Ramadan dinner in Nazareth 2006
A Christian priest hosts at his table a Sikh, an orthodox Jew, a Sufi Sheikh,
a Druze Sheikh, an orthodox Muslim couple, and a rabbinical student
from a hawkish Jewish settlement in the west bank,
in a celebration of the holy month of Ramadan.
Sounds like a joke? Here is the punch line - this is
for real! And not an isolated experience either.


Once or twice a year, we embark a peace tour to Israel and Palestine,
to meet peace activists, share ideas and thoughts,
and use the technology of yoga and meditation,
as well as the focus and clarity that coaching technology provides,
to create communication, cooperation, love and peace.

Our peace tours have been an amazing experience, uplifting, energizing, and full of hope.
We have met people of all walks of life, all religions and spiritual practices, all ages.
They all want what we want - to live a happy, meaningful, peaceful life.
They all realize that the way to achieve this is to create peace,
and that peace begins with acknowledging others, meeting them,
and realizing that we are all one.
Here are some stories and pictures of these people,
who you do not read about in the papers, and their
peace activism, that you do not get to watch on TV.

SiriOm with Amoun Slim of the Jerusalem Gypsy community, Eliyahu McLean of the Jerusalem Peace Makers ( www.jerusalempeacemakers.org)   and Haj Ibrahim AbuElHawa, the spiritual father of the All Nations Café (www.allnationscafe.org ), in Light of Jerusalem, an interfaith spiritual gathering in Jerusalem, May 2004.
Light of Jerusalem is a one man dream taking on life – a pretty common thing to happen in Jerusalem, the city of actual miracles. Jeff Goldstein, an energy worker and peace activist, organizes this yearly gathering of people of all walks of life, to share stories and energy, love and conversation.

Yoga of Drumming 2006
It was a beautiful day at Patchouli – a club near Tel Aviv which organizes a wellness day once a month. Participants enjoy a variety of workshops, bodywork, delicious food and a relaxing, pampering environment. SiriOm was the guest teacher of the day, teaching a kundalini yoga class, the Yoga of Drumming workshop, and leading kirtan. Here, a group is learning how to communicate without words, using their bodies, hands and breath to create meaningful, uplifting conversations. In an article published in Essence Of Life online magazine, one participant shares her experience: we found feelings of being grounded, alive, authentic, uninhibited. In facing each other, in pairs, we reached a place of intimacy where masks could drop and many people in the workshop felt a natural urge to tell each other "I love you." (http://www.eolife.org/article.php?aid=c7b17482dcf13a9a6b5701746357b131)

Playing at St. Vincent home for children in Ein Karem 2006
One of the most amazing experiences we had was at St. Vincent home for children in Ein Karem, a beautiful village near Jerusalem. The sisters, with the assistance of volunteers from around the world, and Leah, an Orthodox Jewish woman, provide a loving home for about 80 children with profound mental retardation and/or severe CP.
SiriOm and a group of young Israeli musicians delighted the children and the care givers with music from SiriOm’s CD Travel The Light and other songs. They all enjoyed the experience so much, that Amit (playing the guitar) and May, (red sweater on the left) decided to bring their musician friends every week to play for the children.

All Nations Café at Ein Haniya, April 2008
The All Nations Café, a group of Israelis and Palestinians who bridges between the communities, started as a vision of Ibrahim Abu El Hawa, an Arab native of Mount Of Olives, who opens his house to visitors from around the world to create an experience of a normal, daily coexistence, and of Israeli artists Dhyan Or and Daphna Rosenberg. This was the second time we visited their gathering place in Ein Haniya – a deserted Arab village between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. What is missing in this picture is the smell - of rich earth, wild herbs, the delicious tea made from the herbs that were picked in the field, and the wood fire on which the tea and other goodies were cooked. But the experience itself is best described by Dhyan:
SiriOm took us on an inward trip to the wonderful rhythms of our body. Considering that for some of the people present it was the first experience of any kind of meditation or awareness exercise, we reached a surprisingly high level of group consciousness.
In that enchanting atmosphere you could not imagine that we are sitting in a militarized zone between to enemy countries in a state of active war, that only a few minutes walk up the road there is an army checkpoint and all around us armed soldiers are patrolling by jeep and by foot.
If one of this soldiers would step into the All Nations Cafe, as it sometime happens, he or she would probably be overwhelmed by what their senses would show them: A quiet meditative circle of Palestinians from the West Bank and Israelis from Jerusalem and from Jewish settlements, together with a couple of Americans and a European, rhythmically breathing and drumming on their bodies..

In May of 2007, the first Big Jerusalem Hug was unleashed. This is an event that started as a one woman vision and became a celebration of love that drew people from Israel, Palestine, many countries in the middle east (we met people from Jordan and Egypt) and from around the world (we met people from the US, Africa, Japan, Norway, France).
A couple of days before the Big Hug our friends Eliyahu and Leehee Holli invited the organizers of the Hug for dinner at their Jerusalem home.
Though Eliyahu is paralyzed from the neck down, he is the one of the most active spiritual peace activist we ever met. Since it is difficult for him to leave the house, Eliyahu and Leehee bring workshops, gatherings and events to their home, which they turned to a center for spiritual community. SiriOm was the guest of honor at this dinner, and after the delicious meal, delighted the crowd with his music. As you can see, they were getting in the right mood for a joyous gathering at the Hug.
You can see a video of last year Big Hug at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9xVloQYZXw , see if you can pick up SiriOm on the clip. Read more about the Big Hug at http://www.loversofjerusalem.org

No doubt the Middle East is a troubled region of the world. Our friends are usually concerned for our safety while we are on tour, and we carry with us their prayers and good wishes.
But the image of Israel and Palestine as a war zone, where all you do is duck bullets and bide your time until the next bomb goes off, is far from reality.
This picture is far more typical of a normal day in Tel Aviv than what we get to see on TV. People all over the world are mostly not interested in harassing anyone, fighting or living in misery – life is too short and precious to waste on that. What we all want is to enjoy a beautiful day on the beach, where the only danger is that of too much (or not enough) ice in your drink.