Bonus. Peacebuilding in Israel (Rabbi Tara Feldman)

Episode 55.
The Friends of Sia'h Shalom seeks to strengthen ties between Jerusalem-based Sia’h Shalom and the North American Jewish community. Sia’h Shalom Circles in North American cities bring together diverse and highly divided groups of Jews, both lay leaders and rabbis, creating spaces for listening and spiritual growth in the increasingly polarized North. American Jewish landscape.

As co-director of the Friends of Sia'h Shalom Rabbi Tara Feldman speaks from the heart and head about the vital importance of “conversing across polarities”  in Israel. Though recorded prior to the current Israel/Hamas war, her message and that of Sia'h Shalom are always relevant and timely messages. Tara and her husband and co-director Meir believe that speaking and listening in peace is the root, the soil and sun, the water the light and air, that has the power to help solve even our most intractable challenges.

Highlights:
·       Sia’h Shalom fosters dialogue and healing through listening,  encouraging dialogue and unity.
·       Diverse views within Jewish communities need understanding.
·       Dialogues empower leaders, raise issues, and build unity despite painful interactions and brokenness. 
·       Tara would feel despair over inability to bridge political divides without the conversation circles “conversing across polarities”.
·       The program explores modalities, similarities, and cross-border dialogue.

Social Media links for Sia’h Shalom: 
Website – https://talkingpeace.org.il


Social Media links for Méli:
Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066435622271


Transcript:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851013/episodes/14061117   


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Transcript

Bonus – Sia’h Shalom transcript

(with Rabbi Tara Feldman)

Meli  [00:00:05]:

Hello, and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life. I am your host, Meli Solomon. So glad you could join us. This podcast is part of my talking with God project. To learn more about that research and invite me to give a talk or workshop, go to my website, www.talking with at project.org. This is episode 55 and is a bonus episode where we will explore a topic rather than a personal faith path. In this case, we will talk about the Israeli organization, Sia’h Shalom. My guest, Rabbi Tara Feldman, and her husband, Meir, also a rabbi, co direct the Friends of Sia’h Shalom, which seeks to strengthen ties between Jerusalem based Sia’h Shalom, and the North American Jewish community. Sia’h Shalom circles in North American cities bring together diverse and highly divided groups of Jews, both lay leaders and rabbis, creating spaces for listening and spiritual growth in the increasingly polarized North American Jewish landscape. Polarization is the plague of our time, even within families, friend groups, and communities. Encountering each other and communicating across difference is becoming ever more challenging. Tara and Meir believe that speaking and listening in peace is the root, the soil, and sun. The water, the light, and air that has the power to help solve even our biggest challenges. Tara lives in Jerusalem, Israel with her family. Her social media links are listed in the show notes. Hello, Tara. Welcome to my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I am so happy to have you on today.

Tara [00:02:23]:

I'm so glad to be here.

Meli  [00:02:26]:

This is a bonus episode in which we will focus on the topic, in this case, the organization you work for shalom. But first, I'd like to begin with my usual first question. What is your religious and cultural identity?

Tara [00:02:44]:

I am a Jewish woman, a Jew by choice, someone who came to Judaism younger, at a younger age and has who has embraced it fully, also as A reform rabbi. I am also someone who has chosen to move myself and my family to live in Israel just in the past year.

Meli  [00:03:11]:

I'm a little surprised to hear you say you're a Jew by choice. I had not realized that. So can can you say just a few words about that?

Tara [00:03:21]:

Judaism entered my life when my mother remarried a Jewish man. I was 11, and I was embraced very fully in a dynamic, incredible community, led by Rabbi Lawrence Kushner in Sudbury, Massachusetts. And I was embraced and uplifted, had a bat mitzvah, and did some exciting Jewish learning as a young adult and really returned, I would say, to Judaism with greater seriousness and focus in my mid-twenties, chose to, enter the waters of the mikvah and to formalize an existing identity, but to really affirm that. So I am someone who has Chosen Judaism as a spiritual path.

Meli  [00:04:06]:

So you and your husband and your 2 children moved to Israel in September 2022. Was that a long held desire of yours or maybe of your husband's?

Tara [00:04:21]:

I would say more of an evolving path. And what began as a faint whisper of poetic, attachment became a louder drumbeat, became a gravitational force that I could no longer, separate myself from. And so I think that was really a joint calling with my husband. It's a complex place, and my love for this country is complex and all-consuming and challenging as maybe some of the deepest love stories are.

Meli  [00:04:58]:

Okay. Let's shift to our main topic, which is the organization you work for Sia Shalom. I do wanna note that you and your husband are codirectors of the Friends of Sia’h Shalom, so we'll get to that in just a moment. But first, for the audience, could you just briefly explain what Sia’h Shalom is, and why does it have the name it has?

Tara [00:05:25]:

So Sia’h Shalom evolved 13 years ago. I've been hearing about its development, for for these past 13 years. One of the 3 co-founders, was my mentor at Hebrew University when I was had a fellowship there. So I saw the seedling of the organization and began to watch it grow over the years. So its 3 founders are doctor Alec Isaacs and professor Abi Noam Rosenac and Sharon Leshem Zinger. They began Sia’h Shalom because their feeling was that peace had become a word that was used and might I even say owned by the secular left. And things had broken down to be, well, if you're 4 piece, you're secular and left, and if you're religious or more right leaning, then you're not for peace. And that seemed, I might even say a source of despair because Israel Israel is not a secular or totally leftist country. In fact, perhaps Not generally left. So if the majority of the population is being left out of a conversation about peace, where is peace going. So it began with the idea of how can we engage those who might describe themselves as religious, Jews, as more right politically leaning Jews, how can they be brought into a conversation about peace? And those, initial, steps towards bringing a conversation between the left and the right between the religious and the nonreligious, I would say that was an entire paradigm shift. The essence of Sia’h Shalom is to Create a conversation about peace. Asiach means a conversation. It's also a word in our tradition that can be associated with prayer. The English word for peace, which is connected to the idea of pox, of a treaty. Sia’h Shalom is about conversation. It is not a political organization. Political consequences may evolve from it, but it at its core, it is not a political organization. And its main MO, its mode of operation is to convene small groups. Maybe 8, maybe 10, maybe 14 people. All of them influencers, high level influencers in whatever their field. The key component is that the groups need to be bifurcated. So you are going toward you have convened a group where there are 2 halves where each is on, an existentially different end of the conflict that might be between a left leaning secular Tel Avivian Jew and a right leaning settler. It might be between a Palestinian of any variety of there's so many different kinds of, Arabs and Palestinians in this region and a Jew. It might be an intra Palestinian conversation, but the idea is to convene a group that will squirm the most when they come together. These are the people who least want to speak to each other. As a reform rabbi, I did plenty of interfaith moments, and they were with the people with whom I agreed. I found many Humanist, progressive, feminist folks in which to have a a Thanksgiving service or whatever I did. This is very different. It's going it's bringing to the table those who least want to sit with one another, especially in these more recent polarized years. It's very, very complicated to talk about politics even in a North American context. Here in Israel, when you bring polarized people together, there's also blood in the room. The person who's sitting across from you in that circle, you may deem responsible for the death of a loved one. There's no one who's untouched by the trauma of the conflict here on whatever side you sit. So Sia’h Shalom Evolved convening small groups Off the radar. Completely off the radar. We've only most recently in the last couple of years, have a website because people make the choice, and it's often through a year of of wooing someone to the table to sit in a circle with someone with whom they know they will never agree and to listen. This is not for the photo op, and it's not because you're going to renounce your identity and come into some homogenized agreement. You're opening yourself to speak your own truth, To remain firmly planted in your identity in that truth and to hear the narrative of the other. In in Sia’h Shalom groups, there's, a lot of psychodrama used. Sharon Leshemzinger is a brilliant and renowned facilitator. She is really much of the magic that enables the the nuts and bolts of the groups to run and all the facilitators that are trained to do the work they do and to be mentored in that work. So Sia’h Shalom began as intra Jewish dialogue in just a few small circles. It grew to encompass intra Palestinian dialogue because each of the communities, whether you're an Israeli Jew or an Arab Palestinian, however you define yourself, are deeply fractured within and then also to do cross border work. Oftentimes, the cross-border work happens after people have begun enough trust within their own cultural, religious, national milieu. Not always, but but people can evolve, participants can evolve in that way. It began at a very small and intimate scale. It's a big commitment, a 4-hour meeting. This is not a soundbite. It's not a quick solution. It's about moving through a process with people, meeting roughly once a month for As little as 6 months, as long as a year. These participants are all influencers with major jobs and other commitments, So the bar is set extremely high. There are not not predicted political or other outcomes. The outcomes arise from within the groups. And now that Sia’h Shalom has more of a name, it's appearing in the papers. There is a website. It is known. People now, especially in the environment in which we find ourselves when Israel is amidst incredible Conflict around judicial reform, groups are pursuing Siyach Shalom and saying, okay. We have a conflict group here. And, actually, if we just meet, we're gonna create more trauma and more disagreement. We need your facilitation. President Herzog has Called on Siyak Shalom to to create a a dialogue encounter wing within the president's residence. He is the president of Israel is more of an apolitical wing. I wouldn't say a figurehead, but it's it's not a political appointee. So Beit HaNasi, the office of the president, the home of the president where Protests happen every week in Jerusalem outside his house has the possibility to be an oasis where people who normally would, not talk to each other. We remain in our own chambers, perhaps at Beit HaNasi can be another setting where dialogue groups can happen. And so, I'll say a few more things. Trains facilitators, continues to provide them with mentorship and guidance, and there's an arm of Palestinian facilitators. We have about 2,500 people that have moved through this program and returned to their own contexts and are Affecting change within their own organizations, within their own circles of influence. Sia’h shalom is not about the headlines, but about affecting the change that make the headlines even if Sia’h shalom is never mentioned. It's more about changing the quality of the oxygen that we breathe, enabling space to hear deeply and to allow for the union of opposites, really the roots of Sia’h minds, educators, and profoundly observant Jews. They built a lot of the philosophy of Sia’h Shalom around Rav Rav Kook's idea, the 1st chief rabbi of Palestine, that that opposites can be unified, a yin and a yang, that we don't have to become like one another To exist in a state of shlemyut, of wholeness, and it might even be the fact that we need the person with whom we existentially disagree. It might be that we actually need them in a way that is challenging and redemptive.

Meli  [00:14:21]:

This point that you made about focusing on affecting change, not the headlines, strike me as very important. The group has clearly done an enormous amount of background preparatory work and gradually building to larger and more high profile situations. How does the organization measure success? You mentioned that 25100 people have gone through the training and have returned to their communities. Is that part of the measure of success, or how does the organization measure success?

Tara [00:15:03]:

It's a wonderful question, and we live in a world of of metrics. I think there's so many different ways. In part, it is the numbers. How many people have made this commitment to sit in a challenging circle and endure the narrative Of the person that makes you squirm. I don't think that's something that can be graphed in terms of this Emotional spiritual experience, but the number of people that have made that time commitment has to change something in society. In part, it can be measured by big organizations that are now choosing to Lean in and partner with Sia’h Shalom. Women wage peace, for instance, one of the largest organization peace organization is probably largest in in the region. Many, many of of the leaders in that organization Have been through a Sia’h Shalom process, and now Women Wage Peace says as part of its Message, you know, left, right, and center, we all want peace. That second adjective was not one that was ever used. So how can we increase the vocabulary? How can we collaborate with existing organizations? No one needs to invent the wheel. There's There are myriad myriads upon periods of of organizations trying to solve this existential conundrum. So Part of that is in in the kinds of partnerships, the kinds of forums, certainly, to have the president invite the leaders of Sia’h Shalom in at this existential moment and say, I need your help with the methodology about how to do this. Perhaps not everyone can make kind of commitment that these core groups and community groups but perhaps there's a way that people can prepare for a visit to the president's residence with group work and then come to have a more intensive experience and then debrief after that. So when larger institutions in society start to say, okay. We need some of this. We we need this voice. That to me feels like a wonderful way to measure success. Certainly, the support of major governments, The Canadian, the Dutch, Germans, and beyond, that's another way, philanthropic support. I think Sia’h Shalom is an organ an organization that's not well known to North American certainly the North American Jewish community because it's been under the radar, because it's very enmeshed in Israeli culture and this conflict. So that is a measure of a success that I'm looking to grow along with my husband, mayor. And I actually think in this time when so many are feeling despair around Israel, feeling disconnect, those who care are feeling despair. Those who have written, Israel off or who are on the fence are are feeling more alienated. I think Sia’h Shalom, which deals with conversing across polarity, is so relevant to, I would say, the worldwide community, Certainly, the North American Jewish community. I was a pulpit rabbi. I have walked that line of how do you speak about any issue without falling off. So I I think that translating this work and, yes, using measurables to show what a profound source of hope it is for the North American Jewish community is a real, a calling for me now.

Meli  [00:18:33]:

So that brings us nicely to the role that you and your husband, Meir, play in codirecting the friends of Sia’h Shalom. What is your role? Who are the friends? Who are you wanting to be the friends?

Tara [00:18:48]:

Great question. So many. I think we're definitely looking to reach out to those who have felt a deep love for Israel and who are angst ridden and are looking for a window for hope, a sense that there can be dialogue Within Israeli society, amongst Jews, and across Israel's borders and within Israel's borders the Arab and Palestinian community. So, really, anyone who is looking to feel hopeful and and looking for actually, looking for something actionable. I mean, Sia’h Shalom has trained so many and has affected so many, and we want the work to grow exponentially. So in part, it's saying, hey. If you really wanna affect change, support us so we can train more facilitators, so we can reach more deeply into the West Bank and to the reality of Palestinian lives there. We don't work with terrorist organizations, but we work with a very, very broad spectrum of Palestinian Arabs from all kinds of help us to do that. Help us to reach out to people on both sides of the picket lines who are shouting at each other. Yes. I'm a demonstration goer. Saturday night, I am there singing the national anthem and and hoping for a pluralistic democratic Society, and I am very, very interested in talking to those who are not attending demonstrations or posing counter demonstration. So giving people that want to love Israel, who are challenged by Israel, a an actionable point to really lean in, Also, to address the alienation, to provide a window into very specific narratives even without disclosing names to show the kinds of conversations that are being had that are not alienating. They are utterly redemptive, and they are empowering. And so to sprinkle some of those seeds on soil that perhaps has become Very arid because of the nature of Israel today, because of the entrenched nature of the conflict. So So those 2 communities, another window that I and we feel very excited about is approaching Younger folks, let's say 40 and and under. My definition of younger is changing as I age. But I any if you're under 40 or young, And I would say for the nonorthodox Jewish community, most of the speak people I speak to in that demographic, maybe they go on birthright and feel very excited after trip to Israel, but often that wanes, and there is an alienation in that group. I think college campuses, university campuses are fraught. How exciting would it be to train a younger generation, maybe university age, maybe older, in the methodology of Sia’h Shalom in the methodology of listening across difference to create not this, black and white Echo chamber, cancel thing, but to really bring younger folk into a way to speak, whether it's intra Jewishly, whether it's A Jew to Palestinian, whether it's in other contexts, but we are losing the ability to have deep dialogue no matter where we are. And I am so enlivened by the idea of bringing Sia’h Shalom to North American Jewish communities, to the next generation in order to teach people how to have conversation, and it will be a different kind of conversation than we have here. You it's not a this is not about, bold Strokes. Conversations are nuanced. Identities are incredibly specific. One thing, my colleague, Alec Isaac, said recently is there's not an Israel in conflict. Within each Palestinian group, there are myriads of identities who are in conflict with one another. Within the Jewish community, there are nuances. So how do we enter into those gray spaces that are complex and thorny, but they also become openings for something that is not a caricature, that is not just a sound bite. The sound bites, they freeze us. One thing I love about Sia’h Shalom is it is a it is an evolving dialogue, And it it doesn't have an end. So as we talk about influence or what we can grab or what has been done, it's continuing to evolve. We're even engaging Haredi rabbis. It's not just right wing national settler types. We're talking black hat, insular, the people that would never acknowledge me, not a rabbi, forget a rabbi, as a Jew. Those people are being engaged. We are training Haredi Leaders to talk in their own communities about how they can be in relationship with a larger Jewish society and beyond, but let's start even there. I feel so so passionate about this work. It feels like a next evolution of my rabbinate even in a country where I feel like I have to say rabbi very softly because of the amount of Talmud that people know in my neighborhood. I don't think there's anything more important happening within Israel, And I don't think that there is a more important methodology or mode of interaction that can happen in the world because this is what we are running into now, The inability to speak to one another.

Meli  [00:24:25]:

Amen to that. But in your role running the friends of Sia’h Shalom. I understand it's really about bridging American Jewish experience or knowledge, perhaps, and the Israeli Jewish experience. Is is that an accurate understanding of what you're dealing with?

Tara [00:24:50]:

I think Friends of Sia’h Shalom has multiple components. 2 of the major ones are, 1, translating the work that is going on here in order that Israel can be a source of hope and inspiration and even dialogue from North America to Israel. A second very important component is to figure out how we might take pieces of the dialogue method and bring it to North American Jewish communities, the one in which I lived and worked for 13 years in Long Island, very, very, very siloed and fragmented, certainly between Jewish and non Jewish communities. But within the myriad, there were 35 to 40 synagogues in the town where I lived, so not so different from from Jerusalem maybe. But many of Those Jews, even if they were all in the Orthodox camp, shall we call it, spoke to one another. That's a tragedy to me. It's a tragedy in terms of interfaith dialogue. It's a tragedy in terms of Intra Jewish dialogue, we are told that the temples were destroyed because of Sinat Hinam, because of internal hatred, not because of those massive empires or lack of military strength, but it was the internal divisions that did us in, and reading the headlines, that no longer seems to be referencing an ancient reality. While the conflicts may feel different, perhaps somewhat less existential when you're not living in Israel, but when you're living in a suburban North American In reality, even so, the polarities within, Jewish communities, whether you're looking on a a national context in America or or in a smaller scale, it's such a loss For us not to be able to hear each other. You know, I walk by. There's a yeshiva on my street here in Jerusalem, and I hear the of Haruta of dialogue around ancient texts. And there's much about what goes on in that yeshiva that alienates me or that makes me feel completely on the outside or that I actually feel enraged by. And yet I'm also comforted to know That those young men are studying 10 hours a day and are in dialogue about those texts that I don't wanna forget. We're all holding a piece of the story, and how can we allow that and honor that and lift each other up instead of tearing each other to pieces? And that I actually think is life threatening whether you're speaking about the existence of Israel in in the diaspora or in Israel.

Meli  [00:27:40]:

You know, as someone who does research and produces a podcast talking with a huge variety of people and has been engaged in various interfaith efforts. I really hear this message, and I I'm not going to deny my agreement regarding the value, the necessity, and the challenges of it. But I do find myself thinking about what the priorities are. There are lots and lots of different others.

Tara [00:28:18]:

Mhmm.

Meli  [00:28:19]:

Right? For any one of us. Race, gender, sexuality, age, education, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Do you feel that there is some kind of ranking? Which chasms you want to try to bridge through this friends of group.

Tara [00:28:41]:

1st and foremost, I want to share the story of what's going on here that doesn't make the headlines. 2nd, and this is really how Sia’h Shalom operates on the ground here in Israel. I think for Sia’h Shalom to be relevant in any community, one must bring together disparate constituencies. For me, I would start within the Jewish community. I wouldn't want to end there, but that's where I would start, to hear where the conflicts are. One thing Sia’h Shalom has found over these 13 years, yes, we're at we're at our bar mitzvah, our coming of age here, is that the conflict is not always the one that you think is there. You come in with your idea of where the differences are. But if you listen carefully, you may find that the thing that is bringing agenda is not the thing that you came in with, your preconceived notions. So I think that it would be extremely exciting for me for Sia’h Shalom to Enter a Jewish community to listen deeply to disparate community leaders. They don't all have to be clergy. It could be a whole range. And To hear where where the pain is. I I think about it a little bit like acupuncture to go into that very delicately, not with a sledgehammer, very delicately to touch the place that hurts and to try to open something there. And it's not kumbaya. I know. Conversations are often messy. They explode in unexpected ways, And that's okay. But to to have the methodology be one of listening and healing and creating space and allowing for Disparate narratives. So I think priority would be first just to speak and to share this good news. There's so much bad news. This is amazing news. And then after that, to consider its relevance within within North America, there is enough going on here that Sia’h shalom will remain at its roots in Israeli organization, but it doesn't mean that the methodology can't be translated, especially if facilitators are trained on the ground. So here, Sia’h Shalom learned so much from our Muslim Palestinian facilitators, because within their own groups, things are shared that would never be shared if someone with a yarmulka walks in. No. You have to empower leaders within communities to begin to do the sacred work. And then from the circles of safety, Narratives can emerge, and the most challenging issues can be perhaps not solved, but can be raised and talked about. And then I think it can ripple outward to all kinds of dialogue. But to start with, Just as we do here in Israel with leaders of influence, people that know their communities, that know what hurts, To know where the the clogged places are, where the the walls are, and and to begin to break those down. You know, we've just had all these, Blowing of the shofar, the ram's horn that's blown on on Rosh Hashanah, and the last blast is the tekiyah gedolah of wholeness and unity. And let me tell you, as a female reform, you know, converted rabbi, I want the tekiyah gedolah, I'm all about that. But there are other calls. There's the shvarim, the broken blasts, And the truah, even more, the staccato sounding. And we have to go into those broken places to allow for the for the pain to emerge and then then to build towards the tekiyah gedolah, the mighty blast that can Combine but never homogenize a Jewish and Muslim identity, and there's certainly plenty of Christian Palestinians as well who participate, Not even mentioned that thus far. Or the North American Jewish identity, which is utterly distinct from an Israeli Jewish identity to allow for the myriad voices. God loves diversity. And then to build into a place of, you know, A tekiyah gedolah, but that's really a calling. It's not tekiyah gedolah is not finished business. It's a call to action. It's called a growth.

Meli  [00:33:11]:

This last bit of what you spoke of, Tara, has has put me in mind of a difficult call I had recently. She was a a Jew of color. She's a black American. And one of the things that she said was that she was done talking about race with whites. Said, you know, I inhabit my skin. This is my reality. It's not the only thing about me, and I'm sick of explaining my life to whites. I wonder If there are groups or individuals that you encounter in your work where you hear that kind of message, I'm done. You know? I'm not interested in this. Stop trying to be the white savior or, you know, whatever whatever, image comes to mind. Are you do you find that sometimes?

Tara [00:34:10]:

I would say more often than not because the only people that bring to the table or the people that don't wanna be there because they're done. I might add some nuance to that within the Jewish community. I'll speak The Jewish Israeli community, because there is so much agony right now around where the country is going, there is a sense we have reached rock bottom and we need dialogue, so there are those who formally would would be like, I I'm, you know, I'm religious. I'm secular. I'm Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever I am, I'm not I I don't wanna explain to you why you should care. So that is an amazing thing about where we are at least Intra Jewishly now, there is a sense of we have to talk to each other even though I'm sick of it, even though I don't really think I'll ever agree with you or wanna explain to you. There is a sense of there's there's so much brokenness now. We're wearing it on our on our sleeves. There's a hunger and need for it. I think the power differential, it's it's all different within the Muslim Arab Palestinian world. However, because of the suffering there, providing A place where Palestinian women can speak to each other, where a West Bank Palestinian woman can say to a Palestinian woman who has Israeli citizenship, do you know what it's like for me at a checkpoint? There is such pain in this region. And not to say that there isn't in North America. God knows. Racially, you know, I inhabit white skin. I'm ensconced in privilege. I I feel that in different ways. However, I do know what it's like to be told I'm not a Jew or or being a woman on the pulpit. All I I am othered in different ways, but I think that the level of pain in this region and it's probably why I'm drawn to being here is it I like to say Israel is real. We are not ensconced in the luxury of imagining we're safe. I've chosen to bring my children here. I don't imagine that we're fully safe. I mean, none of us is fully safe existentially or in North America or anywhere, but there's a certain thing about choosing to live here. And I think because of That some of the frills are stripped away, and people are are willing to enter into a a gut wrenching level of dialogue that is a very sacred thing. We are very close to the epicenter of a lot here, which makes people in your face and the horn honking and the volume here, it's Really, that's very foreign to me. So there's all that about living in a traumatized region, but there is also a sense of need. It's not a distant thing, and that that is really exciting because Soul can encounter soul here in a way that I don't encounter as regularly in a Suburban North American context. There's a big price on that, but it's real. And it's, As we're recording, I can hear the Muslim call to prayer arising around me. And it's a little scary and incredibly beautiful, And it's real.

Meli  [00:37:41]:

Are there surprises that you've encountered that you'd like to mention?

Tara [00:37:46]:

Think one piece of it is, and perhaps this is with anything sacred, how many times I'm I'm called to describe this work for it to actually be understood. It's nuanced. It's different. It's not 2 state, no 2 state. It's not black lives matter. It's not it's it's it courses under and around all those things, and It takes a long time to to deeply understand what this magnificent work does and how it works. I shouldn't be surprised because you know what? You read the Torah every year, and you hear something different, and that's the biggest ideas take time. But I'm struck by that. I am saddened and newly aware Even as I have moved to Israel and cast my my fate with with this Beautiful, complex nation, I am poignantly and painfully aware of the disassociation that's happening in the North American Jewish world, which It's really mine. I will forever be very much from there. That that's not new, but the scope of it is very painfully fresh for me. And lastly, I will say just in line with the nuance that for this work to happen authentically within either the interfaith or simply or not simply, the North American Jewish community. That will also take time because no no one community is like another, and that it that we we have done some dialogue work, but Translating it for it to work within any community will take a very deft hand. Not surprising, but important.

Meli  [00:39:39]:

What would you say to someone who is not interested in being in a difficult conversation? Why should they engage?

Tara [00:39:49]:

Because in the places where we're so sure, the world becomes two dimensional. I'm thinking even before moving to Israel, with politics as they are, the thought that I could never Ever speak in a meaningful way across the aisle to another group of voters leaves me with such a sense of despair. Even if I truly believe that the views held by a certain voter block are anathema to my being, The idea that I would share nothing or have nothing to learn or could find nothing redemptive in that narrative or even Try to understand it? That makes me feel despairing. So my answer to That person who wouldn't wanna come to the table or perhaps my my question, not my answer is, do you want to write off That whole group, whatever that group is. More specifically, what's the cost of that to your own Soul to your own view of the world. Is it all a battle? Can there be another way of engaging that might open something That is nonbinary and that might enable another solution.

Meli  [00:41:13]:

So interesting to hear you say nonbinary.

Tara [00:41:18]:

Yeah. I guess I can't say that anymore.

Meli  [00:41:23]:

No. I, Tara, I actually think it was most appropriate. Talk about touching on the nerve. You know, here in the American society these days. There are folks and I must say, the white Christian nationalist end of our complex society. I think their answer to what you just said is, but I'm right. And those, whatever the other is, those people don't have value. I don't know that they would be so bold as to say that, but they, you know, folks say some pretty outrageous things these days.

Tara [00:42:05]:

You know, I think my view is that there's always gonna be the edges that are never gonna come. I mean, it's k. It's why we're not talking to Hamas or whatever. But if the goal is to broaden that middle spectrum and maybe in those circles of those who don't want to come, how within their own contexts, which incidentally are also bifurcated. Human beings are human beings and within any community. I'm a congregational rabbi. Okay? There are multiple camps in even the most same community. So maybe you start small. Right? That's how Sia’h Shalom is working within the ultra-orthodox. Let's what does it mean to talk to another rabbi who is willing to do x, that thing that you wouldn't want. So use I think that I think that dialogue is a muscle that can be built. I don't think you can just throw anyone together, and I'm not saying anyone would come, but can't we broaden the circles? Can't we broaden the conversation? Can't we create more spaciousness?

Meli  [00:43:14]:

What I just heard actually contradicts what I understood you to say at the beginning in terms of how this whole thing works. What I heard just now, Tara, is start small, which you did say at the beginning. The group started small. But to start small, start nearby.

Tara [00:43:38]:

Mhmm.

Meli  [00:43:40]:

And increase the distance between you and the other as you go along. Is that correct? Is that the approach? Because I heard at the beginning that the groups that are convened are small, high-level influencers, opposites the people who will squirm the most. 

Tara [00:44:06]:

Yes and yes.

Meli  [00:44:07]:

Okay. They seem contradictory to me.

Tara [00:44:10]:

So for many of the groups, absolutely. Small groups diametrically opposed around many different fault lines, whatever you want to choose. More recently, the evolution of ultraorthodox Groups starting there, or even I would say some of the intra Palestinian groups. Let's get Palestinian women who never talk to the women in the next village together, who never have a safe place to speak. So there I would say yes and yes. There's there are across fault lines squirming the most LGBT left wing Tel Avivian activist with ultra-orthodox settler rabbi. Yes. That's happening. But there are multiple modalities, and and sometimes it may be Going into the micro communities, ones that might look more the same on the on the outside and exploring more deeply The fissures within. So it's it's yes and yes. And I would say both are leading to the same place or to the same ultimate goal and moving within a circle in which you might be in dialogue with those who are more similar to you can then open you to A cross border dialogue that has definitely happened within the Palestinian world. To just to get into a place where you're being facilitated by a Palestinian facilitator, you know, speaking your mother tongue, which is actually always done. The groups happen in Arabic and in Hebrew with running translation, so no one has to water down their feelings to speak in clumsy English or whatever the the same language would be. So but to start, in A context that might feel more safe than to move. So I would say both happen. Both happen.

Meli  [00:46:01]:

Fascinating. Okay. As we wrap this up, how can people learn more and support your organization? How can they support Sia’h Shalom?

Tara [00:46:12]:

Well, we now Have a website, Talking Peace. So you can you can find us there, and we are coming a lot, to the United States And would be delighted to be in dialogue over email or in person and to spread the word.

Meli  [00:46:31]:

Very good. Okay. Tara, this has been just a delightful conversation. Thank you so much for coming on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. I so appreciate your time and attention to this very complicated situation.

Tara [00:46:46]:

It's an honor to be here.

Meli  [00:46:51]:

Thank you for listening. If you'd like to get notified when new episodes are released, hit the subscribe button. Questions and comments are welcome and can be sent directly to info@talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show notes. Transcripts are available a few weeks after airing. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking with God Project. For more information about that research, including workshop and presentation options, go to my website, www.talkingwithgodproject.org. Thank you so much. Till next time.