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Seema Dajani not only knows about the conflict in the Middle East, she embodies it. The Walnut Creek resident was born a Muslim Arab in Jordan, moved to the United States in 1967, converted to Christianity and has traveled to Israel eight times to promote peace between Arabs and Jews.

Her most recent trip was last month — to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan — with a delegation from her home church, Walnut Creek Presbyterian.

The mission’s 16-day itinerary reflected Dajani’s determination no just to lead her group to Christian holy sites, but to interact with both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to pray for both sides and to honor both sides. Her goals were, among others, to create fellowship and to learn about reconciliation work between Jews and Palestinians.

As Global Missions leader at her church, she wanted her mission to Israel to be as meaningful for the 22 participants as her first visit in 1995. That trip opened her eyes to both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It led her to take part in the East Bay Dialogue Project, which brought together Jews and Palestinians, and to work with Yitzhak Santis, formerly with San Francisco’s Jewish Community Relations Council.

“Yitz and I were part of an email dialogue group that looked at issues from a scholarly level,” Dajani explains. “Issues like [the Oslo accords] and settlements. It was painful learning about the good, the bad and the ugly.”

Santis made aliyah several years ago and now lives with his wife, Anat Harrel, on Kibbutz Hanaton in the Galilee. Their house was on the itinerary of the church mission last month, when Santis and Harrel hosted the Bay Area group for Shabbat.

“I was deeply touched by the way the children are blessed and prayed over by the father,” Dajani said of the Shabbat experience. “It’s a practice we all should pick up. How meaningful it is for the children, especially when they mature and move on from the home, this assurance they are loved and blessed.”

The visitors also met with leaders of Roots, an organization that promotes reconciliation between Arabs and Jews, located in the West Bank settlement cluster of Gush Etzion. “We had the privilege of hearing how an Orthodox rabbi and a former Palestinian fighter came to know and respect one another, and work together as activists for peace,” says the church’s associate pastor, Paul Dugan about that visit. “I was struck by their passion, energy, hope and mutual respect.”

This is a place shared by three faiths. How do we share holy sites?

This people-to-people interaction was deliberate, based on Dajani’s own personal journey.

She comes from a family with a 500-year history in East Jerusalem, whose members, she says, were caretakers of King David’s Tomb and the Dome of the Rock. Her father arrived by boat to the United States in 1947 to attend college, returning in 1951 to Jordan, where Dajani was born. The family immigrated to California following the Six-Day War in 1967.

“I had a difficult time adjusting as an immigrant in the U.S.,” recalls Dajani, now a nurse at John Muir Medical Center. “My father shared about his life, his upbringing, his schooling. I became attached to those parts of this life.”

As a convert to Christianity, she found herself especially moved by the commandments to “love the Lord with all your heart” and “to love your neighbor as yourself.” She also discovered a love for the Jewish people.

“How do I reconcile this with my family history?” she asked. “I couldn’t see it from my family history or the religious identity I was born with. I wanted to see it from the Lord’s perspective.”

That is what she wanted for her mission, she said. Israeli and Palestinian tour guides, including Harrel, explained to participants the differences between Ultra-Orthodox, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism, the multicultural nature of the state, and the complexities of the issues faced by both Israelis and Palestinians.

“It becomes real for everyone,” Dajani says. “There is a rich Jewish history that is part of our own biblical history. This is a place shared by three faiths. How do we share holy sites? The bottom line is, it’s complicated. We can’t just give a shallow answer.”

Dajani said the group returned home with a deeper understanding of this corner of the world, and were enlightened by its diversity.

“[Her fellow travelers] hear things on the news, but it doesn’t click,” Dajani says. “They didn’t have the history or knowledge, so these things came as a surprise. This was more than a tour. It was a pilgrimage of spiritual growth, cross-cultural understanding, and educational challenge for us to walk our scriptural commandments to reconcile. Through dialogue, we build bridges of understanding and honor each other.”