Walking in Jaffa's Shoes

Dear Partners, 

We are writing this letter to you at the beginning of a new year, with the hope that this year will bring us justice, resilience and solidarity, more than the one before it. 

We are well aware that hope is a scarce resource these days, and it seems at best somewhat unrealistic, at worst completely disconnected, to hope for a better future during the most violent and devastating times we have witnessed in our lifetime. But we know just as well that without it, we cannot fulfill our role toward our communities, and especially our youth, who desperately need something to hold on to that is different from the unacceptable present reality. 

The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish once said that even when there isn’t hope, we must find and invent it. We must be able to intentionally create hope in order to live. This principle is always a guiding beacon for our work, and it is charged with even more meaning in times like this. 

As educators and activists for change, we see so clearly the devastating consequences of the current crisis on our participants. The amount of fear and hatred, the deep mistrust of the other, any other, and the endless justifications to dehumanize entire populations, are staggering and it feels like everything we were working for was for nothing. It takes enormous amounts of effort to be able to rise against this all, and to continue to see the impact and importance of our work amidst all the darkness. For that, we are so grateful and appreciative of our staff and facilitators who are able to contain this amount of pain and still find the strength to carry on, so that the next generation will know that being trapped in endless cycles of violence is not the only way to be. 

We know that one of these days this cycle of aggression will be declared over, but the scorched earth and the amount of trauma it caused will remain long after. It is our responsibility to help mend our communities, to give them safe spaces to process, unpack and understand the context in which the current crisis took place. To guide them to educate themselves over how to resist the destructive policies affecting their lives and, most importantly, to provide them with tools for building resilience. 

It is an aspirational goal, but we are committed to it with our entirety, and we thank you for giving us the anchor of your partnership and support to hold on to as we carve out hope in a sea of despair. 

In solidarity, and hope for a happier new year to come,
Dina & Rahada, Sadaka-Reut Co-Directors