Heart of Jenin

Heart of Jenin - Introduction

I mentioned this film when I wrote of the anti-war/peace talk we attended. At the talk, we heard Ahmed's father speak. Last week, we attended the film at an outdoor movie summer theatre. Here's the story and web connections.

When a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in the West Bank city of Jenin by Israeli soldiers who mistook his toy gun for the real thing, it could have been just one more blip on the news: one more war, one more child, one more human tragedy that ripped the heart out of a family and a community, but rippled no further into the world’s consciousness.

But something extraordinary happened that turned Ahmed Khatib’s tragic 2005 death into a gift of hope for six Israelis whose lives were on the line: while overwhelmed with grief, Ahmed’s parents consented to donating their son’s organs. Suddenly, amid the violence and entrenched hatred surrounding an intractable conflict, a simple act of humanity rose above the clamor and captured worldwide attention.

Heart of Jenin tells the story of Ahmed’s tragic death and his father Ismael Khatib’s journey to visit three of the organ recipients two years later. One of Ahmed’s kidneys went to an Orthodox Jewish girl and his other kidney went to a Bedouin boy. While his parents hesitated to donate Ahmed’s heart, it now beats in the chest of a Druze girl.

“I see my son in these children,” Khatib says.

Crossing from northern Israel to the Negev desert and ending up in Jerusalem, Khatib encounters every complexity of the conflict: deep-seated animosity, hardened judgments, and heartfelt generosity. While laying bare the deep divisions between Israelis and Palestinians, Heart of Jenin offers a rare vision of common humanity and hope.

Watch the movie and the epilogue here online - please note there are some upsetting images...

http://www.pbs.org/video/video/1176693725/program/1154691044

OR.... if you do not have a lot of time, here are two short you-tubes:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfthxyNLfvM -

www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Kpg-Xa6XE -

basel

I visited my friends Karin and Peter in Basel. We met when our family lived in Ohio and they were in "the states" visiting Karin's family. Our children played "fairies, make belive and treasure hunt" and while we drank tea and created friendship. For several consecutive summers we continued the lovely ritual. Then our family moved and we lost contact. Fortunately, we've reconnected and had a lovely visit. Also in the photo is their cute little "Chico". The children, now all teens did not get to visit this time.

The photos are in Basel, along the Rhine. Karin took me for a ferry ride across the Rhine on a boat powered only by water. I was amazed by this no-energy form of transformation, which has been used on the river for hundreds of years. "One of Basel's four small ferry boats, which, hanging at a steel rope, are silently drawn by the current between the two banks of the river."