#Mount Zion awards and the alternative ceremony 4.5.2022

[nataliesnews]

Mount Zion awards and the alternative ceremony   4.5.2022

My friend, Karin, invited me to go with her to an award giving ceremony at the German Hospice in honour of two men. I had never heard of either of them but always found that with her I get to the most interesting places and also to events which I would never have heard of otherwise. The awards are given by the Mount Zion Foundation.  I don’t think that they had it last year because of Covid and so the date is changed.

 The Mount Zion Award is a biennial award by the Mount Zion Foundation, which has its seat at the Institute for Jewish-Christian Research (IJCF) at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland. The award is presented every other year close to October 28th. In 1986 the Mount Zion Foundation was created by the German Reverend Wilhelm Salberg (1925–1996), son of a Jewish father and a Christian mother. The Mount Zion Award is presented to persons of Jewish, Muslim or Christian faith, who have significantly contributed to the Jewish-Christian dialogue or to the understanding of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in Israel.

  These were the two men

  And here is something about each of them

      But what I really enjoyed was afterwards when there was a dinner prepared by the nuns!!! We sat with a young monk and the two girls who had given a recital, both of whom are Jewish and we had such a good laugh. I wondered looking that the monk and at the bright young women at the celibacy which he has undertaken.

  The Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day reminds everyone that war is not a predetermined fate, but only a human choice. The ceremony takes place every year on the eve of Memorial Day for Israeli fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. The ceremony was initiated by Buma Inbar, whose son was killed in Lebanon in 1995, and other peace activists, together with the Combatants For Peace movement. For some years the PCFF has joined in organising and producing the event, and it is now a full collaboration between the PCFF and the CFP movement. The PCFF is also known as Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families for Reconciliation and Peace and as Bereaved Families Supporting Peace, Reconciliation, and Tolerance. PCFF was founded in 1995 by Yitzhak Frankenthal and several bereaved Israeli families

  We went to the alternative  remembrance ceremony in Tel Aviv. I had  thought of going to Beit  Jala as that is where the Palestinians had come but there was talk that we would be attacked  again by Lahava and the extreme right and I felt it important to be there. The place of meeting was kept secret  and only given to those who signed up but I think it would have been easy enough for anyone who wanted to disguise any intentions of disturbing the ceremony to sign up and come. In the end though, and I only heard about this afterwards as we were the last to leave, there were only about 10 demonstrators of hate. In previous years it has been very unpleasant as we have not only been spat at but extremists came with bags of urine which they threw. This time there were only a handful of these crazies.

 The hall was packed. Many people were refused as there was no place. One of the reasons was that because of Corona the organisors did not want to take one of the big halls in case it had to be cancelled. The event was also on zoom and we were told that two hundred thousand people were watching us which must mean something.

 Rivka Michaeli, an Israeli actress, opened the event together with a Palestinian actor with a song by Amichai. She got a standing ovation from the audience as she has been attacked by the right in a very vicious manner for participating. In fact “the shadow” was particulary vicious. Many years ago I was also attacked on facebook by this sick character. I had been  at the checkpoint and the detector found a knife in my rucksack….for peeling apples! A soldier at the checkpoint evidently contacted this sicko and he posted on facebook that I had come to the checkpoint with a knife to kill a soldier!! And he posted a picture of me saying that I should be dealt with. Only, as so many of his ilk are, his hate blinds him to reason and he posted a photo of a friend of mine from some years previously who had also been accused of distracting guards.

 This is one of his pearls where she is concerned and you can read the whole article, sick as it is, in the pdf.

  Michaeli may be “a great actress,” he continued, but she was “a bad and resentful person who aligns with haters and enemies, and hurts bereaved families.” Her next step, he said, should be participating in a “joint day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust, and the Nazis.

  The first to speak was Buma Inbar whom I first met when he was helping a little Palestinian boy, Muhi, who had had both arms and legs amputated.  It is worth while to read about this child. He is now a school boy and goes to school in Jaffa. Buma himself lost his son in the war and since then he has been helping Palestinians. He is a  one man show and is amazing in every way. He spoke first at the ceremony and one could see that, even in the 20 years since his son was killed, the pain is still very much  there. It was very powerful listening to him.

 https://jweekly.com/2018/03/05/muhi-meet-limbless-palestinian-boy-confined-israeli-hospital/

 Another Palestinian whose 14 year old son had been shot dead by soldiers. The boy was taken to the Ramban hospital in an attempt to save him and after he died the father was asked if he would donate the organs of his son and he did so…to whoever needed them….Jew or Muslim.

 Amazing people and they give some light in the darkness.