Press release from All Souls Cathedral:
Roots/Shorashim founders Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Ali Abu Awwad will speak on their unique collaboration on Friday, October 7, 2016, at 7:30 p.m. at the Congregation Beth Israel (229 Murdock Ave, Asheville, NC 28804). Saturday at 10:00 am at The Cathedral of All Souls (9 Swan Street, Asheville, NC 28803) Ali Awwad will make a presentation and answer questions to a youth audience – all middle and school and high school youth are welcome to attend. The Roots/Shorashim Project is a Palestinian/Israeli initiative for understanding, nonviolence, and transformation. Both programs are free and open to the public.
This programming is brought to Asheville by the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina, The Cathedral of All Souls, Congregation Beth Israel and Episcopal Peace Fellowship.
Ali Awwad, along with Shaul Judelman (not speaking), co-founded Roots on the Awwad family land, after a transformative experience in an Israeli jail. Others were moved to join the initiative soon after. Awwad and Rabbi Schlesinger (speaking) were neighbors for years but never met due to security concerns on the West Bank. Now their area is one of the few places both Israelis and Palestinians can mingle without special government passes.
According to Marilyn Forman Chandler, Executive Director of the Greensboro Jewish Federation, “This grassroots effort to foster peace is incredible, particularly considering the vast political and narrative differences about the place that each group considers their ancestral homeland.”
Currently finishing his book, Painful Hope, Ali Abu Awwad is today a leading Palestinian activist teaching his countrymen non-violent resistance, and reaching out to Jewish Israelis at the heart of the conflict. Ali has toured the world many times over, telling his riveting story of violent activism, imprisonment, bereavement and discovery of the path of non-violent resistance, a story of personal transformation.
Hanan Schlesinger is an Orthodox rabbi and teacher, and a passionate Zionist settler who has been profoundly transformed by his friendship with Ali. His understanding of the reality of the Middle East conflict and of Zionism has been utterly complicated by the parallel universe introduced to him by Mr. Awwad.
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