​Originally published on ONE DAY

About me
I identify myself as a woman, mom, stepmom, daughter, sister, friend, aunt, cousin, adopted aunt… My family is really important to me. I feel profoundly connected to both my blood connections as well as to those I’ve inherited through marriage, compatibility, history, serendipity, and love. I’m very happily married (not embarrassed to say that it took two tries). I’ve got two older stepdaughters and three young sons who are very close in age. We were very blessed in the fertility department. I gave birth to our third son one month before our 4th anniversary, soon after my eldest turned three.

I’m also a writer, editor, memoirist, public speaker, historian, peace activist, optimist, and a health activist. I also love to laugh heartily and turn bad into good and am someone who is impassioned about empowering others. I have a B.Sc.in Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and an M.A. in German history from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Another defining element is that I was born in California, grew up in Michigan and then moved to Jerusalem right after I graduated from college. I was born to one land and moved to another. Thus I write in English, my mother-tongue. Despite the fact that I’ve lived in a Hebrew-speaking country for my entire adult life.

Religiously, I’m a funky admixture between modern orthodoxy and very liberal and tolerant tendencies. I hail from a very open-minded family that believes in “live and let live”. And I don’t believe that I have the right or obligation to tell anyone else how to live his/her/their life. I cherish Judaism and approach other religions and faiths with great respect and curiosity.

And finally, I’m also a breast cancer survivor, which is a huge part of who I am. I discovered that I had breast cancer more than seven years ago while I was still nursing my baby, who was the youngest of three sons under five, so it was really intense. I felt some strange sensation in my body, not a palpable lump, but more of a hunch, and I scheduled an appointment with a breast surgeon based on that instinct. Incredibly, my doctor managed to isolate the tumor amidst the mother’s milk. Blessedly, I did not need chemotherapy—but still, I had never imagined myself getting cancer. It terrified me. Would I live to rear my children? I was an extremely healthy person, and prior to my diagnosis, my eyes were only on persuading my spouse to have another child.

Thankfully, I was keenly aware that young women could get breast cancer. I had lost two friends to the disease, one very close one, my beloved Shaindy Rudoff z”l – Shout-out to you, Shaindy, in heaven, for reminding me of the incidence of breast cancer in young women and saving my life!

In the aftermath, while waiting to hear if I needed chemotherapy, I joined a few breast cancer support groups. I was lonely as a breast cancer survivor and sought a friend who could help me understand and make sense of what I was going through. I joined the Cope Forum, an Israeli-Palestinian breast cancer support group, which was an incredibly eye-opening experience. There I met Ibtisam, a devout Muslim Palestinian woman from Abu Dis, which is on the other side of the Separation Barrier. She became my friend, my “person”. She’s now like family. In fact, there is an incredible connection between our entire families.

Originally published on Linda K Sienkiewicz

I’m revising my forthcoming memoir, Bosom Buddies: How Breast Cancer fostered an Unexpected Friendship across the Israeli-Palestinian Divide. It’s a narrative that I’ve penned, with humor and self-reflection (or so I hope!), about the improbable and unexpected sisterhood that grew between me, an American-Israeli Orthodox Jewess living in Jerusalem, and Ibtisam Erekat, a devout Muslim Palestinian in Abu Dis. We met through a support group for Israeli and Palestinian breast cancer survivors. It’s a big deal because we live on opposite sides of an eight-foot concrete separation barrier. This is not your typical sort of friendship! The arc of this memoir is illness-friendship-reassessment. I could never have imagined that this would emerge from cancer! The responses I’ve received to essays I’ve published on this topic from people across the globe have swayed me that hopeful stories can indeed open hearts and minds. Accolades came in from Abu Dabi, Tel Aviv, and Arkansas for my Tablet article on my visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of an Israeli-Palestinian delegation of breast cancer survivors to meet other breast cancer survivors who also cross religious, ethnic and cultural lines to support each other.
Equally embraced was an essay I penned for The Atlantic on a particular visit with Ibtisam and our respective families, and the unexpected violence we encountered. In 2014, I also started doing public speaking about my story. It was just around the time of Operation Protective Edge, an Israeli-Gaza military conflict, which was terribly depressing. I felt impelled share our positive example with the world. Since then, I’ve addressed some 60 different groups, audiences and organizations across the US. Ibtisam joined me on a speaking tour in December 2015, and we shared our story at the US State Department. Previous speaking engagements include the American Consulate, Jewish Federations, churches, synagogues, Muslim groups, interfaith groups, high schools, Palestinian and Israeli schools, YaLa Young Leaders, Jewish day schools, medical schools, medical conferences on breast cancer, youth groups, women’s groups, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Hadassah, business breakfast clubs, universities, senior citizens homes and many others across the US. (Here’s the list from my website.)​

Peer feedback benefits the one giving and the one receiving feedback. Here guest blogger Ruth Ebenstein* shares another story about learning as it takes place in a Hebrew Day School in Ann Arbor. No matter whether in public, private, or religious settings...how successful teaching and learning takes place can serve as a model and as a reminder.  We wonder if more students were taught how to give and receive feedback and found it empowering and helpful, if as adults feedback would be sought and experienced as a helpful tool. And for leaders as well as teachers..."No matter how experienced you are, sometimes you cannot be the one to teach the lesson. You alone cannot be the one to foster the change." 

Often it takes an outside reader to help you understand the flaws in your writing. This can be true even if you're seven years old--and your esteemed editor is only nine years old. Gabe, a first-grader at Hebrew Day School of Ann Arbor, learned the value of peer review while working on a class assignment. Janice Lieberman, his general studies teacher, had invited her students to take a plunge into the writing waters and pen a personal narrative. 

Ms. Lieberman modeled for the budding authors, step by step, the different stages of the writing process. Her suggestions did not differ greatly from what older students and grownups are encouraged to do when they sit down to write. Choose a topic that you care about and excites you. Pick a seed of your story and show the details of that moment rather than go on and on about the whole thing. Engage the reader with a compelling lead, using dialogue or a question. And, finally, make sure that your story has a beginning, middle and end. The structure for teaching young authors to write personal narratives is informed in part by the work of Lucy Calkins and her colleagues at Columbia University's Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.  

Gabe pressed his No. 2 pencil to the lined paper. He had the perfect dramatic experience to share. Last fall, while playing football at home with his two older brothers in the spacious sun-lit room off their kitchen, he got pushed out of bounds and cut his head on the corner of a wooden chair, just above the nape of his neck. When Gabe's fingers touched the open wound, they turned red with blood. More blood, and even more blood. The blood wouldn't stop coming!

The seven-year-old began his narrative with the first words that came out of his mouth after the injury. "AM I GOING TO DIE?" wrote the first grader, crafting letters. As far as he was concerned, the story began there: with a sea of red on his hands that trickled down to his jersey and shorts, and a palpable fear of dying. Like Shakespeare, he had grabbed the reader by starting off in medias res, in the middle of things. But when Ms. Lieberman asked him to share the details that preceded the injury, Gabe got stuck. Who cared what had happened before? Why did he need to tell that? 

Try as she did, Ms. Lieberman could not get Gabe to understand the need to fill in the beginning of the story. Her students were scheduled to read their personal narratives at an upcoming lunch-and-learn with senior citizens from the neighborhood. Not many days remained before the curtain would go up.
Ms. Lieberman brainstormed possible solutions with the other teachers. What was the best way to teach this student this lesson? Together, they came up with a creative approach: invite the third and fourth graders to serve as literary critics to all of the young writers. Perhaps Gabe's older peers, who had completed the same assignment a year or two earlier, could communicate the necessary feedback that a critical part of his story was missing from the page.   

The next day, the third and fourth graders headed to the first grade classroom. Jacob, age 9, plopped himself down at Gabe's table. Gabe cleared his throat and read his story, stretching out the word "die". When he was done, he looked up at Jacob.Jacob remembered what he had been taught the year before about how to give feedback: compliments first, suggestions second. 

"Wow, great, very dramatic," said Jacob, with a big smile. "But how did you hurt your head?" 
Gabe shrugged his shoulders.
"I have to understand what happened before the blood," explained Jacob.  
"OH! Okay, okay, I'll add that." 
Gabe grabbed a sheet of lined paper and started to pen the introduction.
"Me and my brothers were inside playing football. It was me and Jonah vs. Ilan. Me and Jonah had the ball. I ran forward to the side line. I didn't see the chair next to me..." 

Gabe copied over his prose with neat letters and illustrated the cover page. He went over his writer's checklist, reviewing for capitalization, punctuation, grammar.  Now his hand-written, hand-illustrated story, "The Scariest Day in My Life," was ready to be shared with the world. 

Like all budding authors, Gabe and his classmates learned some elementary lessons about how to draft a personal narrative. But there was another, takeaway thrown in: the importance of embracing feedback from your peers. 

Ms. Lieberman's approach can serve as a model for us all. No matter how experienced you are, sometimes you cannot be the one to teach the lesson. You alone cannot be the one to foster the change. In those instances, look around with open eyes for the one who can.

*Ruth is an award-winning American-Israeli writer, historian and health/peace activist and author of the forthcoming book, Bosom Buddies: How Breast Cancer Fostered An Unexpected Friendship Across the Israeli-Palestinian Divide. Ruth is also the author of  "All of this country is called Jerusalem": a curricular guide about the contemporary rescue operations of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and has written two teleplays for children, Follow that Goblin and Follow that Bunny. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.  

The photo, by Alison Reingold, is of Gabe (first grade) and Amalia (second grade) are mentored by Jacob (third grade) and Ayelet (fourth grade) respectively as the younger students work on their personal narrative essays.

Ann Myers and Jill Berkowicz are the authors of The STEM Shift (2015, Corwin) a book about leading the shift into 21st century schools. Connect with Ann and Jill on Twitter or Email.

View original post here:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/leadership_360/2017/06/sometimes_the_best_teacher_is_a_student.html

I was nursing my baby when I got the bomb-drop.Survivorship, Activism, and Cross-Cultural Relationships

“That lump is cancer. If the pathology report comes back negative, I’m going to think it’s a mistake.”

Breast cancer? Mixed in with mother’s milk? In addition to my baby, I had two others sons under five and two young adult stepdaughters. In an instant, my life plans crashed. Forget a fourth child. Would I even get to rear the ones that I had? I was still mourning a friend I’d lost to breast cancer a few weeks earlier; she was in her 40s, around my age. I despaired, unable to access any hope. Was a good outcome even possible?

Three weeks later, I had a lumpectomy and an axillary dissection, to remove lymph nodes from my armpit. While the doctors tried to decide if I needed chemotherapy, I looked for a support group. I’d heard that women survived better/longer/stronger if they’d had support, and I was keen on that. But most of all, I was looking for a friend.

I’d always been a connector. As a girl, I had embraced babysitters as friends. I connected with everyone: long chats with the bus driver to school, discussions with the librarian over sandwiches at my house (yes, she agreed to come over!), and even my mother’s friends. Friendships were one of my great joys. And now was no different. I wanted women in my life who understood what I was going through. Of course, I did not want my old friends to get breast cancer! But I did hunger to find true companions in breastcancerland. Women with whom I could laugh, complain about hot flashes, share my fears, gather strategies for coping.

And then this email turned up in my inbox. “Would you like to join an Israeli-Palestinian breast cancer support group?” I wondered if perhaps something good could come out of something bad.

At the first support group meeting, a mother-earth woman with warm brown eyes came over to introduce herself. Although Ibtisam Erekat was a devout Palestinian Muslim woman hailing from the West Bank and I was an American-Israeli Orthodox Jewish woman hailing from Jerusalem, we discovered that we had very similar life narratives. We were both religiously observant and we had both married in our thirties, late in our respective traditional communities. Each of our husbands was a divorcé who was several years our senior and had brought children into the marriage. We both had birthed three children in three years. And we were both diagnosed with breast cancer while nursing our babies, which was rather uncommon.  I had never met anyone who shared so many critical elements of my life story. “Same here,” said Ibtisam at our first meeting, in impressive English she had gleaned off the television. I soon discovered that we were both fearless, outgoing, daring. The conversation flowed and we cracked each other up.

In 2012, we traveled together to Bosnia as part of an Israeli-Palestinian delegation of breast cancer survivors. The mission: to meet and learn from other breast cancer survivors who also cross religious, ethnic and cultural lines to support each other. On that trip, many incredible things happened. I felt a tremendous connection with the Bosnian women, women who remain my friends today, despite the challenges of a language barrier. I also developed beautiful friendships with the Palestinian breast cancer survivors, facilitated by the intimacy of togetherness and being miles away from the bloody headlines and turmoil of our region. In particular, my friendship with Ibtisam blossomed. Over the next months and years, we grew to be kin; our children, spouses, and extended families grew close, too.

I realized that this inspiring friendship story ought to be shared. So I did. I crafted a piece about our trip to Bosnia for Tablet, which won an award. I wrote another essay about our friendship for the Atlantic. Penning a memoir was a natural next step.  I’m working on that manuscript right now, with literary agents waiting to read my book proposal.

In 2014 I started to do public speaking across the US to share the positive things that emerged from my breast cancer experience. The cross-cultural friendships, the growth, the peace and health activism—and the hope. Most remarkably, the incredible sisterhood with Ibtisam Erekat.

Through my public speaking, writing and activism, I’ve made friends with breast cancer survivors who hail from Mexico City to Mostar, Herzegovina, from Abu Dis in the West Bank to an ultra-Orthodox community in Israel. Breast cancer has taught me how to connect in ways that I did not even know were possible. My hope is to spread this message to others: our real enemy is illness, not man-made conflict. And the greatest lesson of all? “Other” is actually just like me.​

See original blog post at: ​http://www.sharsheret.org/blog/9038/my-heart-stretched

"That lump is cancer. If the pathology report comes back negative, I'm going to think it's a mistake."

Like a bomb dropped in my lap, a radiologist unloaded this sentence. Did he not see the baby I was nursing on my breast? In an instant, my life plans crashed. Forget my wish for a fourth child. Was I going to live long enough to rear the three little ones that I had?

Three weeks later, I had a lumpectomy and an axillary dissection. After two months of back-and-forth, the doctors blessedly decided that I did not need chemotherapy.  I had twenty-one sessions of radiation, and then I was "done".

Now, what?

Nobody had forewarned me how hard it would be to return to my normal life; that in fact, I would have to survive "surviving".

But how?

My doctorate in Holocaust history had lost its allure. I wanted to save lives! Yet how could I do that, with zero medical training?

A chance conversation opened a door. Over sweet potato soup, a doctor friend told me that cardiovascular disease kills more women in Israel than all of the cancers combined. Sadly, women don't even know it, she lamented. Israel has no Go Red for Women campaign. If women knew the causes and signs of heart disease, they could save their own lives.

Channeling my political acumen and activist bent, I lobbied with doctors and politicians in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) to put this topic on the national agenda. We zeroed in on raising awareness about heart disease amongst those whose health risk was the most severe—one girl, one young woman, one adult at a time.  My efforts bore fruit. On March 10, 2014, the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women convened to discuss women's heart health.

From breast cancer survivor—to heart health activist?! Yes, I know. Not your natural trajectory. A strange, and even unexpected, evolution. But I grin broadly when I think of the awareness we've raised, and the lives that we've saved! Cancer certainly stretched my heart.

That's the thing about trauma. If you open yourself up, it can change you for the better. With a little luck, you'll discover wings that you never knew that you had, spread them—and fly!

Of course, you're probably wondering how a woman in Jerusalem got helped by Sharsheret! Here's how: After completing all my treatment, I was told that I would have to get shots to shut down my ovaries. I panicked. I had responded poorly to birth control pills; how was I going to survive this doozy of a hormonal roller coaster? Through Sharsheret's Peer Support Network, I was teamed up with a peer supporter, an incredible woman who quickly turned into a cherished friend. She helped me navigate the process with sage advice, humor and hand-holding (through the phone and email!). It is no exaggeration to say I may have not survived the journey without her. Thank you to my peer supporter! Thank you, Sharsheret!
​
An American-Israeli writer, historian, public speaker and health activist, Ruth has written and spoken about how an unexpected close friendship with a Palestinian emerged out of breast cancer. She has had five speaking tours in the US and is penning a memoir about her experience, tentatively titled Ibtisam and I: How breast cancer fostered an unexpected friendship across the Israeli-Palestinian divide. Galvanized to help others, Ruth became an advocate, promoting women's health. She now lobbies the Knesset and works with Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to promote women’s cardiovascular wellness among populations with the greatest need: Ultra-Orthodox women, Arab Israeli women, and those with disabilities, in addition to the general Israeli population. Ruth's story has been covered by the BBC, NPR, The Atlantic, Alhurra TV, and Share America (the U.S. State Department's platform for sharing compelling stories). Follow her on https://www.facebook.com/Laugh-through-Breast-Cancer-Ruth-Ebenstein-3206... and on twitter, @ruthebenstein. Her website is LaughThroughBreastCancer.com.  Her uplifting message: you can turn something bad into something good.

​New shoes and a new lease on life: This is a Jewish Christmas story in a concentration camp.

On Christmas Eve 1944, my grandmother urged my uncle, then 12 years old, to sneak out of the concentration camp where they were imprisoned at Strasshof, nearly 15 miles east of Vienna, to go begging.

People are charitable around Christmastime, Grandma Lili said to her son, Gyuri (George in Hungarian). Ask for scraps. Anything they can spare. Tell them that we’re on the verge of starvation.
Tell them that your 3-year-old sister cannot get off the bed because she’s outgrown her shoes.
I don’t want to beg, retorted the boy. I’d rather steal.

That’s wrong, scolded his mother. We are not thieves!

They argued back and forth. After a time, her son acquiesced.

In the dark of night, Gyuri snuck out of the camp between two wooden slats and walked the nearly four miles to Deutsch-Wagram, the closest town, shivering in his tattered clothing. On the outskirts he happened upon a house, secluded from the others. He walked up the path and knocked on the front door.

A woman opened that door. She was probably alone, her man far away, fighting in the war, her children asleep in their beds. And it is likely that she suspected that the young boy was Jewish.

The 12-year-old pieced together in German exactly what his mother had told him to say.

Did he hide his ambivalence about begging? Did he charm her even then with his gift of gab?

Come back tomorrow, whispered the woman.

The next day, my uncle returned. The woman opened the door with a smile. She piled his hands with bread, clothing, and a pair of shoes that her child had outgrown.
And … a pair of socks.

The woman had knitted warm woolen socks for my mother.

Nestled in socks and shoes that fit, my mother scooted off the bed in delight. Her ragged shoes were passed onto a younger child who was also living in the camp. My mother joined her mother and older brother in feasting on the provisions they were given. They shared their unexpected bounty with the entire barracks. It was a quiet celebration of human kindness around Christmastime.

In April 1945, my mother, uncle and grandmother were liberated by the Russians. And it was those very socks and shoes that my mother wore as she trekked some 28 miles over two days to Bratislava on her walk to a new life.

She was three months shy of 4 years old.

Grandma Lili had a gorgeous laugh and a mischievous sense of humor. Even during the Holocaust. She used to tease my mom, "You can tell folks that you spent your childhood in the Vienna Woods."

To the anonymous Righteous Gentile, I thank you.

Thank you for knitting with your hands the pair of socks that warmed my mom’s little feet and skinny legs. Thank you for finding those shoes and clothing and giving them to a stranger. Thank you for sharing your bread during wartime. In the despair of a battered land, cold and snowy, when many hearts were closed and evil reigned and death was more likely than life, especially for Jews, you gave them light.

You gave them kindheartedness.

You gave them a measure of sustenance that I can only imagine.
​
If you had not looked past the years of poisonous hatred and anti-Semitism that had enveloped your country in order to rally to help my family, would they have survived to tell this story?

​This article originally appeared in Religious News Service and in USA Today.

by Ruth Ebenstein

It’s hard not to feel the hope drain out when you read about kids stabbing other kids.

Last month, Ahmed Manasra, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy, and his cousin, Hassan Manasra, 15, stabbed two Jewish Israelis in Jerusalem’s Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood. One of their victims was Naor, a 13-year-old Jewish Israeli boy, who was stabbed in the neck as he rode his bicycle out of a candy store.

On Tuesday, two Palestinian children stabbed an Israeli security guard on a light railway train in East Jerusalem. The older assailant was 14 — and the younger one, not even 12.

These days, it’s excruciating to be a peace activist who supports a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The stabbings, shootings and car-rammings of civilians on city streets, sidewalks and buses in my hometown of Jerusalem and other parts of Israel horrify me. The random nature of the violence and its brutality leave me wordless. Many Jewish Israelis narrow their eyes in suspicion at every stranger who looks “Arab” or “Palestinian.” My Palestinian friends worry that if they slip their hands into their pockets to take out their wallet, an apprehensive Israeli might draw a gun.

These fears are not unfounded: On October 19, Haftom Zharhum, a 29-year-old Eritrean asylum seeker, was mistaken for a terrorist in the midst of an attack at the Beer Sheva bus station; he was shot and brutally beaten to death by a Jewish Israeli mob. Even just speaking Arabic, one of Israel’s national languages, in a public place can arouse suspicion. People on both sides would rather cross the street than share the sidewalk with Other. Black canisters of pepper spray are sold at the bodega around the corner — and at local toy stores.

Extremists on both sides practically cheer and gloat when they hear of the senseless death of the others. The rest of us sigh and try to dissociate from the news or grope for another coping strategy. What can we do to break the latest cycle of violence that began in early October?

Gone is my faux-certainty that peacemakers will not be harmed. Last month, Richard Lakin, a 76-year-old former elementary school principal and veteran peace advocate, was riding the bus to a doctor’s appointment in Jerusalem, when two terrorists stormed route 78 and shot him in the head and stabbed him in the chest. He died of his wounds two weeks later. In the 1960s, he and his wife had survived mob violence when they participated in Freedom Rides in the South, protesting racial segregation on buses.

​His death shattered my illusion that in some magical, mystical way, my family’s sympathy and care for Palestinian rights and the Palestinian cause would shield us from the madness. We were no more immune than he was. Terrorists don’t stop to quiz you on your values or politics before they slice your insides. When I read that the light went out for Richard Lakin, I closed my laptop and wept.

A ray of optimism surfaced from an unexpected place: Ramallah. Ghassan Abdallah, a Facebook friend I’ve never met, posted this hashtag across a photo of planet Earth shot from space, where the only borders are masses of land and bodies of water.

#BeThePeace.

“We can’t change the political situation. The only thing we can control is ourselves. If you want peace, be it!”

If Ghassan could rally from Ramallah, I could rally in Jerusalem.

I could, and still should, #BeThePeace.

And when I went out to share my message of coexistence in late October with young Israelis, I discovered that teens did not only lunge out of pain and despair. They were also the ones pressing forward to connect.

During a sunny break between patches of rain, Ibtisam Erekat and I headed to The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance to share the story of how breast cancer brought us together — a devout Muslim Palestinian woman and an American-Israeli Orthodox Jewish woman living on opposite sides of the separation barrier.

In a white-walled classroom decorated with a framed portrait of Johann Sebastian Bach, 70 ninth-graders sprawled across maroon cushioned chairs. Others sat cross-legged on the stone floor. All of them listened to us talk about illness and about the friendship that developed between us and our families.

Nearly five years ago, I joined an Israeli-Palestinian breast cancer support group, hoping to find something “good” in cancer. There, I met Ibtisam: loving, intelligent, with a wicked sense of humor, and a life narrative very similar to mine. That friendship opened me up to a world I did not know: traditional Palestinian society, Islam, day-to-day life in the West Bank. In time, Ibtisam and I grew to be like family.

I started telling the story of our friendship in July 2014, during Operation Protective Edge. As rockets launched on Gaza and missiles rained down in southern Israel, relations between Jewish and Arab Israelis deteriorated at an alarming pace. The air grew thick with racism and aggression. Our Israeli-Palestinian sisterhood could offer a blueprint of what’s possible. Between the two of us, kinship comes so naturally. But invitations to speak rolled in primarily from American organizations.

A half-sunny, half-rainy Thursday in late October was our first attempt to talk to Israeli teenagers. I had booked this speaking gig to coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness month, before the recent wave of bloody violence. Because Ibtisam lives in the West Bank, it was too dangerous for me to pick her up. She took a Palestinian taxi to the school gate.

When she got to my car, she rushed in and slammed the door.
“I’m scared to walk the streets.” She wrapped the folds of her black embroidered abaya, her floor-length flowing tunic, around her.
“Now that I’m with you, I feel safe.”
The air had that clean, fresh smell after a good rainfall.

Minutes later, I was standing in front of two black pianos in a windowless classroom under fluorescent lights, talking about illness and friendship. Ibtisam sat along the wall, sipping steaming coffee and wiping her moist eyes.

Then it was her turn.

In the English she had gleaned from watching television, Ibtisam talked about being diagnosed with breast cancer while nursing and pregnant. She told them about her miracle baby: Yusuf, now six feet tall, with thick wavy brown hair and penetrating eyes.

“He’s 15, just like you,” she chuckled. “When I try to kiss him, he resists. I’m not your baby, Mom! I say, you’ll always be my baby!”

The students guffawed.

“Last night we watched a video of an Israeli tirelessly helping a Palestinian.”
Ibtisam sighed.

“This is not a good life,” she said. “I wish for peace for all Palestinians and all Israelis.”

Hands shot up. “How does your friendship survive this conflict?” “What do your children think?”
“What’s the way forward?”

“Knowing people from the other side,” I affirmed.

“Mohammed Abu Khdeir was kidnapped in July 2014 and burned alive,” I said. “It was a revenge crime for the murder of three Israeli teenagers abducted and killed in the West Bank. I did not know him, but he felt familiar because he was the same age as Mahmoud, Ibtisam’s eldest.”

I pictured Mahmoud washing my car. Asking me to translate the Hebrew lyrics of his favorite Eyal Golan song. Sporting cool jeans, tooling around with his friends, wondering aloud how they could meet Israeli teens on the other side.

“Once you have Palestinian friends, they’re no longer transparent. Once Palestinians have Israeli friends like you, you’re no longer transparent.”

Ibtisam nodded.

A round of applause was followed by a surprise.

Instead of filing out of the classroom to fiddle with smartphones and kick around a soccer ball, students lingered. One by one, young women stepped forward and stretched out their arms to Ibtisam.

They wanted to embrace someone who for many, if not for all, is the first Muslim Palestinian hijabi woman they’ve met from the West Bank. And I felt the glint of something I haven’t felt in a while: unadulterated hope.

Day to day, Israelis and Palestinians are physically and psychologically divided by walls of all kinds. Those divisions make it easy for each to assume that other is nothing but enemy. That makes it a scary time to be a teen. Is it safe to ride the bus? Go to the mall? Go dancing? Walk the streets with friends? Perhaps most frightening are the bleak prospects for peace.

Yet after a brief introduction to one friendly Palestinian, these Israeli high school freshmen wanted to connect to someone they might have skirted on the street just an hour ago. And the speed with which they bonded suggests to me something about the depth of their desire. As if each embrace signaled a genuine longing for human connection.

Ibtisam picked up that gesture and reciprocated in kind.

“Just like my kids,” she muttered quietly.

And in that moment, they were.

#TheyWereThePeace.

What do you do when cancer crashes down on your life plans?
​
Cry. Thrash. Wallow in despair. Then pick yourself up, shake off the gloom, and embrace the glory of being alive with a mission to serve—and thrive.

At 42, I was diagnosed with breast cancer while nursing my baby; I had two other little boys under five at home. Before cancer, my life’s goal was to persuade my husband to have another baby. My wish fused the personal and the ideological, as I sought to grow our family and continue my mother’s lineage after so many members were lost in the Holocaust. After cancer, my dream was dead. So was my certitude that longevity was my birthright.

When I was done with my treatment, I felt lost, unmoored. Nobody had warned me that it would be so difficult to survive… surviving! Or that the body heals infinitely faster than the psyche.
What was my calling now? What was God’s plan for me? Researching and writing a dissertation in Holocaust history lost its allure. I had saved my life! Now I felt impelled to help save others. But how? I was neither doctor nor nurse. I knew nothing about engineering, science or pharmacology. How could I make a difference?

A chance conversation at a Sabbath dinner provided a path. Over sweet potato soup, a friend told me that cardiovascular disease kills more women in Israel than all of the cancers combined. But women don’t even know it, she lamented. Israel had no Go Red Campaign. If women knew the causes and signs of heart disease, they could save their lives.

Therein I found my calling. I could be that person who could disseminate to women, health care professionals of all kinds, politicians and the general population critical information about women’s cardiovascular wellness. I could help women protect their hearts.

I zeroed in on raising awareness about heart disease amongst those whose health risk was the most severe: Palestinian and Arab Israeli women, ultra-Orthodox women, women from low-income families, and women with disabilities. Channeling my understanding of politics and journalism, I lobbied in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) to put this topic on the national agenda. I also joined a team from Hadassah Medical Center’s Linda Joy Pollin Cardiovascular Wellness Center for Women to work on the ground to change habits via community intervention—one girl, one young woman, one adult at a time. Great was the satisfaction when the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women convened on the morning of March 10, 2014, to discuss women’s heart health in the presence of Yael German, Israel’s Minister of Health—and a woman! Sitting on black upholstered chairs around the long wood oval table were representatives of the aforementioned high-risk groups, women who generally felt disenfranchised from the centers of power. Disabled women propped up proudly on their wheelchairs, taking their place at the table.

Before cancer, I dreamed a dream for me. After cancer, I was called upon to help preserve the hearts, and thus, the lives of many. I learned to find the divine in not just creating life, but also in fostering it. Trauma can change you for the better. All you need to do is take a few empowered steps forward, and with a little luck, the transformation will come.

I never thought something so good would come out of something so bad.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 42 while nursing my baby, I thought, I'm going to die. I had buried two other friends to the disease. Was there any other trajectory?

The pathology report on the lymph nodes scooped out of my armpit confirmed that the cancer had NOT spread. Though blessed, I lumbered around, all dark and down, in my apartment in Jerusalem. While my lumpectomy scars were still healing, I gritted my teeth and walked my fingers up the wall, stretching the scar tissue under my armpit.

Then, on a rainy Wednesday in January some four and a half years ago, I took a break from my exercises to check my email. There, I found a query that radiated a glint of light.

"Do you want to join an Israeli-Palestinian breast cancer support group?"

Walking into the first meeting, I wondered, Was something good going to come out of cancer?

The answer turned out to be No. Something wonderful was going to come out of cancer: friendship that grew to love, between me and Ibtisam Erekat, a bold, captivating Muslim Palestinian woman from Abu Dis, whose home was about fifteen miles away from mine.

I am lying on the cold stone floor in the study of my Jerusalem apartment, cushioned by a royal-blue wool blanket. My arms and legs flop to the sides, my head lolls to the left. Closing my eyes, I shut out the light.

From my laptop, balanced across my bent knees, I listen to Madelyn Kent's soothing voice guide me via Skype to notice the contact points where my body touches the floor: pelvis, shoulders, spine, and neck.

This is no spiritual, new-age yoga class cool-down or meditation-by-remote taught by a fitness guru in Manhattan.

This is my weekly Sense Writing class. 

Today's goal: to re-inhabit how it felt to nurse my baby for the very last time before I was wheeled into surgery to cut a malignant tumor out of my left breast.

Madelyn’s solution: Quiet down my optic nerve. Relax, and let my other senses take over.

I’m game.
I cover my closed eyes with my palms. Then I move my eyeballs left and right, catching flashes of shapes and light in the darkness. It feels weird at first, eyeballing from the inside, but I trust her.  I know that these exercises, rooted in the principles of Feldenkrais, will immerse me in the landscape of my breast-cancer story. Slowly, my eyes settle down.

Two-plus years ago, after surgery and treatment, I decided to pen a memoir about what I went through. With a bachelor's degree in journalism and twenty-five years of experience in writing and editing, I imagined this task doable.  Writing had always helped me untangle my feelings. Words were the cane that I leaned on.

But when I sat down at the computer to unload my story, I stumbled. How did it really feel to fight an illness? What terror struck my heart when I considered leaving behind three boys under five? How does one make sense of and navigate life and living after fighting a disease at 42 that will always threaten to recur?

My descriptions were pretty, even witty. But the raw-and-real, from the depths, was absent from the page.

If only I could get inside, I could yield much more than a decent memoir.

I could gain greater understanding, peace and quiescence.

About cancer. About life. About me.

But how could I get there?

The most compelling writing I had ever done emerged from a composition class Madelyn had taught at a yoga studio in south Tel Aviv a year and a half ago when she was living in Israel. Alternating between stretching at the bar and scribbling in my notebook, I found my creative muscles extending in unconventional directions. Could that unorthodox method dislodge the rock slab covering my creative well?

Two months ago, I called her in New York. She talked about Feldenkrais and how much her pioneering method had evolved since she had returned to Manhattan. Almost as soon as we started one-on-one coaching across the Atlantic, my emotional writer's block lifted. Through exercises drawing from techniques of somatic education that allowed me to investigate the link between movement, senses and creativity, I have started to unpack my own story. The specific movement and writing sequences of Sense Writing calm down my nervous system, transporting me back to some primary consciousness where my imagination runs free.

Though I am piecing together a memoir about illness, I have found liberation and light. 

After three minutes of scanning the darkness under my eyelids, decreasing the stimulation to my optic nerve, I slowly open my eyes. Back at my laptop, the words and moments that I had not consciously known begin to flow. Nestled in a crack in the wall of sorrow about suddenly ending a singular intimate relationship with my son, I find hope.

HOPE! 

I realize that the same gift of life I had given to my baby I could now give myself.
Because what I had to take from my baby—mother’s milk, though divine and magical—was not life.

It was just milk.

And writing? Well, writing is divine.

Writing is the prism with which I make sense of life.

And cancer?

Well, that’s just more material… for writing and for life.