2022 PeacePlayers Impact Report FINAL - Flipbook - Page 65
FEEL BEIT - FEELING PART OF
SOMETHING GREATER
Feel Beit, a cooperative Palestinian-Israeli art space on the border between East and West Jerusalem, was the perfect location for the
Friendship Games Opening Ceremony, a celebration of what we are as PeacePlayers, what we stand for, and what it means for us to be together.
After eating a feast of home cooked Middle Eastern soul food, created by members of the PeacePlayers Middle East family, everyone
quickly gave the floor over to Jinan, Or, Neta, Sireen and Keren, Palestinian and Israeli PeacePlayers Middle East alumni who spoke
from the heart about their PeacePlayers stories – some of them with tears in their eyes as they talked about the friendships, the love
and the belief in the peace that had left them forever changed. They spoke as young people who understood that their stories are
special, that not enough Palestinians and Israelis in their communities get the chance to see the humanity in one another and to
believe in an alternative to hate and bloodshed. But they also see that unfortunate reality as something they could try to change.
“IF YOU HAD ASKED ME A FEW YEARS AGO WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS THAT I GOT FROM THE PROGRAM, I WOULD TELL YOU THAT
IT’S THE WAY I SEE HUMAN BEINGS – SEEING PEOPLE AS HUMAN BEINGS. AND I THINK TODAY, IF YOU WOULD ASK ME THE SAME
QUESTION, I WOULD SAY THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS GETTING THE OPPORTUNITY TO PASS IT ON.”
OR
Jewish-Israeli Alumni turned Coach
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