During my time spent at the Zen Buddhist Center in San Francisco I had the opportunity to spend some time at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center located in the Big Sur Mountains of Monterey County in Southern California. A group of us were taken there to work on completing the Kaisando or Memorial hall for Zen Master Suzuki Roshi who was instrumental in establishing the San Francisco Zen Community. We were to assist our Practice Teacher from green Gulch Zen Community who was a Master Japanese Traditional carpenter in this job. It was one of the best practice period I had and it was then that i met Tamir an ex=Israeli soldier assigned as a machine gunner and had wiped down quite a few Palestinian in his time of service. He was about 20-24 back then and we became friends as we worked alongside each other hauling red dirt dug from the mountain side on to a pickup truck and back to the main temple gate, where it was then crushed down and mixed with straws turned into adobe for the walls of the Kaisando. Tamir was a short and muscular young man and was a work horse who was hard for me to keep up with. We got to know each other and he shared his feeling of remorse about being in the army and having done the things he did as a soldier. He opened up to me upon learning the I am a Muslim in faith. I did not pry into the details and shared my feelings and regrets of my past actions and that was why I needed to be there. We parted as good friends having learned from one another a few things about life and about who we were.
A month earlier prior to Tamir's arrival at the green Gulch Zen Center two ex=Israeli soldiers spent some time at the Gulch and I got to know them as they were very friendly and open especially when they found out that i was a Muslim. I surprised them by singing two Israeli folk songs that i had learned when I was a teenager listening to Harry Belafonte from his Calypso Album that my eldest brother had among his collection of records. Even if they had probably killed some fellow Muslims in the Gaza Strip while on duty, I felt no sense of judgement and accepted them for who they were as they did me. Eldad and Giora were like me looking for answers if not redemption for our past deeds. The Zen meditation practice we did together helped us to find the healing sense of acceptance and forgiveness and we came to the understanding of the fact that we each had our karma to sort out. Giora was Tamir's older brother. During one of our chats Tamir had told me that is brother had asked him to check me out if he had needed to talk to and i was moved. There were many Zen practitioners of Jewish decent at the San Francisco Zen Community and the closest friends among them I had were Norman and Kathy Fisher who treated with open heartedness and understanding despite my often unzen - like behaviors. Diane Rabinowitz who married my closest friend David Carlson were people i shared my life with even after leaving the Zen school. I had met and became friends with many Jews in the Bay Area and many were on transit before the left for their final destination in Israel. There was a young couple and their toddler son and the younger brother of the husband who use to come over to our home where we were living in the Richmond District in San Francisco. The family were from Uzbekistan and it was from them that i learned of the 'Exodus', or as the Muslims would have called a Hijrah of Jewish families from many part of the world to Israel. They were mostly looking for a better life then from where they originated.
How else had i been introduced to the Jew? I read Leon Uris's Exodus and Mila 18 when I was a teenager and one of the most memorable novels i read was, "Legend of the Wandering Jew." Exodus was written about the founding of Israel and Mila 18 was about the Warsaw uprising if i am not mistaken. These novels were from my eldest brother's library and as i have often mentioned in the past I was fortunate as a teenager to be exposed to many reading materials that had helped fed my teenage imaginations thanks to 'Spike' my Brother.
"Legend of the Wandering Jew - When Christ, wearied by the heavy burden of the cross, leaned for a moment against a stranger’s doorway, the stranger drove him away and cried, “Walk faster!” To this, Christ replied, “I go, but you will walk until I come again!” So began the legend of the Wandering Jew, which has recurred in many forms of literature and folklore ever since. George K. Anderson, in a book first published in 1965 and immediately hailed as a classic, traces this enduring legend through the ages, from St. John through the Middle Ages to Shelley, Eugène Sue, and the antisemitism of Hitler to recent movies and novels. Though the main elements of the legend are a constant, Anderson shows how changes in emphasis and meaning reflect civilization’s shifting concerns and attitudes over time. " = Wikipedia
I found this book very intriguing when i first read it sometime in 1965-66 and it had got me interested in discovering more about the Jewish people, their history and way of life and the deep and strict spiritual culture. I learned of the Holocaust and what antisemitism and how Judaism is the eldest of the three religions of the Book namely that Judeo, Christian and Muslim, that of the progeny of Abraham. It is indeed tragically sad what is going on in the Holy Land of these three religions where brothers are murdering brothers with impunity. I hope and pray that at the end of the day it will all come to an end and Peace prevail in the land of Canaan. Salam, Shalom and Peace be to one and all in the name of Jehovah, Elohim and Allah {SWT}... in the name of the Lord, God of Abraham of Moses and of Jesus and Muhammad, {SAW}.
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