by Rabbi Brian Walt
We are building up a new
world, we are building up a new world,
We are building up a new
world, builders must be strong.
Courage brothers don’t be
weary, courage sisters don’t be weary,
Courage people don’t be
weary, though the road be long.
new lyrics and title by Vincent Harding
This
is one of the many songs I sang as I participated in a remarkable delegation of
US Civil Rights Movement leaders, young human rights leaders, prominent Black
academics and educators and several Jewish activists that traveled through the
West Bank two weeks ago.
Our
delegation was a project of the Dorothy Cotton Institute, an organization
dedicated to human rights education and to building a global human rights
community. Dorothy Cotton served as the Director of Education of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and was the only woman on the executive
staff. She led the Citizenship Education
Program that empowered the disenfranchised to exercise their rights as
citizens.
The
goals of this historic delegation were:
- to
create and build an ongoing relationship between leaders of the US civil rights
movement and the leaders of the growing Palestinian nonviolent resistance
movement on the West Bank and their Israeli allies;
- to
increase the visibility of this movement in the US and internationally;
- to
learn from one another about nonviolence, effective solidarity and social
transformation;
- and
to educate Americans about the role the United States plays in supporting the
status quo on the West Bank.
Our
delegation spent two weeks on the West Bank.
We visited three Palestinian villages – Budrus, Bil'in, Nabi Saleh – that
have engaged for many years in a popular nonviolent struggle to reclaim land
expropriated by the Israeli military. We
met several young Palestinians who are building the Coalition for Dignity, a
grassroots, youth-led nonviolent movement.
And
we met Israeli allies who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian nonviolent
movement and who work in their own society to end militarism and human rights
violations against Palestinians. We
learned from many Israeli and Palestinian nonviolent activists about their
work, their vision and their dreams.
In
short, our delegation saw and learned about realities that the overwhelming
number of visitors to Israel never see or hear.
Singing
was an essential part of the spiritual and political life of our trip. Dorothy has a beautiful spirit, a powerful
voice, and loves to sing. Throughout the
delegation, she always reminded us that singing was a critical tool for
energizing the civil rights movement.
She told me,
“We
had songs for different occasions. We sang at mass meetings, and we sang at
funerals … We sang, ‘I'm gonna do what the Spirit says do’ and our singing
inspired us to do just that.”
And
so our new civil rights delegation sang as we traveled through the West
Bank. Singing was just one powerful way
in which our delegation made a connection between the Black-led struggle for
civil rights in the US and the Palestinian struggle for justice, peace and
security for all.
This,
for instance, is the song we sang at the grave of a young man in Budrus who was
killed in a nonviolent demonstration to protest the confiscation of his
village’s land:
Come by here my Lord, come
by here.
For our brother, my Lord,
come by here.
For his courage my Lord,
come by here.
Standing
around the grave, delegates spontaneously composed the lyrics. It felt like we
were praying, acknowledging the courage and the profound cost that the struggle
for freedom demands.
We
sang before we joined the weekly nonviolent demonstration in Nabi Saleh,
another village on the West Bank fighting to reclaim their land. The residents of the village had made
special signs composed of quotations from Dr. Martin Luther King in honor of
our visit. “Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere” read one of the signs.
And
we sang:
Ain't gonna let nobody
turn me 'round, turn me 'round, turn me 'round.
I'm gonna keep on walkin', keep on
talkin', marching up to freedom ground.
We
sang to express our appreciation and to provide support after hearing activists
tell us their stories - Palestinians and Israelis who told us of their amazing
work and the toll it has taken on their lives, and sometimes even their spirits
and souls. One such occasion was after
Israeli activist Gaby Laski told us of her work to defend children from
villages like Nabi Saleh who are arrested at night.
"We’re gonna keep on
marching forward, keep on marching forward, keep on marching forward, never
turning back, never turning back." (by Pat Humphries)
We
sang after standing next to the thirty foot high Separation Wall in Jerusalem
dividing a Palestinian neighborhood in two.
And we sang on the bus as we went through a checkpoint on our way to the
airport at the end of our trip, encouraged by our Palestinian guide to keep
singing even when the soldier boarded our bus.
(Our bus was pulled aside for a security check because it was a
Palestinian bus while Israeli buses and motorists were waved through the checkpoint).
We
returned to the United States both inspired and disturbed by our
experience. We were inspired by the
determination, vision and commitment of so many Palestinians and their Israeli
allies, working tirelessly day after day, year after year, often at great
personal and communal cost, for justice, freedom and equality for all. Now that we are home, we look forward to
sharing the stories and vision of these courageous civil rights activists with
our friends and communities.
But
our trip was not simply inspiring. It
was profoundly disturbing to witness the harsh realities of life on the West
Bank that are so invisible to the discourse in America. Every day we saw and heard about a systematic
denial of human rights in countless ways: land confiscation, extensive
restrictions on movement, humiliation at check points, home demolition, the
arrest of children, the revocation of residency permits and many other
violations.
The
delegates were profoundly shocked. Several American civil rights veterans commented that the discrimination,
humiliation and injustice they witnessed was “frighteningly familiar.”
While
we were on the West Bank the two presidential candidates tried to outdo one
another in their public declarations of support for Israel in the final
presidential debate. They mentioned
Israel 31 times with only one passing reference to Palestinians. The contrast between American policy and what
we witnessed is stark. Now that we have
returned, we are determined to share this disturbing reality with our
communities; to challenge the ways in which our country funds, provides
diplomatic cover, and enables these injustices.
I
have visited the West Bank before but never for more than a day or two, and
almost always with progressive Israeli groups.
On this visit, however, we spent virtually all out time in the West Bank
- on the other side of the Separation Wall.
For me personally, it was a transformative experience. It was a privilege to travel with such a
special group of people and to see the profound impact of our delegation on the
activists that we met.
Before
we left on our journey, I was struck by a comment made by Dr. Vincent Harding,
a close associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, a person with a long history of
involvement in the struggle for freedom and a very close life-long connection
to Jewish teachers, fellow travelers and co-workers. Dr. Harding talked about “encouragement” as
one of his primary goals for the trip. I
was struck by the word and the simple power of his intention. He wanted to meet activists on the West Bank
and to “encourage” them.
And
that is exactly what happened. The people we met commented how encouraged they
felt by meeting people who had spent their entire lives fighting for freedom in
the US. Dr. Harding and others would
repeatedly ask all our presenters to tell us about themselves, their families
and what motivated them to do what they were doing.
He
and others always shared how much he appreciated their work and how important
it was for all of us and for our collective future. After hearing an inspiring talk by Fadi
Quran, one of the young leaders of the Palestinian nonviolent movement, Dr.
Harding said, “Fadi, I want to tell you how proud I am and how grateful I am
for you, and want to encourage you to keep on going.”
It
felt like we were building a new world.
On the very first day of our trip, Dorothy Cotton sang and danced with
three women activists, Israeli and Palestinian, who had spoken to us. It was a
joy to see the profound gift she was giving them and that they were giving her
in return. Those who had spent their lives building a new world in America were
creating a relationship with those who were building a new world in
Israel/Palestine.
Towards
the end of the trip we realized that we were just beginning to build a new
world in another way by creating a new possibility for the relationship between
Jews and Blacks in our own country.
Historically, Israeli policy has been a source of tension between the
African American and Jewish communities.
While many African Americans on the delegation have deep and positive
connections to Jews, it is often difficult for Blacks and Jews to have honest
conversations about Israel.
There
were eight Jews on this delegation. On
this trip we joined together as a group of Blacks, Jews, Christians and people
with varied faith commitments, united in our commitment to nonviolence and our
dedication to justice, freedom and equality in Israel/Palestine, in our own
country, and around the world. We are renewing
an alliance between Blacks and Jews, an alliance rooted in our shared values.
We are building up a new
world, we are building up a new world,
We are building up a new
world, builders must be strong.
Courage brothers don’t be
weary, courage sisters don’t be weary,
Courage people don’t be
weary, though the road be long.
For more
articles about the trip, check out other postings on the DCI blog and the postings by
Alice Rothchild, one of the delegates here.
