Taking My Stand, Amid War and Destruction

While death and destruction, chaos and fear exist all around, I took a sweet girl and her mother from Tarkumia checkpoint to Sheba Hospital near Tel Aviv (with Road to Recovery, “an Israeli Association of volunteers who drive Palestinian patients – primarily children – from checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza for life-saving treatments in Israeli hospitals”).

We drove on roads usually packed at this time of the day. They were empty. We laughed, we talked a little English, a little Arabic, a little Hebrew.

When we arrived at the entrance to the Pediatric Department, this sweet girl came up to me and put her arms around my legs. I got a hug. I wish I could show you a photo of her.

I’ve been criticized for just about everything — for being naive, for being patronizing, for paying lip service, for not taking a firm stand one way or another.

This IS my stand. This is my answer to what has been happening all over this region, a smalk tikkun olam in a broken world.

Photo by Joanna Chen