August 2017, Week-long workshop at the Zenith Institute in the Swiss-Italian Alps

In the weeks before our gathering at the Zenith Camp in Switzerland this past August of the summer of 2017 there was a deadly terror attack at the third holiest site in Islam, the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in the old city of Jerusalem. The subsequent installation of metal detectors by Israel triggered weeks of rage, counter attacks, and violent clashes throughout the Holy Land, causing suffering and casualties on both sides.

Fear of provoking violence in the region has led Israel to a ban Jews from praying or making any religious expression on the Temple Mount, which is Judaism’s most sacred site.

The people in our international group at the Zenith Camp in Switzerland wondered why this had happened.

In a week-long interactive workshop led by a panel of Abrahamic Reunion peace builders that included Rabbi Mordechai Zeller of Cambridge University, Sheikh Ghassan Manasra from Nazareth Israel, Dr Anna Less, and David Less, our group learned the history, and through interactive group process explored models for peace in the Holy Land.

It was a profoundly healing week for participants, who came mostly from Germany, but also from Austria, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Chile, India, Australia, and America. Abrahamic Reunion peace builder Rabbi Zeller, who is currently the Rabbi at Cambridge University in England, but who grew up in Israel, and whose ancestors came from Berlin, was a major contributor both to the discussion and the healing process.

In addition, Sheikh Ghassan Manasra offered comfort and hope to the participants, whose home countries have been dealing with a massive influx of Muslim refugees from Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is an influx that activates psychic scars in European communities still dealing with the legacy of World War II, and who struggle with fears of terrorism, and unfamiliar diversity, combined with guilt about their past. There has been little opportunity for people living in these communities to explore what is being activated in a dialogue process involving Jews and Muslims. Our interactive work, which used story telling, music, dance, deep inquiry, writing, and personal sharing, offered profound opportunities to heal the past, understand the present, and explore reassuring possibilities for the future.

Peace Tour to the UK
Blogs through the lens of Dr. Anna Less, Co-Founder and International Executive Director of the Abrahamic Reunion, May 14th – June 6th 2017

Preface

This is the third speaking tour to the UK that The Abrahamic Reunion’s International Executive Directors, Dr. Anna Less and Ghassan Manasra, have done on behalf of the Abrahamic Reunion. Anna’s husband David Less, another founding member and Chairman of the Board, accompanied them on part of this tour to hold a fundraiser in London for the Abrahamic Reunion, before leaving for Germany, where he met with the Abrahamic Reunion’s German board.

While in London Anna, Ghassan and David worked with the AR UK team, founded by the AR UK board members Amanda and Michael Kenton.

Michael and Amanda did a brilliant job of organizing this tour, which included speaking engagements at a prison, a synagogue, an interview on BBC radio, and many other exciting events coinciding with the beginning of Ramadan.

The blogs represent the views and experiences of Dr. Less as she traveled through the UK with Ghassan and her husband on a trip that represents a significant step forward in creating a network of Abrahamic Reunion peace-builders in the UK.

The first blog recounts aspects of David and Anna’s interview with Clare Balding at the BBC 2, where Clare hosts a live weekly Sunday morning program from 7 – 9 AM that focuses on various faith issues, called Good Morning Sunday.

Blog 1: BBC2 Radio Interview

In the interview we begin by describing our work in the Holy Land; we talk about building bridges and connections, we describe our Iftar dinners, the text study groups, and our interfaith prayer gatherings in Jerusalem. We also talk about our upcoming fundraisers and programs. It feels like word about the AR’s work is really getting out to the UK, work that can offer so much to this country

David tells the following story:

Many years ago I was privileged to be mentored by a very great teacher who believed in the principle of harmony and love as the very essence of religion. He taught me to always look at life through the lens of two words: “what if?”

In my five decades of work, with religious leaders from many of our world’s faiths, I have often asked this question regarding the differences and variations of beliefs in religions.

What if we could honor the basic tenets, customs and traditions of any religion and yet pierce the veils of separation and find the living core common to all.

For the first time in our known history we are developing a global civilization. By knowing the basic practices and beliefs of the other we can become inwardly global.

Dialogue and understanding emerge naturally, when respect and knowledge are seminal.

Our group, the Abrahamic Reunion, has brought thousands of the inheritors of Abraham’s vision together to experience in houses of worship, in eating together, in sharing prayers together, an opportunity to rekindle our deeply rooted generations old memory of the family of Abraham.

What if we really lived that memory?

He concludes by reading Rumi’s poem

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.” Rumi

Dear Friends,

Last year when we came to England Ghassan and I spoke at a Quaker meeting. One of the attending Quaker ministers there, Yvonne Dixon was so moved by our talk that this year she arranged for David, Ghassan and I to speak at Grendon Prison where she is a chaplain.

Grendon Prison is the United Kingdom’s only therapeutic prison community for the treatment of serious sex offenders and violent criminals.

Below are some excerpts from an article about typical inmates at Grendon Prison that I read to prepare myself for my experience there. The article is about “Adam” and “Eddie (not their real names).”

Hello, I’m Adam. I’m serving life for murder. I killed my daughter.”

I wasn’t expecting that, writes Home Affairs Producer Ginny Sandringham. I was prepared for “I killed somebody”, or “I killed another gang member”, or “I killed my best mate because he was sleeping with my wife”, even. But this was something different. For the next few minutes I couldn’t think about anything else. His words echoed round my head as he carried on talking, telling me how much time he’d already served (eight years) and how much of his tariff he still had to serve (seven years).

“But the thing is”, he said, “I’m having to come to terms with what I’ve done because I have to talk about it every day with the guys here. I have to talk about my feelings and re-live the events leading up to the moment it happened.

“It’s what I signed up for. I knew the only way I was going to get through this was to come to Grendon (prison) and try and turn my life around by facing my demons.”

“I’m going to be taking part in psycho-drama soon”, he tells me, “which is where we act out the crime with the other inmates. I’ll have to go over the night I killed my daughter in detail, not only from my perspective but from my wife’s and my daughter’s.”

He looks absolutely terrified at the prospect.

At the end of his trial the judge told Adam: “You will have to live with what you have done for the rest of your life.”

But by coming to Grendon it’s even harder than that. He has to re-live it every day.

“Eddie”, a former gang member from Birmingham, is in for murder.

“All I had ever known was how to be part of a gang”, he said. “It was normal for me to have a gun in my hand. It was normal to be violent. When I got sent to prison my mates were already there.

“Coming here is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. (Here) You’re asked to talk about your feelings – something you never do in a gang. You’ve got to accept people who are different, and you have to control your anger. If you’re violent you’re out. It’s the complete opposite of being in a gang.”

This is the story that most of the inmates tell. The decision to come to Grendon is not an easy one.

To us on the outside it seems like a no-brainer: a high security jail surrounded by violent and desperate men or a prison where violence isn’t tolerated, you can wear your own clothes, and take part in therapy? But we haven’t lived the lives they have.

As we drive through the loops of barbed wire to enter the prison grounds, Yvonne explains that the Grendon Prison grounds also house the Spring Hill Prison, which was used during the Second World War as a radio transmission centre for Special Operations Executive . I am stunned to realize that my spiritual teacher’s sister Noor Inayat Kahn, who was trained as a radio operator sent her radio transmissions to these very grounds throughout the war. After the war, theses facilities were converted to become the UK’s first open prison. And in recent years the gymnasium here was dedicated to, and named after Noor Inayat Kahn.

I feel her hand reaching through time and space to guide this experience as we sign in and enter a chamber where we, and our bags are searched. They confiscate my jump drives and my pack of chewing gum.

“Some one could use it to make an impression of a key,” they explain.

We are escorted through hallways hung with excellent and very detailed artwork done by the prisoners with lots of time.

We enter a large and very cold gymnasium to set up for our presentation. We are told that our program is “very popular” and over 65 inmates have signed up to come. More chairs and benches are brought in. The prison therapists, clergy and staff also want to see what we are presenting.

We are introduced to the prison’s Imam and other clergy members.

As people file in and take their places, I can’t keep myself from trying to identify who is the staff and who are the inmates. Many people in the audience wear religious symbols, necklaces or beards that identify their religious affiliations.

David and Ghassan each speak eloquently about the work of the AR. When Ghassan speaks in Arabic and references the Quran and other Islamic texts, the Imam and various audience members light up and nod. When David speaks from the heart people around the room respond with profound recognition and applause.

I show the power point, and explain our activities, and afterwards there is a question and answer session. The questions are deep and heartfelt, and are followed by refreshments and an opportunity for the audience to speak with us individually.

A young Muslim inmate filled with light introduces him self. He tells us our work of bringing people from insular religious communities to meet with others was so important. He describes how growing up in an insular Muslim community in London had led to his radicalization and ultimately to this destiny.

We were told that in the after math of nine eleven he had murdered someone in retaliation for the media’s portrayal of Muslims, and he has been in prison since that time. I try to feel back through the years to nine eleven and consider what I had experienced in my own life since then and I try to imagine what he had experienced….

He said that in about 5 years perhaps he would released and it was his dream to be able to work with an organization like ours to promote interfaith harmony.

Another man approaching middle age with a long beard introduced himself as having an English, Jewish Mother, and a Muslim, Pakistani father. He shared had been in prison since the age of 17. He didn’t expect to be out soon. He wondered if he could work for the Abrahamic Reunion from within the prison. He said he had good computer skills and this work was exactly what he had been looking to do. He wondered if there was a way he could be of use to us, and to our work.

Others who had been involved in religiously motivated hate crimes came forward to express their support and admiration and share how important they felt our work was.

Chaplains came forward to ask how they and the inmates could learn to start an AR inspired interfaith study program.

As we rode the train home each of us described how profoundly and deeply moved we were by our experience there. We shared that it could potentially be a life altering experience for each of us personally and perhaps for the Abrahamic Reunion in general. We joked about presenting to a “captive audience” but our joking was an attempt to alleviate the profound sense of responsibility that each of us was experiencing as we continued to imagine how the Abrahamic Reunion could serve this community, and as we recognized the potentially far-reaching effects that work could have.

When I arrived home and opened my computer I had inquiries waiting from the directors and chaplains at the prison explaining that ‘radicalization’ in prisons is a very important topic that needs to be addressed and wondering how we could work together in the future.

We are absorbing this.

Blog London 5/22/17 After the Manchester Bombing

It is May 22 and the horrifying news comes in from Manchester.

There has been a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert attended by mostly young teenage girls and their families.

Police release pictures from a security camera of Salman Abedi the 22 year old suicide bomber sauntering into the concert in his £150 Nike trainers and trendy jacket on the night of the attack. A short time later Abedi killed 22 people and injured 119 when he detonated a bomb after the concert.

Isil calls on followers to rise up in ‘war’ on infidels in the West and
eight men are in custody “on suspicion of offences contrary to the Terrorism Act”

A few days have passed and the terror threat has been downgraded to severe and police say the investigation is ‘making good progress’ as they appeal for more information from the public.

We stay in Sheperd’s Bush, a diverse, but predominately Muslim neighborhood. It has many Muslim restaurants, Arabic writing on the shop signs, and a Mosque within walking distance of our apartment. It is common to see women in full niqab and men in kaftans shopping in the markets.

We talk to the Muslims we meet in our neighborhood, and in the shops and in the restaurants and in the trains. We talk to our Muslim Uber drivers, our Muslim landlord, we talk to the Muslims foundation leaders we meet. We talk to Muslims from Somolia, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, and Ethiopia.

They have different theories, “Perhaps he wanted to kill himself, but he did not want to die alone”, “Perhaps someone planned it who is against Muslims” “People are under so much stress they are just crazy”

It is clear the Muslims we talk to are as baffled as we are, and even more frightened. Some of them are so afraid they do not even want to talk about it. They also do not regard themselves as safe.

We ask the ones who have teenagers what the mosques are doing to protect them and to teach them.

Ghassan admits that he was worried about going to the mosque for Jummah prayers after the attack. He doesn’t know what to expect. His history of attacks from radicals makes these events come even closer.

Is the mosque safe? Will the public attack the mosque? Could some one bomb the mosque? Will there be radicals in the mosque? Ramadan is coming the next day.

He decides not to go to our local neighborhood mosque, but instead goes to the large Central Mosque.

The police are there. The London police carry guns now. Amanda reminds me that until recently the London police didn’t even carry guns.

When we meet up with Ghassan in a coffee shop later, we sit and talk over coffee and lemonade, and he is palpably relieved after going to the mosque. He said that when he first entered the mosque a number of the congregants were dressed as strict orthodox Salafis, which generally indicates they uphold a very fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, but after the prayers, when the Imam spoke, Ghassan came to understand that the Imam was advocating a very moderate perspective. The Imam told the congregation that they are members of the UK society and need to protect their home and their fellow countrymen and come forward if they knew any thing. He explained that the people who are most damaged by these types of acts are the Muslim community itself and he prepared them to enter the sacred month of Ramadan, which is a time of deep inner reflection for all Muslims.

After we talk we prepare to enter the train for our next meeting. It is rush hour and I realize I feel nervous about getting on the train, there is no security or metal scanners, features that I have come to expect in public places in much of the world, and as we squeeze on board our bodies are pressed against our fellow passengers. My heart begins to pound as I anxiously scan people with backpacks and look into the faces of young men, as the train carrying thousands of passengers zooms beneath metropolitan London, I wonder why choose a venue with young teenage girls as a target. Why? I close my eyes and pray for those children and their families and I remember words of the Sura al Fatiha and send it out as a prayer to all.

SURAH AL-FATIHA

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds;
Most Gracious, Most Merciful;
Master of the Day of Judgment.
Thee do we worship, and Thine aid we seek.
Show us the straight way,
The way of those on whom Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace, those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray.

BLOG #1 – Sept 8th, 2016

David and Anna Less, and Ghassan Manasra, are traveling through Israel and Palestine meeting with all the Abrahamic Reunion peacemakers and coordinators. We will be posting blog entries from their travels and meetings. 

Yesterday we had the privilege to visit with the elder statesman of the peace movement in Israel. Elias Jabbour is a seventh generation practitioner of “sulha”, the traditional peacemaking formula of the Middle East. He is in his eighties and has been a friend and advisor for the last sixteen years. Elias is a Melkite Christian Arab with a deep love for humanity and a keen insight into the problems of the day in Israel and Palestine. He does not blame or accuse, does not speak negatively or allow any personal suffering to color his views.

As we ate a delicious lunch prepared by his elegant wife Hayam, he began to expound on the need of the day. As I write this it sounds so banal but the experience of hearing his words was both deeply moving and a reminder as to the purpose of our work. He said the obvious in a manner that caused it to go deeper than the mind. What is lacking in Israel and the world is love. Our work is primarily creating arenas where the love inherent in every human being can be rekindled and emerge with its natural power. Love, he said, is more powerful than the atomic bomb. It is the most powerful and valuable of our natural resources.

Then he spoke on the two fundamental principles of a peacemaker. Firstly, a peacemaker must never get angry. Anger clouds the natural wisdom and compassion in a human being. In anger we lose the clear inspiration that is the key to making peace. Secondly, the peacemaker must never give up. He shared the story of a village feud that took thirty years to be settled and it was settled due to the perseverance of the peacemaker. We must never give up hope.

The lessons seem so simple and yet how many days do we live where nothing angers us? Can we, like Elias, control our thoughts and speech to remove negativity in the midst of a situation that so entices the negative? Can we truly not give up but plod ahead through the mud of doubt, fear, exhaustion and trauma around us and find the primal ground of inner and outer peace and share that with our fellow human family? These are the challenges we must confront and overcome. This is not an easy discipline. Peace is precious and cannot come without the discipline and the desire to make it a reality.

Today the peacemaker must be both an individual and part of a greater whole. We need each other to create the vision and model of a peaceful society. Our work is often lonely when we forget this but so healing when we are part of a team making peace. I am grateful for the support, love and prayers I feel from so many around the world at this time. I’m deeply thankful for this and feel I represent so many in my journey here.

BLOG #2 – Sept 9th, 2016

Yesterday we spent the whole day in the northern part of Palestine meeting with two of the coordinators of the Abrahamic Reunion. The feeling in Palestine is both very different than Israel but also very similar. As we drove through I was reminded once again of the beauty of both of these powerful lands and the depth of history, ancient and modern to be felt in the Holy Land. My mind says of course there is this history but feeling it in my cells and heart is a very different experience.

I was thinking this Palestine is the land of Goliath and the Palestinians, (the Philistines), have been getting bad press ever since David hit his mark. Over and over, every Palestinian I spoke to urged me quite strongly to tell the world, “we are not terrorists, we are not murderers. Don’t judge six million people based on the actions of a few”. I was surprised at the consistency of one other message from so many.”our land is under occupation and it is amazing there is not more frustration”. From the Israeli point of view any act of violence is not acceptable and certainly I understand and agree with this point of view also. So the separation continues. How can there be peace when the model is separation. Jewish Israelis are not allowed to go into Palestine. Palestinians have great difficulty entering Israel. Its not just the physical wall that separates it’s the psychological one that is even more powerful.

I am living in a house in Israel now with a family that has been stabbed, shot at, their dwelling destroyed and still live in fear that this could be repeated at any moment and the reality is that it could happen. As I write this I can imagine the reader asking who did the violence so we can understand or even subconsciously blame. That thinking creates more confusion and hurt. The whole situation is to blame. There must be a real process begun not a political charade on all sides. With all due respect I’m not sure the politicians want peace. The peacemakers must make peace in themselves and then one person at a time. The peacemaker is confronting deep and confused energy and she or he must learn the art of inner peace as well as the conceptual outer so the process can begin. Finding the chink in the armor of confrontation and separateness. This is our work.