Recently returned from her first trip to Israel, the 31-year-old said she was as moved by women who worked in a children’s village as she was by such well-known figures as Knesset member Yael Dayan and Palestinian Authority cabinet minister Hanan Ashrawi.
“I was very impressed with the hardships they’ve endured,” the San Francisco resident said.
Shorter was one of 20 non-Jewish political, civic and academic leaders of various races and ethnicities who took part in a subsidized trip to Israel from Nov. 14 to 24. About half of them stayed for an extra three days to tour Jordan.
It was the 10th such trip since 1988 sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Councils based in San Francisco and San Jose. The tour was arranged through American Jewish Committee’s Project Interchange, which sends non-Jews to educational seminars in Israel.
In addition to visiting tourist sites — Jerusalem’s Old City, Bethlehem, Golan Heights, Yad Vashem, Sea of Galilee and Masada — the travelers attended a dozen discussions with speakers offering a range of views on the region’s politics and problems.
Those events included meetings with gay and lesbain activists,West Bank settlers, Arab journalists, Knesset members and Druze villagers.
Dennis Sato, chair of Marin County’s Human Rights Commission and president of the Japanese American Citizens League’s Marin chapter, called the tour “perhaps the most enlightening trip I’ve ever taken.” He was particularly impressed with an absorption center for immigrants.
“They seem to have a lot of sensitivity to immigrants — whereas in our country, it’s the opposite,” said the 54-year-old Novato resident, who was born in an American internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II.
Sato, who also met the leader of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, said the trip “changed my view on a lot of things, not just the human rights issue.”
Though aware of Israel’s sometimes shaky reputation in the international community on human rights issues, Sato felt differently after the visit.
“People may disagree with me. But I really feel it’s a country that is trying to do the right thing.”
Shorter was similarly influenced during a tour of the Neve Michael village for abused, neglected and orphaned children.
“As a child and youth advocate, I saw that they were doing some remarkable work on behalf of abused and neglected children,” she said.
“They were not only talking about, but were practicing the principles of unconditional love and unconditional care.”
Shorter was also interested in the struggles for gay and lesbian rights in Israel. Four tour participants, including Shorter, who is a lesbian, met with gay and lesbian activists in Tel Aviv. The activists discussed the discrimination they face in the army and how they don’t feel safe walking hand-in-hand in public, Shorter said.
“It makes you appreciate where you are,” said Shorter.
Susan Leal, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said she won’t forget touring the ancient, underground tunnel alongside Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
Israel’s opening of a second entrance to the tunnel this fall sparked Palestinian rioting and led to more than 70 deaths. But after walking through the tunnel, Leal couldn’t understand why it would have provoked charges that Israel was trying to undermine the Islamic holy sites.
“It’s a nonissue,” the 47-year-old politician said. “Unfortunately, people died around it.”
Leal returned with another strong impression.
“I felt peace was not imminent…There’s too much tension,” she said. “I think there will be more peaceful coexistence — but peace, no. Israel will be a nation at war for a long, long time. That was a sad thing.”
Rita Semel, a tour leader and Project Interchange consultant, said lecturers on this year’s trip seemed less optimistic about prospects for peace.
The previous trip took place in June 1995, before the assassination of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the suicide bus bombings and the peace process slowdown.”Last year, people were much more hopeful,” Semel said.
Grants to subsidize the approximately $75,000 trip came from the S.F.-based Jewish Community Endowment Fund, Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation and Koret Foundation. Participants pay one-quarter of the cost.
The reasons for sponsoring such trips are multifold.
“The most important thing is for Americans to understand the ramifications of the peace process,” said Rabbi Doug Kahn, a tour leader and executive director of the S.F.-based JCRC.
The trip also helps strengthen ties between Jews and non-Jews.
“I think this is one of the most worthwhile projects undertaken by the Jewish community in terms of building relationships with key leaders in the broader community.”