Notes & Letters

From Glenn Witmer in Jerusalem: 05 Mar 2002

Lenten Reflection - BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS
By Dianne Roe

"Damm, damm, damm!" are the words I heard from the podium. The speaker was not giving a curse in English. She was speaking Hebrew at Saturday's Peace Now demonstration in Jerusalem. "Blood, blood, and more blood," Harriet translated as she stood with me among the thousand plus Israelis and internationals gathered in West Jerusalem.

I already knew the word. "Damm" (pronounced with a broad 'a') is also the Arabic word for blood. Whether in Arabic or Hebrew I have heard that word far too many times here. "What did Sharon expect when he attacked a refuge camp?" Harriet continued to translate. "Blood, blood, and more blood." Damm, damm, damm.

In the moments of silence that preceded the speeches, a woman near me was weeping softly. Heads were bowed. News of the most recent West Jerusalem suicide attack a half-hour earlier joined in the collective consciousness with the news of the Israeli attack on the 20,000 residents of Balata refugee camp.

CPTers (Christian Peacemaker Teams) Janet Shoemaker, Nathan Bender, Sue Rhodes, Bret Davis and I joined in these moments of silence. I was standing near Harriet, our Israeli friend who had been with us for Lent five years ago. Aya, another Israeli friend, joined Harriet and me at the end of the demonstration as we headed toward buses that were going to Makassed Hospital on the Mount of Olives. There, over a hundred Israelis would line up to give blood for the hundreds of casualties at Balata and Jenin refugee camps in the north.

I had met Aya earlier in the day when we worked together clearing the rubble from the site of a home that the Israelis demolished last September. I called her the next day to find out her feelings after an intense day of volunteering in the south, marching with Peace Now in Jerusalem, hearing about the suicide attack, and then going to give blood for Palestinians in the north.

She was overcome with emotion. She said that even the translator had to pause to hold back the tears when he communicated the messages of gratitude from the Palestinians at the hospital to the Israeli blood donors who had come.

A lot of blood was shed last week. But Saturday evening, the blood was given freely, even by former soldiers who have refused to serve in the military. That blood will restore life, not take it away. Let us say prayers of thanksgiving for those Israelis and Palestinians who share their blood freely. Let us work together to repair the damage of war, sharing blood, sweat, and tears. May these acts of love continue and multiply.