This year I spent Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, thinking of how grateful I am for the full life I’ve been given in the past year, thanks to my experience in The Faith Club.
Ranya and Suzanne did not accompany me to Yom Kippur services this year, but they were very much with me in spirit as I sat in temple, praying to God to grant me and my loved ones another year of life. I heard the words of the prayers in a new way, remembering how Ranya, Suzanne and I had analyzed exactly what they meant to each of us. Every year, depending on what has transpired the year before, every prayer means something new to me.
The rich voice of our cantor always moves me to tears during the Kol Nidre service, on the first night of prayers. The haunting melodies I first heard while sitting next to my father always make me feel his presence and absence at the same time. This year I felt my mother’s absence as well, since she is safe and well cared for, but slipping away from me steadily as she fades into the world of Alzheimer’s.
I wished my parents were here, so they could see what a wonderful marriage I have, how good and kind my two sons are, and how my journey with Ranya and Suzanne has brought me, literally and figuratively to places I never imagined I would have had the strength to go.
I am so grateful to all of the people who have read our book and embraced our message, invited us to speak with them, and shared their stories and work with us.
I would like to thank each and every one of the people we’ve connected with in the last year, from Oman to Miami, for relating to us, as Martin Buber put it, “authentically and humanly,” because those connections have made me feel stronger and more alive than I ever have before.
I look forward to meeting so many more people in the year ahead, with Ranya and Suzanne by my side, as we tour the country in planes, trains and automobiles…

Last week we began our fall tour to promote the paperback edition of The Faith Club, which was published in June.  This tour will take us to 20 cities and into Canada.  (For the schedule, see our Appearances page.) Our first stop was in Chicago where we recorded a program for Milt Rosenberg’s radio show and met with the people who run the wonderful organization Hands of Peace.  Gretchen Grad, a Christian woman, began Hands of Peace with a Jewish woman and a Muslim woman after 9/11.  (Sound familiar?)  Hands of Peace brings together Israeli, Palestinian and American high school students for two weeks of dialogue and fun each summer.  The visitors stay with American families in the Lake Forest, Illinois area.  While the idea came out of Grad’s urge to foster Middle East peace, I am excited as much by what the American students and the American host families are learning from the Middle-Eastern guests.  “I can never go back to my old way of thinking,” one of the American students said.

The host families and the students have been given copies of The Faith Club to read. During the year Hands of Peace has also used The Faith Club in its interfaith meetings.   “It’s our Bible,” said a Hands of Peace spokesperson. And Ranya added, “Your Bible, your Torah and your Quran!”

Gretchen Grad told us, “I wish we had your book before we started Hands of Peace.  We faced the same issues you did when we were getting our organization off the ground.”

Thanks to Gretchen and all those at Hands of Peace for helping Israelies, Palestianians and Americans to get to know one another and to learn from each another.