In Nazareth, the clergyman, educator, thinker and peace activist, Father Emil Shufani, passed away.
Shopani, 76 years old, became known as the one who in 2003 led a joint journey of 250 Jews and Arabs to the extermination camps in Poland, the purpose of which was to recognize and participate in Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.
Father Shufani was born in the village of Ilbon in the Lower Galilee, was educated at St. Joseph's Seminary in Nazareth, and went to France to acquire an academic and theological education there.
In France he also became familiar with the subject of the Holocaust and its centrality in the European consciousness.
In a 1989 interview with the newspaper "Hadhot" he said that he was horrified by the idea that someone could arise in the world who would say to this or that nation: "You are no good, you should be eliminated."
He also said that then he learned to see the life of the Jews and Christians in the Middle East in a more correct perspective.
"I saw that there was a possibility of building a state together here. I learned to better understand the Jewish mind, and I thought that cooperation between the Arab-Christians who lived here for two thousand years and the Jews, could succeed and sweep the entire Arab world after it - Christians and Muslims. I also saw that I had a part in this process I began to think that it was necessary to free the Jewish people from existential fear. Let them understand that we understood that it is possible to live together. All this makes it clear why I chose the clergy. I have a feeling of closeness to all people: Christians, Muslims, Jews, Druze. I have a feeling of responsibility towards all people ".
"I have a feeling of responsibility towards all people."
Shophani/documentation in social networks according to Article 27 A of the Copyright Law
In 1971 he returned to Israel and served as a priest in the villages of the Galilee, and five years later he was appointed to run St. Joseph's College in Nazareth.
The school is also known by its name Al-Motran, and is considered a prestigious school whose students receive high academic achievements.
During his time, the school became mixed, and boys and girls began to study there together.
At the end of the 1980s, Shophani initiated an educational program called "Education for Peace, Democracy and Coexistence", within the framework of which a connection was made between the students of the school and Jewish students from a high school near the university in Jerusalem.
In the conversations he had with teachers from a high school near the university after the renewal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in October 2000, Shopani got the impression that Holocaust consciousness was behind their reactions and anger at the events, so he wanted to engage with it.
Recognizing the importance of the Holocaust in Israeli consciousness and identity, he believed that the memory of the Holocaust is the key to reopening the dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis.
He rejected the connection between his desire to share in the Jewish pain and the knowledge of the Palestinian suffering, out of his belief in the need for unilateral identification with the suffering of the other in order to break the vicious cycle of the conflict.
The project was called "From memory to peace".
Shoufani received the blessing of Arab leaders for the trip to the extermination camps, including the then president of Egypt Hosni Mubarak and the then chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat. Alongside this, his initiative was also criticized by Arab citizens of Israel.
"We are here to be with the Jewish people"
At the beginning of the journey in Poland, in May 2003, Chopani gave a speech in a synagogue in Krakow where he said: "We are here to be with the Jewish people, in all their history and all their suffering. Out of the suffering our people are going through today, we unite with your suffering."
Yeshayahu Tadmor, professor of education and former director of the Reali School in Haifa, wrote after the joint trip to Poland: "The Arabs among us showed full sympathy with the Jews who were murdered in the extermination camps and felt our pain. Joint crying of Arabs and Jews, supportive hugs and deep and sensitive conversations characterized our being. We were For one human brigade, for one Israeli nation. There was something surreal about the joint tour of Krakow - the ghetto, the Great Synagogue and Płaszów, not to mention the two days we spent in Auschwitz and Birkenau. I remember the closing ceremony in Birkenau. Members of the group, Arabs and Jews, read the names of those who perished in the extermination camps where We visited. I listened to the prolonged reading of the names. Suddenly I heard the names of 13 members of my family, including children, who were exterminated in Auschwitz. I noticed that the reader was Ahmed Marih, from Tamera. I was very moved. I approached him, hugged him and said to him, 'Ahmed, from this moment my soul is bound to your soul.' ".
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