Letter to kibbutz Metzer and their reply

november 17, 2002

To the Secretary of Kibbutz Metzer:

Dear Haver,

Please excuse us for writing in English rather than Hebrew.

We wish to express to the families of Ms. Damari, Mr. Drori and Mrs. Ohayon and her children our feelings of deep sorrow, sympathy, and affection for the horrible act of violence that has so painfully hurt them. At the same time please extend our feelings of solidarity to all the haverim of your Kibbutz.

We appreciate your admirable dedication to the ideals of peaceful coexistence and friendly relationships with your Palestinian neighbors and warmly support your action in the defence of their rights.

We are a group of Diaspora Jews committed to ideas of peace and Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. We have learned from your behavior, in these very sad circumstances, standards of moral conscience and idealism that encourage us, despite this horrible moment, to hope for the future of Israel and Judaism.

Shalom,

Reply to Martin Buber group:

Dear Friends:

Thank you so much for your symphaty.

It really helps knowing that people around the world think about us, and share the same basic truth: that human beings are created equal, that our neighbours are people with similar dreams and who feel similar pains, regardless their nationality, race, or religion.

Moreover, we believe that the basic motivation of all of us is to give our children a better world to grow in.

We feel that the only way to really defeat those who brought death to our home is to keep these basic messages alive, even or especially in the Middle East.

In this respect we still don’t know how to transform this commitment in concrete acts, but one of the main ideas is to create a place here at the kibbutz to allow people, mainly young, from all over the world to witness and share the experience of coexistence, to discuss the ideas and to return to their places with a strengthened commitment to their basic values and their implementation in their communities.

If there is a organization of communities or any other group you are aware of that may be interested in becoming a partner in creating such a project, we would be very interesting in establishing contact with them and start exchanging ideas.

In the meanwhile I want to thank you again for being with us.

Shalom,