An Israeli perspective

Tzvia Shelef (left) and Sahar Nafal Kordahi (right). This photo was taken for The Gift of Acceptance: Dialogue between an Israeli and Palestinian

When I think of her, I remember the baby deer I saw in the road when I was in high school. Its tiny prancing body was surreal and delicate against the cleaved asphalt. I stopped my car to watch it stumble awkwardly on thin legs into the bushes; pausing for several seconds to stare back at me and blink its blameless eyes. Where was its mother? It was little and exposed and it did not seem right that it was alone. It disappeared into the lush greenery of the forest.

Tzvia’s name means “baby deer” in Hebrew. Each time I pronounce it, I remember my tiny friend standing in the middle of the road. Just blinking and standing. Like an animated Polaroid image.

I met Tzvia in an area covered by barren, gold mountains the day of our interview. Their narrow peaks resembled a science fiction movie setting; as though I could have landed on Tatoine. She arrived smiling, eyes the same color as the baby deer and auburn waves barely brushing her shoulders.

Tzvia is a calm and collected woman with an etiquette enriched demeanor. The directness and sincerity of her nature makes conversation with her smooth and pleasurable. Her thought processes are very linear and her stories well explained. When she smiles, the corner of her eyes crinkle and she flashes all of her teeth. Its one of those pleasant, genuine smiles bursting with such a reeling brightness that I clung to every word of her testimony during our interview.

Through the course of compiling “50 Women” I have found that people interview in different unique ways: Some of them are very linear-narrating their story in chronological order fact by fact, steadily and directly. Others tell their story by basing it around a central theme which they illustrate through a series of related anecdotes. In Tzvia’s case, everything is direct, swiftly explained and easily understood in a nearly immaculate fact-by-fact progression.

Through our discussion I learned about a country very foreign to me yet ever present in the United States news. In fact, the most I have heard about Israel and Israelis are complaints concerning the military occupation and the money the United States allegedly gifts the country each year. I was anxious to experience a very personal perspective on Israel and for a person to person connection with an Israeli woman. I have always believed we learn the most about a nation and culture through person to person interaction. It is through these types of conversations we receive a genuine, human perspective on densely complicated political situations.

Tzvia shared her experience serving in the military in her late teens. Military service is mandatory in a sense that most Israeli citizens are required to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for a period of between two and three years. Israel is unique in that military service is compulsory for both males and females. It is the only country in the world that maintains obligatory military service for women.

Our discussion trailed from her experiences in the Israeli film industry, including her experience working as an Assistant Director to Steven Spielberg on the movie “Schindler’s List”, into one of ethnic conflict and acceptance. Again with that theme of acceptance. It has continuously reappeared through the progression of these interviews over the last two years. Acceptance is a person’s agreement to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest, or exit. I believe it takes courage to be accepting and to reach out and embrace foreign cultures and concepts. There is always a certain level of inner vulnerability present when surrendering to such experiences.

For Tzvia, the lesson of acceptance was not easy after spending her entire life in a culture nervous in anticipation for sporadic attacks. “There is always the threat of a bomb or a war” she told me, “in this situation there is a lot of tension in the culture and people don’t have much patience for each other. The news is also on every hour with these same alerts”.

After an epic move to the United States, Tzvia found the ideals of her country challenged by certain global Arab neighbors.

“There were a few incidents of God checking me” she laughed.  “He gave me two teachers for my kids who were Arabs. One from Jordan and one from Syria. In my country, I would never have a Muslim teacher teaching my children. It just would never happen. Here I suddenly had one teacher for my daughter and another for my son. I wondered how I would handle it. It was strange and I had to break through a lot of resistance in the beginning that comes from where I was raised. I had to work through myself and ask myself what the resistance was about. When I did that I found out that it was about growing up in a place where these women could never be my friends yet now they could. We became very good friends in the end. I realized that we all moved here for a reason- to have a better life and a different life”.

Moving past the fear to the friendship act was difficult for her at first because Tzvia had to separate herself from the deep rooted resentment contained in her native environment. “It was a big deal but now we are past that” she smiled. “Trusting her and accepting her was a big deal and for her as well as myself. It felt really great to cross that line. Now I have Lebanese friends, Jordanian friends and many other Arab friends. They gave me a new perspective on everything”.

Tzvia believes there is a lot of blame from both Israel and Palestine over the last sixty years to which she sees no veritable end in sight. “They are throwing a bomb, we are throwing a bomb. We take their family away, they take our family away. It never ends. Until there is a leadership that will make it end it will not and now it’s so far away from that”.

Now, in the wake of surviving Thyroid cancer, she is beginning work with Sahar Nafal Kordahi towards promoting acceptance between both communities. Both women would like for their respective societies, for the first time in sixty years, to shift directions to more progressive approaches in bringing the long standing conflict to an end. Their next appearance will be as featured contributors to an upcoming teleconference hosted by the Shift Network along with Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker and renowned speaker Deepak Chopra. It is awe inspiring to see them work together- Arab and Jew towards these seemingly improbable goals. It is a beautiful thing when two opposing nationalities can unite for the purpose of creating something impactful. These unions are what make me believe in not only compassion and tolerance but in life as a totality.

I do not believe I am naive in promoting these ideals of tolerance and acceptance. Through my interviews with Tzvia and Sahar both have proven to me that people can indeed change. People can abandon ideals of hatred and prejudice and people can make complete shifts in judgment even after a lifetime dwelling in environments of stewing political grudges. It appears that this is always achieved through personal connection and through understanding the human experience.

Concerning the Israeli/ Palestinian equation I have been fortunate to interview a Muslim Palestinian woman whose family lost everything in the  1948 and 1967 wars, a Christian Palestinian woman whose mother was a renowned peace activist and an Israeli woman who served in the armed forces and ultimately survived cancer. I sincerely hope that including their stories in “50 Women” will help the world see the personal side of the enigmatic political landscape and news reports of explosions and carnage.

The progression from the current unstable situation in both countries will cost more lives, will harbor more abhorrence and will cause more families to loose everything. Drastic change is painful at first. Egypt proved that to the world. Birth and rebirth are often economically and politically excruciating processes. In terms of Israel and Palestine- I believe this can be done and I have Tzvia, Sahar and Warda to thank for proving that to me.

One of my favorite parts of our interview occurred when Tzvia said this:

“We don’t have to love each other at first. That, I think, is overkill. To start with, we need to accept each other and listen to each other and listen to the pain that each one of us has about each other, and about ourselves. To see that there is another human being that has their own suffering, their own happiness and their own kids and family. The gift of acceptance is so important, if we can just get a lot of women, I think we can solve so many issues that the men can’t solve because they have ego trips. There is no way that two men will solve what is going on in the Middle East. It will take the women who have their sensibility, who have that mother care in them already. The situation there is very sad. There are so many people loosing homes, lives and it’s terrible. It does not have to just be Palestine and Israel. It can be Scotland and Ireland or Pakistan and India. There is no shortage of hatred in the world. The love will come later. Once you see we are human beings and we are all the same, then there is the love. The second level is love but first there has to be that first level of looking someone in the eye”…

Tzvia- you have the right idea.