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Hanan Schlesinger tells a familiar story of an Israeli Jew turned peace activist.

Despite living in close proximity for years, he didn’t know any Palestinians and, therefore, found it easy to dehumanize them. But he began a transformation years back and eventually came to understand that there are two legitimate historical claims to the same land and that neither people is going anywhere.

What differentiates Schlesinger, however, are the details. Rather than the typical secular, leftist Israeli from Tel Aviv, he is a rabbi and a West Bank settler who wears a knitted kippah, tzitzit and a long beard.

Schlesinger, who moved to the West Bank, or what he calls Judea and Samaria, as a young man from New York four decades ago, shared his story at Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El on Sept. 17. 

He spoke alongside his Palestinian colleague, Noor A’wad, as representatives of a group called Roots, Shorashim, Judur (“Roots” in English, Hebrew and Arabic) in a talk co-sponsored by seven East Bay congregations, including Renewal, Reform, Conservative and Modern Orthodox, and other Jewish groups. The event was dedicated to the memory of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an East Bay native whose family belonged to Berkeley’s Congregation Beth Israel before they made aliyah. Goldberg-Polin was among the six hostages executed by Hamas in late August after nearly 11 months in captivity. 

Schlesinger and A’wad will speak again at Congregation Beth Sholom in San Francisco at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 26, in partnership with Congregation Sherith Israel. 

Roots was founded in 2014 by Ali Abu Awwad, who comes from a prominent Palestinian family. His mother, Fatma, was a local PLO leader and a close adviser to the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat — and to the late Rabbi Menachem Froman.

Ali Abu Awwad had served time in an Israeli prison and was shot by a Jewish settler but went through his own transformation and became a proponent of nonviolence and peace. In addition to founding Roots, he built the Palestinian Karama Dignity Center on land owned by his family near the Gush Etzion junction of the West Bank.

Froman, who lived on the Tekoa settlement in the West Bank, was regularly in conversation with Palestinian leaders — including those from Hamas — and came to believe that both Jews and Palestinians have equal claim to the land. 

For years, Roots has brought Jewish settlers in the West Bank together with Palestinians from nearby villages in dialogue. It also hosts a women’s group, photography workshops and after-school programs and a summer camp for children.

Jewish settlers are not popular with the Israeli left. Schlesinger said that before Oct. 7, most leftist Israelis considered them a major obstacle to peace. (Now, they are considered just one of many obstacles.) But Schlesinger told the audience, “If the settlers are part of the problem, then they have to be part of the solution.”

Admittedly, there is some cognitive dissonance listening to Schlesinger speak. He freely uses terms like the “Israeli occupation,” acknowledging that earlier in his life, he felt that term was only used by those he considered anti-Israel. At the same time, he calls Alon Shvut, his home and a settlement about halfway between Jerusalem and Hebron, the “cradle of our civilization.” He moved there for historical, not political reasons, to fulfill the religious dream of returning to the Biblical land of Judea and Samaria.

But now that he has met Palestinians through Roots and, more importantly, heard their stories, he understands how his choice to live there impacts both their daily lives and human rights, noting their lack of access to water and the restrictions on their movements.

“Jews should have the right to live in the Biblical land of Israel,” Schlesinger said, “but not at the expense of the Palestinian people. The present configuration of the settlement movement is at the expense of the Palestinian people, where their rights are being trampled.” 

Jews should have the right to live in the Biblical land of Israel, but not at the expense of the Palestinian people.

Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger

Beyond just humanizing the other, he added, Roots teaches both sides a fundamental lesson: “The other that you just met is the bearer of a national political and religious identity that contradicts yours. What she thinks about herself is very different than what I think about her. … We’re all sick. Israelis and Palestinians are sick in the heart. This virus is coursing through our veins and entering into our hearts and filling us with the incorrect notion of the hubris of exclusivity that I’m right and they’re wrong, it’s my land and not theirs.” 

Most of those who participate in Roots activities, he said, eventually “begin a slow process of healing from the hubris of exclusivity and moving from ‘my identity is true’ to ‘my identity is true but theirs is no less true.’”

A’wad said that until he encountered Roots, which he did in his work as a tour guide, he believed that sacrificing his life for future Palestinians would be a noble cause. The only Israelis he ever interacted with were soldiers — until he got involved in Roots.

Describing himself as a “post-Oslo kid,” he felt deeply disillusioned from whatever peace the Oslo Accords signed in the 1990s was supposed to bring. 

His grandparents fled their village in what became Israel during Israel’s War of Independence — or as Palestinians call it, the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe” — thinking they would return in a few days. But they couldn’t. A’wad was born in Amman, Jordan, though his parents moved to Bethlehem when he was a boy, hoping that the Oslo process would change the Palestinian reality. That didn’t happen.

A’wad only got involved in Roots because his job as a tour guide led him to it. He was at first suspicious of the Palestinians he saw there who were speaking to Jews. That’s where he first encountered Schlesinger.

While Schlesinger shared some aspects of his story with A’wad, he also told him about his transformation and his belief that they were destined to share the land.

“For the first time, I met someone who can share his people’s story without using it as a way to undermine or legitimize my story or who I am, and he’s not using it against me,” A’wad said. “That challenged me in a good way, in that I needed to be open to listen.”

Not surprisingly, the group’s activities have been severely impacted since Oct. 7. 

“It’s been a very difficult test to all these principles and values that our work is built on,” A’wad said. And it has also been nearly impossible to meet in person in the West Bank since then, he added.

“We are not just about Hanan and me being friends. We are trying to continue to get our societies together, and there is such a sense of betrayal,” he said. That sense of betrayal is on both sides. 

A’wad called for an Israeli cease-fire in the war. Schlesinger reiterated his message repeatedly, in different ways, throughout the talk.

“There will always be the pro-Israel side and the pro-Palestine side, but we need to convince people that the best thing is to be pro-solution, because neither side is going to disappear,” Schlesinger said. “The only way is to be pro a better future for both sides.”