on may twenty fourth two thousand and six for members of the jewish palestinians living room dialogue came to a washington high school history class in fremont california  spend several weeks each school year focusing on israeli palestinian issues she invited dialogue participants to help the students relate more personally to their curriculum and to each other where part of palestinian living and dialogue group and we formed the group almost fourteen years ago believing that enemy is someone whose story you have not heard and we think that today we're living in an age where there is a lot of enemies being po po used to out there and there are a lot of people who have stereotypes about each other and it's not just about the middle east it's not just about arabs and jews it's about all of us so this is the public peace process this is citizens doing what governments cannot do governments write treaties and enforce treaties and solutions to what governments cannot and that is building human relationships when you will get a chance to meet today and listen to the stories of two people who used to be enemies and we're going to listen in a new way albert einstein said that we cannot solve today's problems with the same kind of thinking that produced them we cannot solve today's problems with the same kind of thinking that we use so this is a whole new way of thinking a whole new way of relating which you will actually get to do yourselves please let us energies to people who are intending to live that life that we're talking about i was born in one thousand thirty two  and i loved what i saw about united states and i tried my best to help the rest of the family my sisters six of them my brother my parents to come to the united states i never forget with his hands up in the sky and tears down this face saying yes we shall return the poor man he never was able to go back to the law that he loved so much you to look at each other on an equal level until they become and this heat other as equal then just like i do not between the problems and maria we are equals we love each others as equal i'm not subservient to them or they're subservient to me we look at each other number one as a human being we are blessed to come and to belong to that part of the world which we call it the holy land but thank you  for inviting us here today my name is miriam zimmerman and i'd like to share briefly with you what brought me to the dialogue and it started about eight years ago when i was studying about the holocaust in jerusalem and i was part of a catholic group because i teach a course on the holocaust at a catholic university i was the only jew because it was run by the nuns and there was a priest and it was a fairly religious group we went to all the christian sites which i'd never seen as a jew and as part of that experience i realized that i didn't understand israel i had no idea there were so many monasteries and so many churches in israel because when you're with the jewish group you go right by these high walls and never learn what's there so one of pivotal events that summer was doing the stations of the cross in the old city of jerusalem and i don't believe religion should be a spectator sport but obviously as a jew i didn't participate in the singing of the prayers or the tears that i might have shed or more because i was so moved by how the very devout christians among us were experiencing the stations of the cross but as i looked around and observed i realized we were in the muslim quarter in much of the pilgrimage and as i looked around i saw how we truly are three different religions but we all believe in one god and since i didn't know the christian israel i also didn't know the muslim israel and i was determined to really find out totality so when i came back i found the jewish palestinian group which has muslims catholics jews christians others and it was a wonderful wonderful learning experience and as part of that experience i really learned to listen and this is a bit humbling because i'm a college professor of communication and i've even taught listening skills as part of every course i've ever taught because it's so important but let me tell you i didn't understand the depth i didn't understand the power of truly opening oneself up and hearing one another story and i reached the dialogue group the holocaust teaches that for evil to triumph all it takes is for good people to do nothing and that's a paraphrase of the irish orator and the burke and we're all good people here learning to listen in the deep way that we've learned to listen is incumbent on every student every adult so when i tell you that i'm a holocaust jew my father was born in germany i know my palestinian friends have heard it before and i'm a little defensive but it has motivated me to hear your story and to listen through your ears and so what i want to say now is that i think i've been able to do that i can't put the holocaust aside it's part of my identity but on the other side of that i've been motivated to to seek out and listen and hear not to do that is not an option so i'd like to end that my to my father also died at home the last thing in the world he wanted to do was to go back to germany so it's such a difference that i can still hear the poignancy of your story jewish people in particular that you were you were part of and what effected by it and to the point that you took it on yourself to pursue it and to be able to teach it in school  is my story as well as a human being to your dad so many thousands of miles away from his homeland and that you were taking care of him even though you've been here since one nine hundred fifty four and have been very successful in business and raised to be a typical family and then your dad was here also i couldn't help realize how important family is to both of our peoples and we have so much in common that from the father to the in the mother to the daughter from parents to children and your father wanted so much to go to the land that is so important to all of our faiths and that he was not able to do this and he was not able to do this because of the state of israel that was really born out of the seeds of the holocaust the destruction it's like i don't understand why this is happening so that we have to be enemy and the fact  that both of us can transcend all of this history history of hatred of expulsion of hunger of denial of our spirituality and still come together as two people to me that gives me hope when you were talking about the pain of your father and i thought about the pain  father having gone through the holocaust and it really hit me it's the same pain and i don't know ever told you how sorry i that that has to happen to your father maybe because of my father's pain as i listened to your story i can convey to you how sorry and my empathy and that i wish so much that it hadn't happened this way that's looking back looking forward we have to come up with new models and we have to come up with models that don't involve the expulsions and the annihilation that a lot of our parents experienced maybe we have some tickets right here i'm hoping and and the religious aspect is so important in hebrew the your story my story is in your story with the expulsion of your people and how the land is so important in jerusalem is so important and we have to you have an opportunity to have a whole new experience you will learn a new way of relating and you can actually live this life here in school starting today so here is what we like to do now you get your chance and for a half hour which is a very short time it will go like that you will get to relate to one another and we will give you that opportunity in your being given that time so you will be in pairs and if you would please select a person in the room and ideally somebody you don't know and maybe somebody you have trouble with well you can really in a very different way it will seem a little scary at first but it's not i will miss you and you will have a chance to hear each other and be heard like you were never heard before guess just hearing her story about how her grandmother was actually related to buoyancy and that just having everything taken away from them by the communists it was just a really like heart breaking because if that hadn't happened  n she would still be having like a really good life and just knowing that what her ancestors actually worked for was just taken away from them so easily it was just really heartbreaking and i guess just now like i just really i feel really ashamed of myself because i know in the past actually i've i've been kind of mean to her and actually and we've had a lot of the same experiences and both of us really want the same things for our people we both you know disagree with what some people are doing and we want peace and we kind of have the same ideas about like ways to stop it and we really agree with you know we disagree with the things going on of the country and we both feel that you know they're saying things need to be done and we need to find something different so do this and we have the same ideas about changing it and i want to think her hearing her story about her family and the struggles they went through because i learned that we've all had we kind of have the same struggles and i think we have more in common than i thought i think when you set aside time to really talk to someone and really get to know them we're all the same every single one of us here just like we all have that same connection within us and we just need time to set aside and find that out i guess and this was really wonderful from what their spirits just now i've learned more about his past and how it relates to somewhat my present right now of how hard both of our lives whole experience of the dialogue has taught me how it's not just about palestinians and jews or christianity induce them in the end it's more about the human relation the human experience between two people and talking to margaret here i've just learned about more stuff that i would have not gotten from an informal conversation with him this type of dialogue really enlighten me about different kinds of people in the world and how future future citizens like themselves like future citizens of this world people who are going to make up the majority of the world and bring us into a new era of success and this kind of dialogue promoted me to think in an extraordinary way to know that you know how they're doing and so that's what i've learned and i think this is a very good experience and more and more dogs must be like you know created in this world this is things that i saw here today and how well people talk to each other and made me realize that we definitely need to have more conversation and get to know our classmates better and it shouldn't be just one thing and one period and in front of cameras it should be something it should be a progress and maybe something that we should do is start a dialogue in our school and you know make it a continuous thing and who in this group of people think that they might like to be in that club that dialogue that's talking to people pleaser as you hands awesome and this is how change begins with an individual with a small group of individuals with a good spirit seeing us and trying something so thank you