How the deepest pain turns into brotherhood

Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan share the fate of having lost a child in the Middle East conflict: 10-year-old Abir was killed by an Israeli border policeman – 14-year-old Smadar was killed by a Palestinian suicide bomber.

Both fathers met in the «Parents Circle - Families Forum», an organisation for people who have lost relatives in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They are campaigning for reconciliation and an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

Marion Debus, Co-Section Leader of the Medical Section at the Goetheanum, sees the work of Aramin and Elhanan as a force for the future. «The principle of retribution lives in past-related physical causality and leads to destruction.» Forgiveness is always something unexpected, something that arises from the freedom of the individual and has a healing effect in a confused social situation, says Debus.

The discussion on war, grief, forgiveness and peace will be led by Udi Levy, a former curative and social pedagogue.

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