I am not much of a protest person. Just after graduating from college in 1982, I attended the No Nukes rally in New York’s Central Park with a million other people, but other than that, I can’t recall attending many protests.
I was 10 years too young for the 1968 riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, though an older brother of mine took the el to watch the melee.
But when I heard that my friend Anan Abu Taleb was organizing a lakefront run during the current Democratic Convention to rally against terrorism and for peace in Gaza and Israel, I was all in. We gathered at 7:30 a.m. by Buckingham Fountain. It wasn’t a big crowd. Mostly friends — from three different worlds.
Anan, a Palestinian Christian, was born in Gaza and has close family members who are suffering there due to the invasion by Israel following Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel last October.
Anan is a longtime Oak Park resident, former village president, and business owner. He organized the run with Richard Goldwasser, a runner and local member of the Jewish community in Chicago.
Goldwasser is an attorney who began his legal career clerking for the Supreme Court of Israel. He and a few others were there to support a ceasefire in Gaza from a Jewish perspective.
The third group was a handful of curious outsiders like me — veteran Chicago runners who support peace in general and running specifically. I asked Anan and Goldwasser what they hoped to accomplish.
Goldwasser said that he and Anan have been friends for a while and are trying to put out a message that the way to a ceasefire and hostage release is by making a connection between two divergent communities.
Anan agreed, saying, “What we’re missing is the opportunity to get to know one another and confirm that we have the same hopes, aspirations and fears.”
But bridging the divide between Gaza and Israel, or Jews and Palestinians, requires something more than physical proximity. It requires what Goldwasser calls “emotional connectivity.”
That is an insight I thought. It may be the missing link in our evolutionary DNA.
Goldwasser and Anan put this connectivity to the test personally. They formed a friendship that evolved to include a meaningful connection between a Palestinian American and a Jewish American who also happen to be marathon runners. Goldwasser lamented that “the two communities don’t see one another’s narrative and unless you know someone from the opposite group, there’s an obstacle to recognizing someone’s humanity.”
Anan acknowledges their differences. They don’t always agree. But they share similar values.
“We’re both ethical,” he said. “We don’t have double standards. We believe hypocrisy is a terrible thing. We love our families. We’re hard workers. We care about our community. And we care about other people.”
Hearing all this, a fool like me might think that Goldwasser and Abu-Taleb and a handful of lakefront runners represent a hopeless cause against an un-resolvable war.
And yet … I can’t imagine any other way to resolve the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, or for that matter the divisions that afflict our American body politic.
Pretty much the only tool we have is the person-to-person work of building human relationships.
However futile. However long.