Three friends, brought together by war, reflect on a year after Oct. 7
Three women, previously unrelated.
Except that they are residents of Baltimore, a small city in the big scheme of things, in a world that is figuratively getting smaller just as their city literally is as well.
They were joined about a year ago after a war broke out on Oct. 7 far away from their homes but close to their hearts and minds. A war that really started a long time ago and not only hasn't ended, but has gotten larger and bloodier.
At least 1,200 Israeli civilians were killed and 250 kidnapped by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, some of them still missing. Israel launched an offensive in Gaza, and one year later, hundreds of Israeli soldiers have died. The number of Gazans killed exceeds 41,000 according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The fighting has spread into Lebanon and threatens to spread into Iran, which possesses a nuclear weapons program.
The war has become an increasingly divisive issue as, one year later, the Jewish community mourns the day it all started.
People from all walks are navigating the issue in their own way — like the three friends. Siddeeqah Sharif Fichman, Rebekka Paisner and Sumayyah Bilal. Collectively they are many things: pastry chef, engineer, artist, social worker, doctoral student, artist, mother, wife, daughter, Muslim, Jewish, Black, White, American, Israeli.
A year ago, they were filled with pain and looked for somewhere to voice it. So they founded a group. They met at a progressive Christian church in Federal Hill, the Light Street Presbyterian Church. Anyone was welcome.
Then as now, the battle in the Middle East was also fought by proxy outside of it. Lines were drawn on college campuses, in the corporate world, in government chambers, among members of the same family. There was one side or the other. Only one villain, and one victim. There was little room for equivocation. There was only anger and pain, suffering and vengeance. Empathy disappeared.
The group could not bring peace to Gaza, but they might be able to bring empathy and peace to their little part of the world. They brought together people with disparate sympathies, from different walks of life, of different faiths, and if they could reconcile their pain and anger, and still have compassion for the other, well then maybe there was hope for the Middle East.
"Our goal was just to bring people together and provide a space for healing," said Bilal, the chef and owner of Codetta Bake Shop. "Even if we're not close to the region, a lot of us are emotionally close to what's going on. There's a lot of pain in our respective communities, and we've not seen other people try to bridge the divide."
Every action and reaction abroad was cause for someone's pain. The brazen massacre that relit the fire. The retaliation of missiles that killed civilians indiscriminately and felt disproportionate. The shooting by Palestinian gunmen of train passengers in Tel Aviv. More missiles. And the role the U.S. plays in the weaponry. Who was innocent? Who was the true perpetrator?
"A lot of people were angry that Jewish people were committing atrocities," Paisner said. "The Jewish people in the room hold that tension, so we addressed all that energy in the room. We didn't make anyone feel guilty or have fear."
They could not prevent what nations and governments and leaders decided for millions of people, but they could decide for themselves, here, how to create common ground and find forgiveness for one another.
"Our communities are more enmeshed," Paisner said. "We've watched different groups spin off. It feels stronger than it did a year ago."
Dozens of others attended, not everyone regularly; other like-minded meetings and events followed. The original group has not met frequently. Attendance is not compulsory, but there if needed.
Three women. Different faiths. Different races. Different origins. Complex alliances. One year later.
"They're a lot of friendships now," Paisner said.
Fichman is Muslim and Black, married to an Israeli-American Jew. Some of his family members are in the Israeli military. The couple lived in Europe for years before moving to Baltimore. This summer, she and her children spent a month in Amsterdam, where her daughter was born and Palestinian flags few everywhere. She felt safe, different than in Baltimore.
"The people of Amsterdam's solidarity with the people of Palestine was very clear and evident," she said.
She finds it hard to connect with her in-laws in Israel. Her views are also not exactly her husband's views, a difference they manage.
"They're going to cafes," she said. "They're going to weddings. They are able to live normal lives while their country brutalizes their neighbor. I do not have any illusion that I am somehow different than them. My country is sending bombs and money fueling this genocide for its own financial gain and interest in the region, and my life is also unchanged."
She doesn't see encouraging signs of change often but is deeply moved when she does. Like the videos of young Israelis who say they will refuse to serve in the military, including a young man giving a graduation speech to classmates.
"He told them to go live because that's what they should be doing at this age, making mistakes, making friends, enjoying their lives, not taking them or giving them," she said.
Fichman's brother-in-law lives in northern Israel. He recently got married and has a new baby. Fichman could not imagine bringing new life into the middle of constant death.
She thought about her friends in Beirut who lost their home to bombs in 2006 and guessed they probably lost their home again, when the conflict widened to Lebanon.
Paisner is also directly tied to the events in the Middle East. Her family is Israeli. Her mother lives there. Paisner is a sculptor and a doctoral student at Johns Hopkins, where she is close to completing her studies in intergenerational trauma and expects to graduate in spring.
On the Shavuot holiday she went to Pearlstone, a nearby Jewish retreat center, participated in a song circle in the forest and felt "so connected with the global sense of suffering it broke me open." As she came closer to a state of grace, she observed with difficulty the opposite trajectory of her Israeli mother and family, who have become "more hardened about peace efforts." She said her countrymen are "in a state of PTSD ... and given no good options by their government to act without endless violence."
At her lowest moments, it is the sight of her friend Bilal that softens her heart.
"When I'm at events that I would normally go to for my Jewish community, now I see my friend Sumayyah there laughing and talking with everyone, sharing her desserts," Paisner said. "That's peace for me. We are more integrated into each other's spaces now. I come to her Jummah [Friday prayer]. One time I came to a talk at her mosque about music in Islam. We are bringing peace to our communities, making us stronger, thwarting war in the way we can."
Paisner's mother spent November in Baltimore but returned in April, because "she felt this huge emotional void being so far away from her brothers and sisters and the community there," Paisner said.
Phone calls from her mother cause anxiety, "a moment of great intensity for what is to come next." She imagines the worst until her mother makes clear she is not in distress.
Recently her mother reached out on FaceTime from a public park in Jerusalem. People were stretched out on the ground and listening to musicians playing peace songs at sunset.
"People want peace so badly," she said. "There is a huge amount of solidarity among Israelis. They are afraid. My mother watched her best friend murdered right before her eyes, two girls in their pre-teens. My mother witnessed that, so it's hard for her to move through that pain, but deeply my mother, and many Israelis yearn for peace."
Here in Baltimore, Bilal and Paisner are thought of as interfaith leaders in their community, "which is weird," said Bilal, who has been invited to lunches and asked to give talks, "because we're not trying to be at all."
Fichman and Paisner were instrumental in securing travel visas for two traveling activists, Rotem Levin from Israel and Palestinian Osama Iliwat. They will give a talk in Baltimore on Oct. 22.
The three friends want peace and safety for all sides, and for the cycle of vengeance to end, but they know those are merely sentiments and not something they can control. What they can give to one another is real, and what is missing from the absolutist language of the war and the public debate around it. They do not demand full agreement. Mistakes are allowed. Misspeaking might be challenged, but is forgiven. Sympathy for one side is not condemnation for the other. Unanimity is not required; listening is. In short, they treat one another as friends.
