up to the army. Us as a Palestinian Israelis, we don't, we don't serve in the army. So this was actually the first time for me being around being called up in a war situation. So I saw three of my male friends. One of them just scoped different. Each of them coped differently with the stress of being called up to reserves. And one of them just drank himself off until he puked, and the other one, just like put his bag on, withdrew, wasn't there and he's on a mission. Didn't even have any idea how to talk to him. I was very scared, but one of them was actually vulnerable. We sat together until 2am with another Palestinian friend of mine, and we're just listening to him. Why can't he sleep? What is going on in his mind? And me and my Palestinian friend, we don't know what the Army is. We don't know what's like to be called up to do this thing. And we're trying to pat him on the back. And Yallah, you'll get over it like a man. You'll go and come back after a week, we'll see you. And then he looks at me with his eyes. My whole world just shattered. I see his their eyes is full of terror and fear, and he's like, You don't know what you're talking about. This is what I saw, and that's what it hit me, that the fear that his reality is as valid as mine, and his pain and his fear doesn't negate mine, and they're interconnected, but irrespective of each other at the same time, and this guy doesn't hate me. There is fear. He is scared, his reality. He has to go through with these things. Somehow I play a role in it. So I got up and I hugged him, and I wished him safety, and I was very happy to hug him again when he came back. Fear, hate is. Is not hate. Hate comes from fear, and fear comes from the fact that we don't know each other, and we don't know anything about each other, and that builds the walls between us. And I would like to end with the fact that I don't believe that we need to fit to build bridges. I just need, I just think that we need to dismantle the walls that is as an obstacle from us connecting together. Yeah, that's That's it.

Thank you so much for sharing that story. It's such a, it's such a simple human vignette. Friends talking, you know, and then at the end of the conversation, friends give each other a hug, but like, as you were describing it, I was feeling the, what feels like the I don't know the global significance of your like that little moment at the ARAVA Institute. Is that where you were sitting, all over the world, there are people who will literally not talk to one another because of their association with whether it's Israel and the IDF or whether it's Palestinians and, you know, fighting for Palestinian rights, and the feeling of distrust and like will not speak. I can't trust you. You are too different from me, your values, your priorities, the things that you care about, we like. There's nothing to talk about until you can at least acknowledge my you know, it's sort of putting conditions on on someone's worthiness to be in a conversation. I won't talk to you unless you agree first to acknowledge this and this and this about my pain, and it's like that's already so many levels removed from the basic humanity of just sharing space to share one's reality, and then somebody basically saying, Thank you for sharing, what's yours to share. Did you already know that language? You know that kind of approach, thank you for sharing, what's yours to share. When your friend going off to reserves, you know, had, and you had this conversation like, was this training that actually kind of prepared you to navigate this hard moment, or was it more like the reverse you you were, you know, able to have these kinds of conversations, and then you realized more people need this skill set, you know, and I want to help people develop this skill set.

It's a work in progress. To be honest. I was already exposed to like nonviolent communication and storytelling to like vulnerability and empathy towards each other, but that moment was when I understood that one reality doesn't negate. Like, there's no actually thing as polarity is like we're all on this earth and everything is happening, and his reality, his valued. It doesn't cancel mine. It doesn't come on mine. I'm a human whole as much as he is, and we're both whole universe. And it's he doesn't threaten my existence. The opposite, his pain is my pain. You know, all pain is my pain. My pain is everybody's pain. And that was very fascinating for me on a personal level, because then I started doing it with my parents, with my loved ones as well, and coming to sit together see what the person needs actually. And how could we strategize on meeting these things together? This time, you bring up the voices, and you bring up the feelings, and you bring up the emotions and the reasoning behind everything. And then once I know, and you know, we can get make an evaluated decision together. So there's another way that's that's the whole thing. Is, there's another way.

I was also struck by the image of, you know, we just need to dismantle the walls, sort of as a, as a well, not counterpoint, exactly, but in dialog with what ni was describing earlier, that after October 7, there was a need for people to be kind of surrounded by their, you know, their people to feel grief for a period of time before they could come back together and be expected to do the hard work of holding the pain of other people in the circle who are coming from a different kind of pain. And so I wonder if you could talk about that brave transition from being in the posture of grief to being in the posture of being able to witness and acknowledge someone else's pain that is different from your pain. Because I do feel like that's a place a lot of folks, we get stuck. You know, we get stuck in that place of this pain happened to me and because nobody's seeing it or validating it, because I haven't expressed it, because I haven't transformed it, I will keep transmitting it, you know, and so we can't move forward. So how do you help people make that transition?

I say listening really helps. You know, this is in every relationship, and I often. And tell myself, I want somebody to do something for me. Then maybe if I start and take the first step then and listen, really listen to them, then they'll be able to see and hear me, too. And many times this works, sometimes it doesn't, but many times it does. I heard it a lot people say, First, I want you to acknowledge what happened on October 7. First, I want you to acknowledge what's been happening here for 70 years on both sides. First, I want you to acknowledge what's been happening in Gaza. One of the things that's helpful, there's many things we do. One of the things is listening to each other and letting and saying, Tell me more. Tell me more. Why you feel this way, why you feel that you need me to say first, what? Why do you feel that way? What would what does that part of you that needs me to acknowledge now the horror of what's happening in Gaza? What would that part feel if I don't immediately acknowledge that, just to get people to take a step deeper and see why is it so important for me? And many times it's because they just need to feel the pain. They just need a space to feel the pain. If I say this, you know it's, I don't even want to use the words, but it's horrible what's happening in Gaza. It's going to help a tiny bit, but it's not going to make a big change. What people need to do is feel the pain of what's happening and together and for the other person to witness each other, like Joe dot said, Because comparing and trying to get people to say what what we want them to say is not going to make the pain go away. We just need to the space to feel it, and then things begin to shift when I let somebody tell me how angry they are with me, and how upset they are with the Israeli government and with everything it's been doing, and I just listen. Then connection happens, and then they're open to hear me.

I just saw some thumbs thumbs up emojis and some nods.

So this is a demo from the world of ifs, which is one of the things that we use. I'm a dance therapist. I'm also an ifs therapist. If you can take a moment and just close your eyes, and there's been a lot of talking about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, the war Gaza, Israel. If you can go in for a moment and see what thoughts are coming up, what feelings are coming up for you, maybe memories, maybe sensations, energy, what's going on for you right now, and as you're looking inside and seeing maybe hearing some thoughts and feeling some feelings, If you can tell those voices, that you see them, that you see them, that you if they're in pain, let them know that you see they're in pain. And if you care, then let them know that you care, and maybe check in and see if there's one feeling that's the strongest right now, that you're hearing the loudest that seems like maybe it needs your attention and see what this feeling is. Maybe it's saying something to you, and it's a feeling that you have, maybe, and it's not all of who you are, but just check where you feel it strongest in your body. Where are you feeling it? Where is it in your body? And if you find it in your body, in your head, around your body, see what it looks like. Does it have a color, an image, and then see how you feel towards it, this sensation, this feeling that you're now focused on, how do you feel towards it? It, and one last question. Ask it, why? Why is it there? What? What is its role? What does it think might happen to you if it wasn't there? What might you feel if it wasn't there? And whatever you heard or whatever you saw, if anything, then just thank this part, this feeling, the sensation for showing up, and all the rest of the voices that were there too. And if at some point you might want to go back to them and hear some more from them, just let them know that you will be coming back. And then slowly, when you're ready, open your eyes and just, and I just want to hear if there's a couple of people who want to share something that they experienced, would love to hear

you. Go ahead. Emmett, yeah, I was just thinking one of the I'm a rabbinical student, one of the teachers at my seminary diagnosed me as a disappointed Zionist. And I think a lot of that rage and a lot of that righteous anger comes from disappointment, and it's my disappointment, it's my father's disappointment, who made Aliyah from Duluth in 1949 and was so, so disappointed with how the project turned out and how it didn't have to be like that, and how it didn't have to cause so much pain. And so this disappointment, this anger that things turned out so terribly and they didn't have to, that's what really became very clear to me. So, so thank you, Nita,

thank you. Thank you for sharing.

Ellen. Did you want to

so I was with this part that feels very defensive of the State of Israel, not what it's doing now and all of that, but just I feel so beleaguered by the culture of criticism, of kind of right, you know, from the river to the sea culture, I feel so beleaguered by that. And I noticed, I don't know why, but it was in my right shoulder when you invited us to where was it in our body, and why was it there? And then I felt this intense love for my dad, who's you know, collected the history of the beginning of the foundation of Israel through stamps and what Judaism has meant in our lineage. And so I was able to actually thank this defensive part, rather than be filled with the sort of strength and rage of defensive of a defensive position, you know, and it brings up some of this grief and love I have for my family, yeah,

wow. Thank you.

Is it Gail? I ended up going thinking about the Holocaust and the starvation and the bodies that you see piled up, and then I went to Gaza and the bodies and the starvation and the children and feeling this deep shame that I've been carrying with me, and behind that, the rage. So it went to that like, the embarrassment of like, how could we? How could this happen in our name, when this happened to us, and people stood up for us eventually, and world war two ended. What? What am I doing? What to stop this?

I just like to I'm Morris Fisher. I just happened to be at a meeting at a local Methodist Church. Here. We're talking about the goddess situation, and there really is a pretty good meaning, except there was somebody. I'm not sure what his background was, whether it's Palestinian, but to put exceptionally, his approach was that, basically, the Israelis were nothing but a bunch of long term colonists and killers and whatever may agree disagree or what he says, I think my main takeover, and I would like to say listening to you, has been listening to both of you. I just hope you can have some effect, because ultimately there's no hope unless people can engage in dialog, and that means they have to recognize. Each other's pain, and to be critical, and when they can go through all that, that's not going to make any difference. Ultimately, people have to be able to speak to each other. They have to understand each other's pain, recognize each other's pain, and deal with from there. So I, I just want to, I just, I just recently came away from that actually wrote something. I think they want to speak to me more about it, but that's the basic idea, and so I just like to, I think it's been very encouraging listening to the two of you. And I hope, hope there's some effect, because I don't know what other answer

there is. Thank you. I saw, let's, let's just do Carla and Miriam.

I had lowered my hand because I felt the person before me. Kind of said some of what I was going to say that when I was feeling, you know, we always talk about in Michigan holding both pain and and, and I think that that's what I would want to come you know, what came across for me in my in my time doing this and just that I would want to come out of this stat. You know that we can feel both pain and I love the trance. You know, what's not transformed is not going to remember the next transmitted. I wrote that. I wrote that down so that I just wanted to, I was not going to add it, but here I added when you called on me, so thanks.

I realized, you know, that I have a deep conflict within me about somehow not being a good enough Jew that because of my maternal line, like also the feeling that it's always very important to please everyone and be a good girl. And there were so many ways that I wasn't like a good Jewish girl, so that when I I feel like, I feel like, there's a conflict between my self that knows injustice when I see it and myself that is terrified that somehow I'm going to be kicked out of the tribe, that that was kind of the strong self that was coming up, was this fear like I'll somehow be excommunicated, for lack of a better word from the Jews, if I lose the ability to shape shift in different situations that always stand up for what I believe

in. I just want to thank all those who spoke for so courageously sharing what what you shared. Thank you, and thank you for beginning to feel what is yours to feel. I mean, I'm sure you've been doing it a lot, but thank you for doing it in this moment.

The feeling I was noticing was cynicism, you know, basically the voice inside me that doubts the efficacy of the work that I so deeply believe in, that you do that peacemakers do in the face of the forces that are so powerful that are driving, you know, the ideological forces that are not based in compassion and feeling the pain of the other, but rather, you know, based in greed, ideology, messianic hopes for, you know, eliminating the other people and taking over the like, all the things, all the things. And so when you asked, what happens, you know, if you acknowledge and thank it for being there, and then also wonder, like, what happens when it moves, like, what happens when it goes away, what opens up? And I realize what opens up is is hope, you know, is belief that the situation actually could transform into something, you know, like that. There could be movement that I usually despair of, if I'm being really honest, even as I amplify the word, you know, the work of people like you, it's underneath that all the time is the cynicism and sort of a low level despair and hopelessness that talked about earlier. But if I move that away, if I thank it, I recognize the place that it holds. It's protecting me. It's, you know, I don't, not sure exactly what it's doing. It's, it's making it so that when, when I'm disappointed in the world, you know, at least I prepared myself for it. Maybe, so maybe I'm protecting my heart. But if I, if I expose my heart a little bit, then actually it lets in the sunlight, and I can feel hopeful, and I can invest myself even more honestly and completely in the work that I believe in. You know, it doesn't cause a change so much as actually helping me even be more sympathetic to and like wanting to cultivate. The thing that you know is is transformational. So thank you for that.

That's so beautiful. I just to say something, don't skip over the despair. Take a moment to also feel the despair at some point, because it's a part that. So as Jewish people, we hold and we have, and not all of us, but a lot of us have noticed and and, yeah, let's take a moment to just feel it. I just read a quote that Martin Luther King said about the arc of the moral universe being very long, but it bends towards justice. And I try to believe that,

yeah, in one of, in one of the justice organizations that I'm part of, they add a little, a little tag onto the back of that and say, if we bend it. If we bend it, you know,

bend it by each doing our part, whatever your part is, if you do it, oh,

I see Jeffrey. Jeffrey, you want to? You want to jump in because I wanted to begin to steer us to closing only because it's beginning to get late in Israel, and also folks here in Chicago and around the country joining us, probably have places to go. But Jeffrey, did you want to quickly share?

Yeah, I I'm not sure this is the right time for me to say what I had planned to say, first, first, you know, and, and I think it's great what you both are doing and, and it's not only necessary where you are and between Jews in the US, there's a problem With dialog in the US too, with all people, one of the things I struggle with is, is whether Israelis see what we see on TV, on other media. And honestly, because it's very hard for me to believe that any Jew anywhere wouldn't be struck by what we see in Gaza. And I always remember my mother telling me that, and I know this is terrible, but during World War Two in the US, Jews in the US had no idea what was going on in Germany. They really they knew Hitler, they knew Nazi, and he wanted to conquer all of Europe, all of the world. But I don't think they were aware of the depth of it. And my mother, at least, she wasn't. And so I guess I'm not sure we're seeing the same thing and, and that concerns me, maybe what we're seeing isn't true and, and I don't know, but I think to be able to have dialog, it's also important to kind of come from the same knowledge base and, and I just don't know what the knowledge base that's correct. And in this country, you know, we're having problem dealing with what's fact and what's fiction and what's, you know, it's, it's true. Now, thank

you for raising that, Jeffrey, one of the, one of the questions I actually was going to that I was imagining asking are two presenters today, actually was what kind of, what stands in the way of, what are challenges to the work that you do? Like, what? When people encounter this, it sounds good, but like and so I think Jeffrey just, you know, asked a good question of a dimension of like, if people are coming from different exposure, you know, some people have seen images talk to family members, you know, I have one understanding of what's happening say in Gaza or what happened on October 7. And other people have very different experience and exposure and how that works in in the spaces you create. So I'm sure, I'm sure you have a response to that.

I don't think there's a time ever that everyone sees and knows the same thing. There's so many places to get your information, and I think it's important to listen to as many of them as possible, and that's what I tried to do. As far as what Israelis are doing, I'm not sure you know that this Sunday, maybe close to a million people, they say, from the different places where there were protests came out into the street. That's somebody told me if it was happening in the United States. I don't know if this number is true, but it would be like 85 million people, or maybe 60 million people. But if you can imagine that, that that many people are coming out and saying so. Something needs to be changed. This is not okay. It's pretty huge, as I see it. And I don't agree with every voice I hear, but I just feel that when people get up and say, Enough, something needs to be changed. It's big that many people, and as far as in our programs, it's like the more I know about what's happening from both sides, the easier it is for me to listen to people. We carry this idea that if we listen, then we have to do something immediately to change the situation, which we usually can't, or if we listen, that means that our narrative is no longer relevant or no longer true. No, no. Jabda said this in the beginning. There's space for everyone's pain while connected, and there's space for each of us to our pain, and there's a whole bunch of desire in the world to use weapons and war as a solution for things, and there's so much money going into that, and that's terrible. It's happening, and we're going to continue. We're going to continue doing what we're doing, because it's making a difference for people, a big difference in 400 participants, maybe 4000 family members, and more and more, and it goes on. That's what we can do to what did our Torah say? Seek peace and pursue it. If it was easy, we wouldn't need to pursue it. We wouldn't need to seek it. That's what we're called on to do. And yeah, there's many people who are not in agreement with what we're doing. We have to be courageous.

Thank you that. Do you want to add anything to

that? First of all, I'm grateful because for the first time in two weeks, I feel so relieved hearing these words coming out of everybody. I'm so blessed to be in this. Just want to acknowledge the bravery of each one of us coming from, where we're coming from, to be able to share these things and showing up, that's for me, is the most important thing that, for me, saves lives, to show up continuously, to accept it, this challenge here, to acknowledge somebody else's pain. I'm actually suffering from it here, on my side, with the Palestinian community, also facing a lot of shame in the past three weeks, out of shame, a lot of guilt, out of insecurities. How are you able to acknowledge somebody else's pain when everything's unfolding in Gaza? Who are you like? Ostracized. I'm not a good Palestinian enough, you know. And I'm like, this is exactly what the cycle of violence wants us to do. It wants me not to acknowledge it. What I need to do, actually, is to acknowledge it, and that will dismantle all the weapons that we have, the forgiveness, forgiving myself and one another will render all weapons harmless. And forgiveness for me, sometimes, sometimes not all the time, but it means this that I know that you won't understand my whole pain and you will never maybe, because that's not how the universe works for me, but at the same time, I wouldn't wish it upon you. I don't want to fight it. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm scared, I'm panicking, and I'm feeling like if I don't do something right now, more people will die, and it'll bring me more shame and more shame, and I'm limited in my resources. What can I do? So I need you, I need us. I need this community. I need to acknowledge all of it. So thank you, really, from the bottom of my heart.

Well, thank you. Thank both of you. This has been an unusual morning, you know, for it's morning for us, and unusual, maybe this is normal for you. This is what you do. But I think for for us in this space, to have the time to move slowly, to speak slowly and from the heart and not to rush toward fixing and solutions, which I think in this conversation often, is where people immediately go and really to model for us the kind of care and relationship and slow slowness, really, You know, the deliberateness, the intentionality, the care that it takes to do the work of healing, so that we might not imagine solving our problems with an army of weapons, but instead imagine ourselves part of your army of healers. Is there any way we can support you in the work? That you are doing on the ground.

Your words reminded me of something that somebody said, slow down to the pace of wisdom. And I want to say first that we're going to be in Chicago, in two places, in St Charles in the Q center, doing a workshop, and also in suka Shalom in Wilmette. So just if anybody is in the area and wants to come, it's going to be on the 17th at 1pm

if you send me the information, I can share it in the minion Slack channel. We have kind of a place where we share information about what's happening. So for anybody listening later. Also can find, find the information about where to find jodette and nitsuka Shalom. It's a little bit closer than St Charles there.

And the other thing is that I don't know if joda wants to speak to that too, but we do the army of healers. Work is based on donations, mostly from the United States, and volunteers who I named before, and somebody I saw somebody said that they are maybe interested in volunteering as part of our therapists group.

Yeah, we have a bunch of therapists in our community and a few of them in this room. So yeah,

so that's possibilities. And so I if you can share our website together, beyond words, if people want to donate to our work, and that means we will be able to open more groups and work with more people, that would be wonderful. And if anyone wants to volunteer, then just give them my email and they can write to me.

Well, it's been an honor to spend this time with you this morning to learn about what you do, to be given a sense of hopefulness, because this is another way. It is another way. And it's not a way that our leaders are talking about with their huge platforms and budgets and militaries. It's a way that everyday people can actually change their reality. And if enough people do what you're doing, we could imagine the future being really different. And I want to bless you that you continue to inspire many, many, many people, 1000s and 1000s, legions and armies of healers to transform themselves and transform the world. Can you hear Ratzon? You've been listening to contact Chai, a production of Mishkan Chicago. If you are inspired or informed by this episode, please leave us a five star rating on Apple podcasts so that others can encounter our work. And if you appreciate what Mishkan is doing, I invite you to join as a builder or make a donation on our website at Mishkan chicago.org, Shabbat shalom. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai