At a playground in West Philadelphia, my granddaughter Leora played with another little girl, her name was Salam. She spoke to her father in English (with an American accent) and he answered with a strong foreign accent. My first reaction, upon hearing the little girl’s name, was “what a lovely name.” Then I started thinking about our area and about peace.
Until recently I didn’t realize that peace has suffered such an enormous fall from grace. But first came the day of the Israeli elections on March 17th, 2015 when the candidate Bibi Netanyahu forgot that he was also the nation’s prime minister and warned “his” supporters against fellow citizens: the Israeli/Arab voters. Then last October, the same Prime Minister announced at a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Meeting that “we will forever live by the sword.
it has become clear that peace is no longer relevant, and every time we say “Shalom” we don’t mean it. Even worse, from what I see peace has turned into a cynical political word. For example, in response to an essay about Women Wage Peace, which I had written and posted on Facebook I received quite a few disturbing comments.
