Rabbi Arthur Waskow 11/17/2003

Friends,

Before anything else, let me hand you a letter that came a few days ago to the committee members who organized the Veterans Day Memorial for Peace in Philadelphia on November 11:

>>. . . I want to personally thank you for all you put into today's memorial. It was very moving—more so than I'd anticipated.

>>. . . I needed to see, up close, the faces of soldiers and hear their passionate thoughtful voices.

>>. . . I needed to be in a public action that truly grieved all the war dead, and the way too many soldiers come back able-bodied but partly dead (like many of my uncles, even from the "good war").

>>. . . I needed to hold the ashes as I held the ashes of my father who died in a private war & watch them blow into the water.

>>. . . I needed to read the names & have someone ask me to see the list to make sure someone he knew wasn't on the list & be caught up short by someone else reading a familiar name, fortunately spelled differently & therefore not my family's friend.

>>. . . I needed to see Xxxx again & make real contact with him.

>>. . . I needed to hear the multitude of voices simultaneously saying the names of the dead, & cry.

>>. . . I needed to throw flowers into the river, & watch many more fly & disappear.

>>. . . I needed to decide it was more important to be there than to be on time for my dental appointment.

>>. . . I needed to have an extraordinary conversation with the cab driver from Haiti who took me to the dentist, and with the women in the dentist's office.

>>. . . I didn't know I needed all those things, and I'm truly grateful that you and the others figured out to give them to me and all the rest of us.

>>. . . With love and gratitude,

Yyyyyy >>

So now perhaps you understand why I think it is so important for us to reclaim and renew and transform the American holy days.

Those days arose in the first place because they bespoke the great reservoir of decency and desire for peace and justice that is at the heart of the American people.

Let me urge that we start thinking seriously about Memorial Day, Monday May 31: Unless by some miracle of contrition and redemption the US has by late May withdrawn from Iraq and turned over to the UN and to Iraqis the process of healing Iraq, we should again draw on the holiness and power of these days.

I think these observances might best be done in local and regional fashion, close to the homes of the people. With months to prepare, they could attract thousands.

Shalom, Arthur

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REPORT ON VETERANS DAY PEACE MEMORIAL IN PHILADELPHIA

Between 150 and 200 people gathered at City Hall shortly before 11 a.m. Since there has been a fair amount of discussion recently in various antiwar circles about ethnic/racial dimensions of the antiwar movement, let me report that about 20 were African-American; about 20 were Jews; about a dozen were Hispanic. There was a thin sprinkling of Asian-Americans and Arab-Americans. The rest were classic "white" Americans, from veterans' groups, churches, labor unions, women's groups, long-standing peace groups.

The main slogans were:

Bring Our Soldiers Home Alive Now

Honor U.S. and Iraqi war dead

End the U.S. Military Occupation of Iraq

Support Clear UN and Iraqi Leadership to Rebuild War Devastated Iraq

The memorial began with powerful brief speeches by a US soldier recently returned from Iraq; a US soldier who had been ordered to Iraq but had said she would bear arms there, was reassigned to Stateside duty, and is now applying for conscientious-objector status; and the mother of a soldier in Iraq who recalled her father's half-nightmare life (nowadays we would talk about post-traumatic stress syndrome) after returning from World War II, while her son writes her he is clear that this is, unlike his granddad's war, not good.

At 11:11 we paused for a minute of silence.

Then we walked up Market Street, the traditional main drag of Philadelphia, to the bridge over the Schuylkill River. As we walked, the names of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians who have been killed in the war were read over a loudspeaker, and Mia Cohen of The Shalom Center staff led a chant of Pat Humphries' song, "Peace, salaam, shalom."

At the bridge, we recited together a litany built around the casting into the river of ashes, stones, and flowers and the recitation of the names of the dead. (See our Website for the text.) A rabbi, an imam, and Catholic and Protestant clergy recited/ chanted memorial prayers for peace.

Radio and some TV and press were there. The Philadelphia Inquirer carried a photo but only a one-line (very undescriptive & partly inaccurate) caption as a news item.

Sponsors included not only the "usual suspects" but also some mainstream organizations — Metropolitan Christian Council of Philadelphia; AFL-CIO Central Labor Council; AFSCME, District 47; and National Organization of Women (Philadelphia chapter).

And — Veterans for Peace; Vietnam Veterans Against the War; The Shalom Center; Brandywine Peace Community; Catholic Peace Fellowship, Jobs with Justice; School of Americas Watch, NE; Peace Action, Delaware Valley; Women's International League for Peace & Freedom (Phila. branch); Phila. War Resisters League; Phila. Women in Black; ; Phila. Ethical Society; Black Radical Congress; Congregation Mishkan Shalom.

Shalom, Arthur

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Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director

The Shalom Center
www.theshalomcenter.org