Vol. 1 No. 25, May 2025, Iyar 5785
- Spirit of the Galilee
- Jun 1
- 14 min read
Updated: Sep 9
SOG Members Lead and Join Alternative Jerusalem Day Events
Tragicallly, Jerusalem Day has been usurped by extremist Jewish right-wing groups who march in an official “Flag March” through the Muslim Quarter of the Old City with Israeli flags, singing songs about Jewish sovereignty, and some even chanting “Death to the Arabs!” and “Burn their villages!” There is violence and vandalism, and the residents of the Quarter feel under siege for the day.
On the day of the parade itself, SOG members participated in an alternative “Flower March” (organized by the organization Tag Meir) to hand out flowers in the souk in the Muslim Quarter to the locals, in a gesture of friendship and peace before the flag marchers paraded through. They then joined the “Humanitarian Guard” group who came to practice protective presence and bear witness to this shameful phenomenon.
Said Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, who was there: “I usually stay away from Jerusalem on this day, because of the violence. I participate in the alternative interfaith march a few days later, instead. But I had to be in Jerusalem anyway later that day, so I said, if I am going to Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day I should help in any way I can.”
Rabbi Haviva joined the Flower March that morning but after handing out her bouquet of flowers, she quickly realized the residents needed much more than flowers, and she joined the Humanitarian Guard, which is organized by the Standing Together movement.
“Already at 11am, groups of teenage boys from yeshivot in the West Bank and other parts of the country were being dropped off at Damascus Gate, and they proceeded to harass the locals. It was shameful,” she said. “They harassed me, too, because I was trying to help, and because my Standing Together t-shirt had Arabic writing on it. They spat at me, grabbed flowers and trampled them, grabbed fliers for the interfaith march and ripped them up. If I had not been busy trying to get the border patrol guards to do their jobs, I would have been crying.”
She then returned two days later, for the Interfaith March for Human Rights and Peace. She and other SOG members were on the planning committee of the march, while others spoke, offered prayers, and sang. Rabbi Sigal Asher, also an SOG member, was the main organizer of the event, as part of her position as Interfaith Organizer of Rabbis for Human Rights, who initiated and were the main sponsors of the event. Spirit of the Galilee were co-sponsors and had a large presence there.
Said Rabbi Sigal: “On Monday, the city was transformed into one of violence and hate, as thousands of ultra-nationalists marched through the streets, harassing Palestinians and vandalizing property. Today, we marched differently. In a city where chants of “Death to Arabs” echo openly through the streets — we brought prayer, hope, and a love for humanity…
“Our march is not a symbolic gesture; it is a living reminder that there is another way: a path of respect, partnership, and religious and moral responsibility,” she added. “We are not just struggling for Jerusalem — we are struggling for the character of Judaism itself. A Judaism that does not compromise on human rights, but sees the role of religion as integral to upholding the dignity and freedom of all people.”
The march, the third of its kind three years in a row, began at Zion Square in West Jerusalem, the New City, with speeches by Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze, and Buddhist faith leaders. The group of hundreds of people of all these faiths then marched to the Old City, singing prayerful songs like “We Shall Overcome” and holding white umbrellas to create shade and a unified dramatic look. The banner leading the march read, “Jerusalem Interfaith March for Human Rights and Peace” in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. At Damascus Gate, the march turned into a silent one, mourning the lives lost in this war, as Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem joined.
At Jaffa Gate, there were more prayers and songs in Arabic and Hebrew, and then participants formed a huge circle, singing an Arabic and Hebrew song composed and lead by SOG member Rabbi Dahlia Shaham, with lyrics weaving together the biblical verse “Love your neighbor as yourself” and the famous poem by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish “Think of Others”.
Said Raefa Hakroush, who is a Muslim member of SOG and offered a prayer at Jaffa Gate: “Jerusalem, city of pain and peace, should be a city of reconciliation. Yesterday, the city lifted her eyes and saw hundreds of people from around the country marching together, calling out: ‘There is another way!’ Songs in Arabic, Hebrew, and English filled the air, three languages that came together to form one human language of hope. Peace is the order of these times, an order of conscience and a legacy for generations to come.”
Pointing to what it said on her shirt – “Praying with Our Feet” in Arabic, Hebrew, and English – which was made by RHR especially for the occasion, Rabbi Haviva quoted Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel’s famous line after he marched with Martin Luther KIng, Jr and Rabbi Wolfe Kelman (two of whose children were at the march, and his granddaughter Rabbi Leora of SOG as well, all of whom are rabbis): “I felt my feet praying!”
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Book Launch :Women Writing Hope
SOG member and Muslim activist Ghadir Hani, together with Jewish activist Dror Rubin, created together a project called “Women Create Hope”. The project, which is co-sponsored by Spirit of the Galilee, organizes initiatives around the country based on the idea that women are the hope for our future.
“Men mostly have been in charge until now, and look where they have brought us,” Dror said at the book launch for the project’s new book Women Write Hope this month. “It is time now to amplify women’s voices. That is our hope for the change we need in this world.”
The book is a compilation of the stories of 21 Jewish and Palestinian Israeli women peace activists, including Ghadir and three other SOG members, Raefa Haroush, Kefaia Ayati Masarwa, and Marsha Kreizel. At the event, SOG Co-Director Rabbi Leora Ezrachi-Vered interviewed Raefa and Carmit Arbel, who interviewed and wrote about Raefa for the book. Each piece is written by a woman peace activist about another woman peace activist.
Raefa told the audience a brief summary of her journey towards becoming a peace activist. The eighth of 16 children, Raefa learned to fight to be heard at a young age, she shared. But in her house, which had twelve women and six men, it was the men who had to fight for equal treatment, she laughed. While in her home she learned the value of treating everyone with dignity, even those different from her, she was not exposed to Jewish society as a child. So when she studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, she had to learn Hebrew as well as the material for her degree. She said this all in perfect Hebrew.
Since then, creating a truly shared and equal society has been Raefa’s life focus. She feels that living together in an integrated society is the key to peace between the two nations. She works as director of shared society projects at the Leo Baeck Educational Center in Haifa, where the event was held. Between each speaker was a unique musical number by a trio of two Palestinian Israeli musicians (Faraj Srour on keyboard and Habib Babous on the violin) and one Jewish one, Nike Kushnir, who played the accordion – thus creating a unique blend of Klezmer and Middle-Eastern sound.
Said Jewish spiritual activist Marsha Kreizel, who is featured in the book: “I am very grateful to have the story of how my spirit found ways to create peace included in this book, which is an outpouring of love of women who have done everything in our power to bring peace to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.”
Ghadir opened the event, sharing how the book is dedicated to her late peace activist friend Vivian Silver, who was murdered in her home in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7. “We worked together when I lived in the south. And I would sleep over at her home later, when I moved back to Akko and went down for peace work in the Gaza Envelope area. I would sleep in her safe room, the same room where she was murdered,” Ghadir said, with tears in her eyes. “I can feel her energy with us here tonight. She would have been so proud. We are continuing her work.”
Humanism in Times of Dehumanization: Our SOG May Meeting
Our Spirit of the Galilee meeting this month was an oasis of rejuvenation amidst a very harsh reality.
We met at our member Rabbi Ruti Baidach's breathtaking home in Moshav Yavniel. Ruti is an activist and humanist rabbi, a teacher and Chair of Rabbis for Human Rights. Ruti told us about her hunger strike for the hostages, which lasted months, and she led us in a text study about maintaining humanity in dehumanizing times.
She brought the devastating poem "Song of Songs", written by Mauthausen survivor Iakovos Kambanellis, about the dehumanization in the Nazi work and extermination camps. Following are a few paragraphs, translated from the Greek:
How beautiful is my love
With her everyday dress
And with the comb in her hair.
No one knew that she’s so beautiful
You girls of Auschwitz,
You Dachau girls,
Have you seen my love, perchance?
We saw her on a long journey.
She no longer wore her dress
Nor her comb in her hair…
How beautiful is my love,
Pampered by her loving mother,
And her brother’s kisses.
No one knew that she’s so beautiful
We then moved to the "Ashram" next to Ruti's house, which she co-founded with a group of neighbors. There we ate and sang and shared poetry. Buddhist monk and Reform Jew David Goren brought Thich Nhat Hanh's famous poem "Call Me By My Names", which is about seeing ourselves and thus the humanity in everyone, even our oppressors. SOG board member Guy Paradis brought a short but profound poem by Leah Goldberg about the paradox of living as humans in this broken world, a poem that loses too much in translation to bring here in English.
Rabbi Haviva Ner-David brought a poem that reminds her of Rabbi Ruti – her centeredness, her courage, her energy, and her ability to combine spirituality (especially Buddhist spirituality), humanism, and activism:
Breathe, by Lynn Ungar
Breathe, said the wind.
How can I breathe at a time like this
when the air is full of the smoke
of burning tires, burning lives?
Just breathe, the wind insisted.
Easy for you to say, if the weight of
injustice is not wrapped around your throat,
cutting off all air.
I need you to breathe.
I need you to breathe.
Don't tell me to be calm
when there are so many reasons
to be angry, so much cause for despair.
I didn't say to be calm, said the wind.
I said to breathe.
We're going to need a lot of air
to make this hurricane together.
Member Spotlight: Rabbi Zvi Berger
Howard Ephraim Berger (who later changed his name to Zvi) was born in 1954 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was raised in a home strongly identified as Jewish.
Howard went to Hebrew school and had a bar mitzvah. In high school he became more interested in religion and went to synagogue on his own on Shabbat, walking because he felt that was more in the spirit of Shabbat. He participated in Leaders Training Fellowship, where the teens would go to synagogue on Shabbat morning and study with the rabbi.
The family ate Friday night dinners together, with kiddush, and they did not mix meat and milk or eat pork, but their meat was not kosher. And they attended synagogue (a Conservative one) primarily on the High Holidays.
Howard’s mother was more of a cultural Jew than a religious one. His father called himself agnostic; he was a doctor and believed in science. He would often quote Alexander Pope’s saying, "The proper study of mankind is man."
Howard’s Jewish identity came mostly from Herzl Camp (a Zionist summer sleepover camp), where he was not only a camper but also worked on staff. It was there he met his spouse, Linda. He interviewed her for a staff position while they walked around the camp together one night, and they have been together ever since!
In the summer of 1976, a young married couple, they went to Israel for the summer to visit Zvi’s two sisters who had both moved to Israel after the 1967 war. Linda and Zvi both studied in Hebrew language intensive ulpan at Haifa University that summer; it was Linda’s first time in Israel, but she decided she did not want to leave.
Zvi was not so sure. He remembers hearing a lecture that summer of the noted novelist A.B. Yehoshua, who insisted the only place to live a full Jewish life is in Israel. Zvi argued with him, saying you can be a good Jew in the Diaspora too. But Linda convinced him, and on October 19, 1978, they moved to Israel. Almost fifty years later, their three children and nine grandchildren all still live in the country.
Zvi, who earned his master’s degree in Jewish History before moving to Israel, worked in Jewish education in various frameworks, and Linda worked in Art Therapy. But in 1990, when Zvi was working at a year-long high school program for Jewish Diaspora teens, the Gulf War erupted and foreign students were not coming to the U.S.
With no students to teach, he decided to get a DHL in Education at the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem (associated with the Masorti movement, the Israeli equivalent of U.S. Conservative Judaism). Midway through the program, Rabbi Yisrael Levine approached him in the cafeteria and said he thought Zvi should apply to the rabbinic program – an idea which took Zvi totally by surprise.
“At first I did not consider the idea seriously. I thought I wasn’t religious enough to be a rabbi. Jewish religious law did not interest me so much. Jewish thought and history were what drew me. But I decided to do it, and I loved it! It was magical. I was sad when it was over.”
After his ordination, Rabbi Zvi continued to work in Jewish education. But one day he went to a friend and colleague, Rabbi Andrew Sacks, z”l, and said he was looking for more work on the side; he asked if there was part-time work in the Masorti movement. “Andy said just four words, over and over – ‘Go to Kvar Vradim!’ [a town in northern Israel north of Karmiel). And so I did. And I loved it there. Linda and I were there for thirteen years, during which time I served as the rabbi of the Masorti community in Kfar Vradim and for most of those years as Northern Region Coordinator for the Masorti Movement as well. That is when I really grew into my identity as a rabbi.”
It was while working as a rabbi in Kfar Vradim that Rabbi Zvi became involved in interfaith work. Working as a spiritual leader in the Galilee, where the population is 50-50 Jewish-Arab, it felt appropriate, even essential. Aside from the Jewish population, there is a very large Muslim population, as well as smaller but still significant Druze and Christian populations. There are also Bahai and Ahmadi communities.
As part of his pulpit, he taught interfaith groups, too, not just Jewish ones. For example, he taught at the Nes Ammim Christian Village. One big contribution Rabbi Zvi made to the Upper Galilee was an intercultural interfaith festival called Sukkat Shalom. The festival brings people together from all around the Galilee for educational and cultural activities. “Religions historically have often instigated persecution of the other, intolerance and even war. But religion can also serve as a powerful force for peace and bring people together,” he says.
In 2011, Zvi and Linda were ready for a change. Zvi had decided to retire from his pulpit and start working towards a doctorate at Haifa University. They were driving by Kibbutz Hannaton, a kibbutz established by a group of Masorti movement Jews in the 1980s, and they went to take a look. They liked what they saw, and they decided to rent a house there for a year and try it out. A year later they bought a house and joined the kibbutz and have been there ever since.
In May 2013, Rabbi Zvi almost died from Herpes Encephalitis. For five years, he was in and out of nursing homes and hospitals. They thought that even if he did survive, he would not be able to do much on his own. “But thank God I recovered, and am almost back to my old self,” he says.
“I am retired and have not gone back to my doctorate – at least not yet – but I am active in the community and in social action groups, like Standing Together and Spirit of the Galilee. I'm also very active in our synagogue community, leading services, reading Torah, and occasionally teaching. I also teach conversion candidates, which I love. And I read a lot, help out with my grandkids. I also did the tour guiding course and am now a licensed tour guide. Mostly, I am trying to do a little good in this crazy world.”
“There are too many reasons to feel despair and lack of hope these days,” Rabbi Zvi says. “The situation is horrible in so many ways. Hostages, tremendous destruction and human suffering in Gaza. The price of the war is way too high in so many ways – socially, politically, economically. We need to stop this war and rebuild our society. This government is a travesty and a disaster. But I refuse to think things are hopeless. We must take this as a wakeup call and turning point to work towards a better reality of peace, cooperation, and compromise. So we can live together in this admittedly, rather crazy country and region.
“Like my father, I don't know that God exists, but I would not call myself agnostic. I do, despite occasional doubts, believe there is a Divine force immanent in the universe; and that humans have been blessed with the potential to feel a spark of divinity within our souls. I try to connect with this Divine spark when I pray, but more often what I feel when praying is a deep sense of identification, a kind of spiritual connection with so many who have spoken these words with fervor and devotion through the generations. But I also believe doubt is a vital spiritual and intellectual resource. As is humility, like the biblical Moses had.
“I also believe that theological humility is important, viewing Scripture and religious traditions as the product of human contact with the divine,” he adds. “Since classical Judaism is founded on divine revelation, it is not easy to describe sacred literature in such fashion, but if we view revelation as an encounter between God and human beings, we can approach Scripture with critical eyes, recognizing that no religion has a monopoly on the truth, without giving up our commitment to our rich spiritual tradition. Furthermore, such humility encourages inter-religious dialogue that is fruitful, creative, and meaningful.”
So when and how did Howard become Zvi? He was named after his uncle Harry who died young of Hodgkin's Disease. “I was always either Howard or Howie, although I never liked either much. The first day in Hebrew school I was asked what my Hebrew name was. I didn’t know, so I asked my father, who said to tell them I'm Hershel. Until one day the principal, who was a rabbi, was substituting for the teacher. He said, (rather angrily), 'Hershel is not a Hebrew name! From now on, you’re Zvi!' which is the Hebrew equivalent of Hershel.
“Everyone in the class broke out laughing! So for years I hated the name. In high school, I did a Hebrew ulpan class and told the teacher my name was Hayim. But by the time I began to study Hebrew at the university, I began to feel differently. And I learned that a “zvi” is a gazelle, and I thought, “that’s a great name”. So I went back to Zvi, and it stuck. Now, when I’m called to the Torah at synagogue, I’m HaRav Zvi Hershel Ephraim. Everyone calls me Zvi. Rabbi Zvi. It’s who I am now.”
Please donate to Spirit of the Galilee so we can continue our important work bringing an interfaith voice of justice, equality, and peace to the Galilee.
Thank you for your support
We want to hear from you, so please email your comments or questions to Rabbi Leora Ezrachi-Vered, leora@spiritofthegalilee.org or U.S. Liaison Rabbi Haviva Ner-David, haviva@spiritofthegalilee.org.
Until next month, shalom, salaam, peace!
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