In 2015, I went on a trip with
Encounter Programs to East Jerusalem. On that trip, I saw checkpoints, military, refugee camps, and neighborhoods that look very different from my own where I was living in Jerusalem. Later, on that same trip, I sat and I listened to Palestinians tell their stories and speak about their realities of living in Jerusalem. I listened to their stories and I listened to their pain and my heart broke as each of them told a room full of Jews what it is like to be Palestinian in Jerusalem.
As I listened, they became my mothers, my sisters, my son, and my brother, I could see myself in each one of them. In this week’s Torah portion Bereshit we learn that we are all created in the image of God we must strive to always see each other as created in the Divine because when we do, we treat each other with love, dignity, and respect. When I returned to my apartment and as the day was ending the words of one speaker, a teenager, was in my head, he said “I am a human…” those words stayed with me the rest of the day and I came home and wrote this song with the following words taken from the voices of Palestinians
I am human and I am free
Watch me fly above the trees
You can hear my cry and you can hear my roar
but you can’t take away my soul
We’ll fight and we’ll cry and we’ll even abide
We’ll say goodbye just to stay alive
And the day will come to have dignity again
