Peace & Community

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb is currently co-leading our delegation in Iran. This is her first blog entry, posted 2 days ago at ShomerShalom.org.

I arrived in Iran three days ago. We have met with many people from formal meetings to people on the streets and everyone expresses the same message: please urge our government to negotiate with their government.

The most moving experience for me personally has been to meet and pray with the Jewish community of Teheran. I was able to meet the current and future Jewish member of Parliment. Ciamak Morsathegh, who begins to serve his community as a member of parliment in 20 days also hosted me and several delegation members to a wonderful Sabbath meal. While at synagogue on Friday evening, I was called to address the congregation. It was a very moving experience and people were extremely warm and clapped profusely, even when I expressed a hope that I would like to someday return to Iran and meet the first ordained woman rabbi in Iran. The Iranian community appears to be doing well, worships freely, and sponsors six day schools with a population of five hundred chilren attending. The youth were very evident at services.

Here is a second entry from Iran delegate Susan Mark Landis.

The men giggled and pointed when I got on the hotel elevator. "Is my scarf not proper?" I asked. "No," they guffawed. "Not right." I guess I learned from an other-than-Iranian website how to put on my scarf! But as I walk the streets, there is an enormous variety of women's wear. Scarves of many shapes and colors, manteaus that are slinky or loose, and chadors.

The conversations we have are the most important reason for being here. As we started to climb the highest mountain in Iraq yesterday, an intense young man came up to us. "Do you think all Iranians are terrorists?" he asked. "NO!" we spontaneously shouted. He was beyond delighted--gleeful to see people from the United States not hating him as a young man. Constantly people tell us, "We love the American people. It is only the governments that disagree."

History was made yesterday. And I was there to witness it. My colleague, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, was invited to stand before the congregation of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Tehran, Iran. And as I should have realized she would, Lynn claimed the prophetic mantle.

One of the members of our 7th Iran delegation has her own blog at Mid-Missouri Peaceworks. Here is an excerpt from her latest entry, the entire piece is below.

Sometimes, In the jet lag lull of the early afternoon or in the transition between meetings on busy city streets or in preparation for group process meetings, I pause and ask myself "Why are you here Lily?" And I know it's for the human. We are here to say ten thousand times: "We came here for peace and we want the American people to know the truth about Iranians." We are here to show our buttons that read "Peace Advocate" in Farsi. And to deliver our poems about how we are all part of the same body.

I take pictures and remember they are for the people I will show them to--whomever they may be--when I return home. Just like all of us, I am here for the little moments and the big ones. We-you and me-are here for the laughter and tears. To learn. To ask questions. To challenge. But most of all, I believe, to do our best to love.

The following update was just received Susan Mark Landis, a member of our Iran peace delegation.

"But our countries are enemies!" a man I met in the aisle of the plane said to me. I explained friendship, citizenship, grassroots diplomacy. He agreed--it is not the people who are enemies, it is the government. I added that I hope I have the chance to help people in the United States learn more about the people of Iran, and then these people will work for peace between our countries. "It is very good," he said.

The woman across the aisle said, "Iran is very beautiful, not like the news tells you. You will have a wonderful time."

As the wheels of the plane emerged, the announcement came, "Law in the Republic of Iran is for women to wear headscarves. For your safety we suggest you put on your headscarf now."

On the afternoon of our first day here in Tehran, five of us within the Fellowship of Reconciliation's 7th interfaith peace delegation to Iran were interviewed by a young adult-focused television program.

It is 5 p.m. in Iran, 8 and 1/2 hours east of New York, and I am sending a first brief report from our civilian diplomacy delegation. It has been an exhausting and invigorating two days, only a few hours of which have actually been spent here in the country.

Written May 1, 2008

Here's a photo of our delegation preparing to depart the US from JFK airport.