In honor of Israel's 60th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of Rabbis for Human Rights, Rabbis for Human Rights—North America led a human rights solidarity mission to Israel and the West Bank. The mission was part of In Pursuit of Justice, a campaign to support the efforts of Rabbis for Human Rights and all those in Israel working to fulfill the dream of an Israel that upholds equality and justice for all-Jews and Arabs alike. Click here to watch the video.

The author of this piece, Ali Berlow, was a participant on the RHR-NA Human Rights Mission to Israel and the West Bank last November and wrote this piece, which was inspired by a coffee vendor at the checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, while on the trip.

Instructions for Planting a Tree in the Occupied Territories:

1. Find a non-profit, like Rabbis for Human Rights, that can buy the
trees.

2. Scrounge up whatever hand tools you can find.

Thus said the LORD:

A cry is heard in Ramah--
Wailing, bitter weeping--
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted
For her children, who are gone.

Spray-painted on the Separation Barrier that walls off Rachel's Tomb from Bethlehem:

Fakhri abu-Diav was delayed meeting us last Sunday at the home in the al-Bustan neighborhood in Silwan in East Jerusalem that had been demolished about 10 days before. He had still been in court with several teenagers, aged 13 and 14, who had been dragged from their beds before dawn and arrested and charged with violent resistance to the authorities during the November 5 demolition.

When Fakhri joined us later, the kids were still in court, facing fines and a criminal record "They say we¹ve built everything illegally ­ but we asked for permits, we

Last week we read parshat Lech Lecha. God tells Avraham, Go forth from your land, your birthplace and the home of your family to the land that I will show you.

This week Rabbi Tirzah Firestone and I led a group of 40 Americans on a Rabbis for Human Rights Mission to Israel. Our mission, Nurturing Justice, is a campaign in honor of Israel's 60th birthday and the 20th anniversary of the founding of Rabbis of Rabbis of Human Rights. We have come to Israel in solidarity with Rabbis for Human Rights and all Israelis working to fulfill the vision of Israel's Declaration of Independence to create a Jewish State based on the prophetic vision of justice, freedom and equality.

In Hevron last Thursday, we stood on a street where Palestinians are not allowed to walk. Their homes have been locked from the outside, the storefronts on street level shuttered. In Hevron, about 800 Jewish settlers who believe they are doing God¹s work hold 15,000 Palestinians hostage. In order to leave their second-floor homes, the Palestinians used to have to crawl up to the roof, come down a ladder and make a roundabout exit.

So if someone in their family were sick, they had to carry him up to the roof and

On July 16, 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court issued an order to evict the Al Kurd family from their home in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. This neighborhood is the site of the grave of Shimon Ha Tzaddik, Simon the Righteous.

The Al Kurd's house is part of a housing project the Jordanian government built with the United Nations Refugee and Welfare Association (UNRWA) to house 28 Palestinian refugee families who fled their homes in 1948. Before 1948, Fawzieh Al Kurd, the mother of the family, had a home in West

“The rugelach at Marzipain -it’s the best rugelach in the shuk ,”says our guide, Morgy. “Now Emma, she thinks that the best is in a little store down from your hotel, but I’m telling you this is the best.” So after eating the best felafel and drinking the best coffee, we head over to Marzipain to buy the best rugelach. It’s Friday afternoon – just before Shabbas - and we’re going to have Shabbas dinner with families here in Jerusalem. A box of rugelach would be a nice gift to bring.

The Bedouin girls help us plant olive trees in this school for Bedouin children in the Negev. De Anne is able to speak some Arabic, so we exchange our names and our ages. Most of them are 14. They ask us if we have brought pictures from America, but we didn¹t think to. They wonder if we flew in a plane to get there and smile and giggle when we say we did.

We have been told by the principal of the school that the families of the 500-plus children in the school, which goes from grades one to eight, likely have 10 to 15 children, since most of the men have at least two,

As we get out of the bus in Qaryout on Tuesday, a class of little girls in blue and white striped uniforms is walking toward us. Lance Laver takes their picture and then tries to show the girls the image at the back of the camera, but they start to run away. They soon are coaxed back, but we don¹t know what made them afraid.

From Hebron we traveled the short distance to Bethlehem where we were met by George Rishmawi, Director of Siraj, an NGO created to forge links between the Palestinan people and people from around the globe through travel programs, interfaith dialogue, and cultural and youth exchange programs . His cousin, also George Rishmawi directs the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement (PCR). Founded in 1988, PCR focuses on non-violent means to end the Israeli military occupation and advocate for peace and justice for the Palestinian people. Those means include civil-based direct actions,

I finally slept deeply last night, but this morning my body is shaking. It must be the crazy paradox of this place.

On Erev Shabbat here in Jerusalem, the streets become suddenly quiet, and soon, people begin to stream down from all directions like rivulets of water after a drought. The feeling is joyous anticipation. There is humming and chatting, people have showered and donned fresh clothes, everyone is on their way to be part of a great wave of holiness. By evening, song is flowing out of the many synagogues and

At Kibbutz Mfalsim, Israeli children stood on the steps of their school and sang for us. Children’s music is a blessing no matter where you hear it; at the kibbutz, it was transformed even further into a prophetic message.

“Bashana, Ha Ba’ah,” the children sang. It is a song we used to sing often in our synagogue, and it’s one I love dearly.  The English verse goes:

Soon the day will arrive

When we will be together

And no longer will we live in fear.

Our local guide, a woman who grew up on the kibbutz and

We enter Hebron with Mikkhael Manekin of Breaking the Silence as our guide. In a country where no one speaks of what they have done to "the other," Breaking the silence , the organization of soldiers finally telling their stories of what they have done and seen in military service is remarkable, and Mikkael a young man of extraordinary courage.

As our bus passes into Hebron, one of the major Palestinian cities in the West Bank, our escort of police and army vehicle begin to multiply. First 1 in the front, then 2, then 3, then 1 in the back, then 2 until we had 8

“What was that?” I asked. The sun was setting. It was a blazing red here on the Gaza border when I heard a pop-pop-popping sound. “Don’t worry it’s just a nail gun,” someone said. A nail gun? Who would be using a nail gun at this late hour—and besides, there was no new construction in sight.

Is there anything more hopeful than a tree sapling, anything more fragile?

There are 100 of the small olive saplings in the truck on Tuesday and we carry them, one in each hand, over an expanse of rock and clay to the field. At first we line them up about 12 feet apart, but then are instructed to spread them out over the entire space, about two and a half acres. 

We are making a statement as much as we are contributing to the agriculture of the area.

As we finish planting the trees in the Palestinian field on Tuesday, we notice that a jeep has driven up. It is a settler, a man with a long beard and a knitted kippah and ­ this is what I see immediately ­ an automatic weapon at his side. He is deep in an intense conversation with some of the delegation, with Arik Ascherman translating. Arik says the man is the security chief for the nearby settlement and has been very gracious to engage with us and answer our questions.

A huge wave of relief this morning to drive south through pine forests and lusciously green fields and vineyards, and away from the trouble and pain of the West Bank. For a while the miracle of this place began to ring like an old familiar bell in my heart‹the brilliance of its desert agriculture; the absorption of so many populations from around the globe; the rebirth and genius of the Hebrew language.

The olive tree. Uproot it, burn it, cut it down – it will come back and find a way to grow. As we rode on the bus from Jerusalem to the West Bank today – our first day on this trip with Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR), Arik Ascherman, founder and Executive Director of RHR , spoke about the olive trees we were about to plant – trees that seemed a metaphor for the Palestinian people – uprooted, driven from their homes, restricted in their movement, but determined to come back and find a way to grow.

It used to take five minutes or so to get from the village of Qaryout to the fields. Qaryout is surrounded on three sides by settlements, the closest of which is Shiloh, in which the Biblical story of Samuel and Chana takes place. For decades, farmers had planted wheat here, while in the fields nearby, others had planted olive groves.

Now the trip from village to field can take up to two hours because of a big earthen and rock barrier that has been erected in the middle of the road. It was put there by the Israeli Army, we were told, because of violent

Arik Ascherman indicated the trees on the windy hillside before us. "This is the battle for the land," he said. The "combatants" in this struggle are the olive trees before us. A few rows belong to Palestinian farmers, the ones right next to them, in protective barrels, were planted to by settlers. On the other side of the road, it was the same -- a stand of olive trees in barrels and another stand without: Palestinian and settler, settler and Palestinian.

Day 1—On the bus heading north out of Jerusalem toward the village of Qaryout on the West Bank this morning, Morgi, our guide, hands each of us a big map that marks the Green Line as well as a red line that marks the path of the separation barrier. The lines do not match.

In many sections, the separation barrier goes well into Palestinian territory. It looks as gerrymandered as a Southern Congressional district drawn to put all the minority votes in one area. Unlike Congressional districts, though, these lines can't be drawn when the political balance

A group of forty people, including several rabbis, begin a ten-day human rights mission to Israel and the West Bank sponsored by Rabbis for Human Rights North America on Monday, November 10. The mission is part of RHR-NA's yearlong In Pursuit of Justice Campaign marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel and the 20th anniversary of the founding of Rabbis for Human Rights. The trip and the campaign is dedicated to supporting the efforts of Rabbis for Human Rights and others in Israel who are working to fulfill the vision of Israel's Declaration of Independence of a state that embodies the prophetic values of "justice, freedom and peace."