BY JULIE WIENER | As they mingled at Tribute Restaurant last Sunday, their plates laden with delicacies, it was hard to believe that thousands of miles away their people continue to be involved in one of the longest, bloodiest conflicts in the world.
For one night, local Arab and Jewish leaders were friends. And organizers of Sunday’s event, a 100-person benefit for Seeds of Peace, hope it spawns a lasting relationship between the two communities.
Founded in 1993 by journalist John Wallach, Seeds of Peace is a summer camp in Maine where Jewish and Arab teens from the Middle East come together to build friendships and learn conflict-resolution techniques.
According to Meredith Katz, Seeds of Peace’s associate executive director, Detroit is the first city outside New York and Washington to host a fund-raiser for the camp and is also the first place where Arabs and Jews have formed a partnership in support of the New York-based organization.
The partnership of Detroit Arabs and Jews who came together to support Seeds of Peace started last summer when Joel Jacob, a local community activist and national board member of Seeds of Peace, chartered a plane to take seven local Arab and Jewish leaders—including David Gad-Harf of the Jewish Community Council—to visit the camp.
“It was a life-changing experience,” said Gad-Hurf. “We clicked as a group and came back deciding we had to do something to help the camp.”
Plans were soon under way to bring Seeds of Peace graduates and other speakers in for a fund-raiser. That mushroomed into almost a week’s worth of activities, including a dialogue between local Arab and Jewish teens.
In the process, the events’ Jewish and Arab organizers, just like the Seeds of Peace camp participants, broke down barriers and renewed their hopes for Middle East peace.
“Seeds of Peace allowed me to talk more freely with my counterparts in the Jewish community,” said Tarry Ahwal, a native of Ramallah who is a former director of the Detroit chapter of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee.
“Through our conversations, I found most of them weren’t aware of the difficult conditions in Gaza and the West Bank, and for the first time I was able to really understand the feeling of fear and insecurity among the Israelis.”
Ahwal said she admires the fact that Seeds of Peace campers are able to find common ground even though they don’t avoid the divisive issues.
“We sat in on one session where both Israelis and Palestinians were screaming about Jerusalem, both talking about how their claims dated back to biblical times. At the end, several kids from each side said, ‘This is my claim, but to stop more bloodshed I’m willing to see Jerusalem become an international city.’”
Samir Mashni said Seeds of Peace reawakened his hope after some dispiriting visits to friends and family in the West Bank.
“I was a disbeliever in the peace process,” he said. “Then Terr [Ahwal] and Joel [Jacob] invited me to the Seeds of Peace camp. What I saw gave me a glimmer of hope.”
The eight organizers of this week’s events are hoping to start a Detroit chapter of Seeds of Peace that will raise funds while also providing a forum for local Jews and Arabs to engage in dialogue.
“We have a lot to learn from each other about community organizing and have so many things in common,” said Jacob. “We’re both struggling with keeping our youth interested in the community and fighting assimilation.”
A number of local Arabs and Jews already participate in a joint forum, American Arab and Jewish Friends, which was established in the early 1980s. Under the auspices of the Detroit Interfaith Roundtable, American Arabic and Jewish Friends sponsors social gatherings, an annual essay contest and scholarship programs.
More than 300 teens have participated in Seeds of Peace so far, and plans to expand will enable another 300 to participate in the camp and a summit in Switzerland this summer. Participants are selected by their own governments based on their English skills and their potential to become future leaders.
Seeds of Peace, which was recognized at the 1993 signing of the Oslo Accords, has been endorsed by such leaders as Bill Clinton, Binyamin Netanyahu, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasir Arafat.
The organization operates on a $1 million annual budget and is funded primarily by individual and corporate donors. Sunday’s event was sponsored by Tribute restaurant, British Petroleum and the Detroit Medical Center.