PinnedPassover in Przemyśl, a TravelogArt, Ancestral Healing & Service In Light of the 2022 Ukrainian ExodusUkraine17 min read
Jan 8, 2021Weaving the Great TapestryReflection on the One World Bearing Witness 2020 Vigil, Personal Lineages, and Planetary Ancestral Peacemaking Early December 2020, I participated in guiding a 24-hour global meditation event called One World Bearing Witness: One Humanity, Belonging to Earth. OWBW is an annual vigil organized by One World in Dialogue, Dr. Elizabeth Debold and Thomas Steininger. Each 2-hour section started with guidance, reflection, or prayer by a…Ancestral Healing6 min read
Dec 25, 2020Tribute to Dr. Ahmed JaberDr. Ahmad Jaber, I sat next to you in an interfaith dialog circle for several years. “Brother Rami, you are one of us.” Whether it was at your mosque in which you taught and led the prayer, at a church, a synagogue, or your own living room in Bay Ridge…Interfaith2 min read
May 1, 2019Soften, Brother.Last Sunday I pulled into the parking lot of Congregation Beit Israel, the local synagogue in Northampton, Massachusetts USA. I found a parking spot in the full lot and walked towards the entrance. No one was there, either in the lot or at the entrance. I was fifteen minutes late…Judaism4 min read
Jan 13, 2017We Used to Walk This Earth, Together.In November 2013, I attended my first retreat with the Zen Peacemakers in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It wasn’t the piles of hair or the green stains inside the gas chamber that buckled my knees and wretched my innards. It wasn’t the barb wire, the watch towers or the broken china cup handle…Holocaust4 min read
Jul 22, 2016American MagicParticles of headlight casing from an SUV that rear-ended a Triple-A van showered my front window. I considered stopping. I looked to my left through the driver’s window and saw Big-Guy in the Yukon cursing over loud music. The Triple-A van hovered into the juncture softly to a stop and…Immigration6 min read
May 9, 2016Passover in Piraeus (#6, 4/26/2016): Earth to SpacemanA cruise shuttle ship capsized the day I left Greece, and no one seemed surprised. I walked into the center of camp E1.5 and ran into Masoud. “what the hell you doing here?” I asked him — I saw him get into Skarmagas two days before. “No stamp yet.” He…Greece10 min read
May 2, 2016Passover in Piraeus (#5, 4/25/2016): The Alif Ba of Serving ChaiA tall string-bean of a blond young man asked me if I got time. “I got time.” I replied, and followed him to a small car. Willem, a Swede volunteer coordinator with A drop in the Ocean, one of the main NGOs staffing volunteers in Piraeus’ Greek port housing thousand…Syria6 min read
Apr 25, 2016Passover in Piraeus (#4, 4/24/16) : Friend Requests at SkaramagasWe emerged from the tunnel leading across the road. …Refugees8 min read
Apr 24, 2016Passover in Piraeus (#3, 4/23/2016): Hanging in the in-BetweensI looked around for Maher’s tent but I couldn’t tell it apart from the others. Bse his mother waved to me from another row. Amanda opened the flap and invited me in. I took the time to look around, have a better view, it was actually four tents connected by…Refugees4 min read
