Kumbaya

October 30, 2006 - 12:00 PM by

The Israeli blogosphere’s most colorful peace activist, Jerusalem Gypsy, is always attending fascinating events. Her most recent adventure — a meeting with a Sikh guru from….New Jersey.

I was invited to Eliyahu’s home for his pretty regular monthly peace gatherings. This guy gets a cool bunch of eclectic folk into his home – and they come from all over – Bedouin, a visitor from Jordan, settlers from Tekoa and Elazar, visitors from Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, not to mention his guest speaker/chanter. He was Siri Om Singh, an African American Sikh who did kirtan, sacred chanting. What was interesting about this guy was that he wore the whole sikh get-up and is from Trenton, New Jersey. I expected him to say somewhere in the Punjab, but Trenton? Even more interesting was that his wife is Israeli and was the only one at the gathering, besides the tourists there, who left Israel for the US. Most others left the US for Israel.

“We have to have SOME kind of balance!” she laughed, as we all introduced ourselves.

My good friend or, rather, everyone’s good friend, Ibrahim from the Mt. of Olives was there telling us that everyone is invited to stay at his home. He has a rabbi living with him and this Friday 30 rabbis will be coming over to visit him. That’s alot of rabbis wandering around the predominantly Moslem area. But his neighbors are used to him and he’s well respected so hopefully no Moslem extremists will give him a hard time for befriending so many Jews. I guess another reason is that most of the people living on the Mt. of Olives are his relatives in one form or another. His family numbers 12,000 souls.

He went on – “We should stop saying this is Jewish land, this is Palestinian land. It is God’s land.”

He spoke about the significance of Ramadan – how this time of year is to reflect on the people who do not have enough money to buy the wonderful food seen in the markets, and to give charity to those less fortunate.

During the break I spoke with a gentleman from Edmonton of Arabic heritage (Lebanese, Saudi). He had been on the Haj and told me his take on things, particularly with regard to the Temple Mount. He said the Israelites never referred to it as a temple – rather – it was called a Beit Hamikdash (House of the holiest). He went on to tell me Al Quds, the Arabic term for Jerusalem is from the Hebrew word Kadosh, meaning Holy. Mecca is from the Hebrew word Mikdash. He said the Israelites walked around the temple 7 times during the holiday of Succot, much like Moslems do in Mecca around the Kabaa.

“You see, Abraham taught his two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, the same things.” he told me, and indeed, as he voiced the similarities between us, I felt an even stronger kinship with my Moslem brothers.

Tags: • Category: Life, Politics 

Comments

2 Comments on Kumbaya

  1. David on Tue, Oct 31st 2006 1:42 AM

    2. The “guru” needs to come down from his non-existent mystical cloud and embrace the realities.

    It is the Arabs that seek the destruction of Israel not the Jews that seek the destruction of the Arabs.

    It is the Arabs that ran with Hitler and given a fraction of a chance would continue where he left off.

    And the Jews that have the right to the Land of Israel, given to the JEWS by God or at least where the Jews began and flourished.

    Declaring that it is “God Land” is another way of undermining the JEWISH RIGHT to Israel. Not the Arab’s [who have over 20 countries and most of the bloody oil] or anyone else’s!

  2. tp on Wed, Nov 28th 2007 7:07 PM

    3. that was inspiring :D

Leave a Comment





© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap