The downfall of a cynic
Blog by Ruth Lande, participant of the German-Israeli Young Leaders Exchange
While I was searching for the group of German and Israeli "Young Leaders" at the airport in Munich, I don't quite know what I was expecting. We were told by the organizers that we were "chosen" for an Israeli-German dialogue, which entailed spending one week together in Germany and later on, one more week in Israel. The Bertelsmann Stiftung had taken it upon itself the seemingly ambitious task of making young Germans and Israelis a little less cynical about life in general and one another in particular.
During that walk, alone in the airport, I was beginning to revisit my reasons for choosing to apply to this program... What was I thinking of? How could I be so naïve as to think that one could compare a people-to-people dialogue between Germans and Israelis to one which may take place between Israelis and Arabs in general, and Palestinians in particular? So what if in both stories the two protagonists had/have enough historical baggage between them to make one's mind boggle?
After a round of very polite introductions, we were marched off to our bus, to be taken to a little get-away about half an hour's drive from Munich - or in less diplomatic words, the middle of nowhere. We politely sat around the table - Israelis apart and Germans apart - and spent the entire evening getting acquainted with our own countrymen/women.
What began in slow motion quickly turned into a Great Trek - one activity followed another. Early morning to late at night, and all throuought the day, Israelis and Germans ate, spoke, danced, participated in seemingly idiotic group-dynamics and laughed together. Oh, we laughed and laughed and laughed, each joke coated with a thick layer of cynicism, which made life and the Stiftung seem all the more funny.
But slowly, something began to happen. The idiotic group dynamics turned into more serious discussions, as we began strolling through a seemingly uncensored path into German society-foreign affairs, the integration (or lack thereof) of foreigners, the structured method of German education, the makings of a national narrative burdened with history - and the impact thereof on "young German leaders." Little by little, we began to draw analogies and highlight the differences between our two societies. We tried hard to comprehend the complexities of each nation's so-called national characteristics.
We were taken to a school in a poor area of Berlin inhabited mainly by immigrants, and were escorted to a classroom with approximately 20 pupils, aged 18-20. One of the German participants in our group asked a very simple question: "Who among you is German?" Out of 20, 3 pupils raised their hands. Then, each of us around the circle - "young leaders" and pupils - told the group where our parents were born and where we were born. Out of the 20 pupils, 18 told us that they, as well as their parents, were born in Germany.
On the pavement outside the school, I felt as if I had had a real and meaningful, if small, glimpse of German society - it was obviously a tiny, insufficient glimpse, but real nonetheless. I felt privileged.
The Israeli group comprised Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, mothers on the one hand and frequenters of Tel Aviv night spots on the other, both Jews and Arabs. Among ourselves, we began to experience the difficult questions of who we are and what made all of us Israeli. The also not-too homogenous German group comprised some who had grown up in East Germany and others who lived in the West, several who came from conservative, religious backgrounds and others who religiously adopted atheism, a few whose parents were born in Germany and two whose parents were born in Turkey.
In one of our early exercises, each group awkwardly tried to show the other the highlights of its own society and national characteristics - both groups failed miserably. And throughout, we continued to laugh. But with each day, the cynicism began to take a back seat - at first reluctantly, and then more decisively. Who could imagine, 60-odd years ago, that young, cynical Germans would participate in a group dialogue with young, equally (if not more) cynical Israelis and that they would practically fall in love with one another, and create a platform for relationships born not only out of a mutual respect for a painful past, but more out of an inherent drive to create a better future.
With a wink at those who will ridicule my expression of hope and wave it away as childish naïveté, I propose that we examine the possibility of creating similar frameworks for dialogue among Arab and Israeli "young leaders." The alternative is simply too stark to imagine, and we no longer have the privilege of waiting 60 years.
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