What did Daniel Pearl’s declaration of being Jewish really mean?

By Marissa Palin

SAN DIEGO–Daniel Pearl’s last words were “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.”  These words were spoken on a video filmed by his captors, a Pakistani militant group, stating their demands. Eight years and three days after Daniel’s death, on February 24, 2010,  Dr. Judea Pearl explained the meaning of his son’s final words at the UJF Women’s Division Options Event.

Daniel Pearl was a journalist for the Wall Street Journal. He spent his journalism career conveying the human faces behind the news, giving voices to victims of war in the Middle East, demanding sanity in the face of madness. Daniel Pearl wasn’t religious in the traditional sense of the word. For him, Judaism was the language of his history, a connection to his ancestors. Judaism gave him a historical identity.

Pearl was kidnapped in 2002 by a Pakistani militant group, on his way to an interview. The group claimed they believed he was a CIA agent, and used his kidnapping to set certain demands on the US, including the release of other Pakistani terrorists. Nine days later, he was beheaded. A month after his capture, the group released a video of Pearl, in which he introduces himself and states his final words.

So what did he mean with his last words? According to Dr. Pearl, it was his way of connecting to his enemy. By identifying himself as Jewish, he was putting himself on equal terms. He was saying that he understood suffering, he understood injustice. He was reminding him of the challenge of understanding others, and saying he knew what it meant to be different. He was offering friendship, and open-mindedness, assuring them that he was not their enemy.

His captors miscalculated when they killed him anyways and released the video. What they didn’t realize, was that Daniel’s last words symbolized the right of every individual to assert their ideology. By killing him, they used his last words to demonstrate that their terrorism isn’t against a country, or a person, it’s against an ideology. An ideology they’re afraid of because it’s different than their own.

“Many ask us if we seek revenge. Yes, we do,” said Dr. Pearl. “Hatred killed our son. And hatred we will fight for the rest of our lives with vengeance and tenacity.” 

 “Show me one celebrity dedicated to fighting the culture of terror, the tsunami of hate.” He said. He and his wife, Ruth, have dedicated their lives to addressing hatred. He co-founded the Daniel Pearl Foundation in April 2002, “to continue Daniel’s life-work of dialogue, and understanding and to address the root causes of his tragedy.” The foundation sponsors journalism fellowships aimed at promoting honest reporting and East-West understanding, organizes worldwide concerts that promote inter-cultural respect, and sponsors public dialogues between Jews and Muslims to explore common ground and air grievances.

He and his wife are co-editors of the book I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl, winner of the 2004 National Jewish Book Award for Anthologies, which provides a panoramic view of how Jews define themselves in the post 9/11 era.

So how does he say we can help? For starters, we can invest in journalism, and music. Daniel Pearl was a violinist, who believed music could bring people together. We can invest and support cross cultural communication, and understanding. But the solution goes deeper than that. Battles are won by making your army stronger, and the enemy weaker. The battle against hate is no different. We must increase our support at home, especially among the Jewish people. We have a history of being the world’s largest exporter of hope, ideals and individuality, and we must continue to do so. Only when hope, love and tolerance outweigh hatred, will the battle be won.

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Palin is a freelance writer based in San Diego

A Teenager’s Life-Changing Trip to Israel

By Marissa Palin

SAN DIEGO — Life-changing events are all around us. The good ones help us discover who we are. They teach us how to cry, how to laugh, how to live. They teach us to learn, to look within, to grow. For some of us, good ones happen all the time. For others, they’re harder to come by. But for the lucky ones, they fall right in to your lap.

That was the case with Leila Chitayat. Little did she know that her life-changing event was soon coming when Eyal Dagan, the Israeli CommunityShaliach at the time, approached her at a fundraiser for her mother’s organization, Adopt A Family. (Adopt A Family provides support and friendship to Israel families who are victims of terror. Her mother, Carine Chitayat, along with Iris Pearlman, had arranged for a Sha’ar Hanegev man whom the organization supported to come to the United States to share his experiences.) At the event, Eyal convinced Leila to go to Israel on the UJF Community Teen Trip.

Leila had been to Israel before with her family, but she was too young to really learn from the experience. At the age of 16, she wanted to experience Israel with other teens, to experience it now that she was older and more mature. While she had had opportunities to go on trips with her friends through their schools or camps, none of them really jumped out at her. But then the UJF trip came along. As she put it, “It was a trip was for all the leftovers”—for all the teens who, like her, weren’t affiliated with any particular Jewish youth organization. And it was affordable, flexible and convenient.  

Leila spent the 18 days from June 22-July 8, 2009 with the 22 other Jewish teens from San Diego High Schools traveling to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the Negev, Eilat, the Kinneret, and Haifa. They slept in a Bedouin tent, they climbed Masada at sunrise, they decorated a bomb shelter in Sha’ar Hanegev, they spent Shabbat on a kibbutz. Her favorite? Jerusalem. Despite the sweltering summer heat.  “We saw the Old City, but we got to see the rest of Jerusalem too. We got to see the Western Wall at night. It was so amazing, so much more beautiful than during the day.”

But her most meaningful stop was in Sha’ar Hanegev. There they stayed on a kibbutz, and got to interact with some of the local families from San Diego’s sister community. The group met with the same man who had traveled to the United States a few months earlier to speak at her mother’s fundraiser. He shared his family’s story, and how they had been victims of terror. Leila reflected on the experience, saying “People were always so happy there, always smiling and positive. It kind of made me realize that there are a lot worse problems out there and people deal with them better than we do.”

Was it life-changing? “Definitely. I don’t know if it changed my way of life, but it made me much more aware and open to different people. We had a lot of discussions about really important things, about Judaism and Israel. We discussed what it meant to be Orthodox, and what it meant to be Conservative and Reform.” She met new friends too, friends she never thought she’d have met. “I gained more confidence from the trip. Going in to it I didn’t know very many people, so I got to be whoever I wanted to be.”

While the trip made her feel more connected to the San Diego Jewish community, it really made her feel more connected to Israel. She realizes the importance of getting involved with Israel, and supporting the Homeland. How does she plan on doing that? By supporting her mother’s Adopt A Family organization. “There are a lot of groups that work with the soldiers, but not very many who work with the families who experience the terror.” Her mother’s organization does. Through emails and phone calls, her mother and a few volunteers provide ongoing support to families who have experienced loss, hardship, and fear.  Leila hopes to get more involved with the organization, once her school work dies down a bit

San Diego teens will have the opportunity to share Leila’s experiences this summer on the 2010 UJF Community Teen Trip to Israel from July 1-18. The trip is open to Jewish 10^th-12^th graders of all backgrounds.  For more information, visit www.jewishinsandiego.org. Your life-changing event is just around the corner!

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Palin is a freelance writer based in San Diego