By Pamela Sherrod, the Chicago Tribune

JERUSALEM CANDLE BRINGS PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI WOMEN TOGETHER TO HEAL AND TO ADVOCATE RECONCILIATION

In a church meeting hall before 70 people, Robi Damelin and Nadwa Sarandah kindled their light. But, first, they asked a simple question: "Can you tell which one of us is the Palestinian? And which the Israeli?"

At the Fourth Presbyterian Church meeting hall on North Michigan Avenue, the audience of Christians and Jews met this question with nervous coughs, bodies shifting in seats. Faces in the front rows twitched and eyes squinted as people tried to find some distinction between the two.

"People always guess wrong," said Damelin, who is the Israeli and lives in Tel Aviv. She and Sarandah, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, open each of their talks this way as they meet interfaith groups on their recent 14-city U.S. tour.

"They guess based on what they think we are supposed to look like and act like," Sarandah added.

The two women were in Chicago to talk about the Parents Circle -- Families Forum and the group's Jerusalem Candle of Hope project with the Business Council for Peace. The Parents Circle is composed of about 500 Israelis and Palestinians whose loved ones have died in the ongoing Middle East conflict. The business council is a non-profit organization that helps women in regions of conflict and post-conflict to build businesses and strengthen their ability to nurture peace.

The candle project is a collaborative effort between Israeli and Palestinian women artisans. The 7-inch-tall beeswax hurricane lamp, embedded with olive leaves and flowers from around Nazareth, is made by Israeli women living in the region. Palestinian women artisans who live in villages surrounding Bethlehem hand-embroider a muslin pouch that the candle comes in.

A portion of the proceeds from the candle ($36) sale will go to the Parents Circle and help the women who created the candle, many of whom are their family's only wage earner.

"We were drawn to the Parents Circle and the work they were doing," said Amber Chand, a business council board member and founder of Eziba, a retailer of international handcrafted products.

"I was at the initial conversation to create the candle project as a joint venture between Palestinian and Israeli women," Chand said. "Because they could not meet each other physically, it was important that we have the glue to help put the project together. The Parents Circle was that [glue]."

At their presentation in Chicago, Damelin and Sarandah sat at a square table. They lit the candle. They projected photos from a laptop computer of their loved ones who were killed. The presentation was accompanied by music, without narration.

Then the two women told the stories that brought them to the point where they could kindle a light together.

"My sister Naela was killed," Sarandah said. "She was stabbed in the heart. She loved to laugh. She loved to dance. She loved life. My sister was helping people. She was 48 when she died."

Sarandah's sister had devoted herself to public health.The 50-year-old Sarandah rubbed her hands together as she spoke. Sometimes, her fingers searched for the embroidered bag that had held the Jerusalem Candle of Hope.

Damelin put a cup of water closer to Sarandah. Sarandah sipped it slowly. Damelin eased another cup of water across the table to her.

"I loved her," Sarandah said softly, referring to her sister. "I miss her."

Like Damelin and Sarandah, the Jerusalem Candle of Hope and the hand-embroidered bag it comes in represent the coming together of Palestinians and Israelis, reconciliation and hope for peace.

"The significance of light is not only a religious symbol but a universal symbol," said Rabbi Aaron Petuchowski of Temple Sholom of Chicago, who was in the audience at Fourth Presbyterian. "Light in and of itself is powerful. Its symbolism transposes whomever is kindling the light. Here they could kindle a light that transcends religious ideas to a more universal ideal -- of hope."

Yitzhak Frankenthal founded the Parents Circle (www.theparentscircle.com) in 1995 after his 17-year-old son, Arik, was kidnapped by terrorists and murdered. The elder Frankenthal started the group because he didn't want his son to die in vain.

"The Parents Circle shows that through pain, through devastation and grief comes that profound sense of finding a new way," Chand said. "It offers a new way to reconciliation to support and to build bridges. This resonates to Eziba's own mission of building bridges to find a way."

Unlike the Rwandan Peace Baskets, which Eziba introduced last year, where Hutu and Tutsi widows who lost families during the 1994 Rwandan genocide came together to meet and make baskets, the Mideast conflict makes it difficult for Israeli and Palestinian women to come together.

The reason is that Israelis are forbidden from traveling in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Palestinians must obtain special permits to enter Israel. But Parents Circle member Robi Damelin said the women wanted to collaborate on this project and are doing it through artistry that represents Israeli and Palestinian hopes.

The two women drew a distinction between peace and hope. The distinction, both said, was that "you have to work for peace, but you can embrace hope."

Then Damelin tipped the microphone closer to her lips.Her voice shook with a husky emotion.

"We're all the children of Abraham. We need to stop the killing and start the dialog," Damelin said. "How can I get through to people how important it is to do this?

"I lost my beloved son, David, 2 1/2 years ago," said the 61-year-old Damelin. "David was a student at Tel Aviv University. He was part of the peace movement and among the officers who had second thoughts about serving in the occupied territories. He was teaching philosophy at the university."

Damelin said much more about her 29-year-old son -- who loved music, who had a girlfriend. Sarandah sat closer to Damelin as her voice started to trail off, so close their elbows touched. Then almost midsentence, emotion stopped Damelin's next words. "I can't say anymore."

For Rev. John Buchanan, senior pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church, the gathering in the meeting hall connected him to others far away as a parent and grandparent. He was reminded of his children and their dreams.

"I found their lighting the candle together a touching way to begin the evening and a simple way to symbolically tell their story," Buchanan said.

To that, Rabbi Petuchowski added, "people came to hear the women but were also intrigued that a rabbi would speak and be involved at a Presbyterian church. Even when views are not consistent with our own, we have to listen to each other. If we're unable to do that we're unable to move forward."

Old Town resident Don Allerton said he found it "novel to have an Israeli and a Palestinian together on the same stage. The women put a face on this thing that had just been a headline or a picture on TV. That was what hit me. We saw two women still grieving their loss, but being able to come together."

Wendy Sternberg, co-founder of Genesis at the Crossroads, a Chicago-based ethnic arts non-profit that promotes the heritage of the Middle East and North Africa through the arts, said: "Light is symbolic of awareness, knowledge and remembrance.

"The two women showed that when people give up their self-righteousness, you can move forward together."

Linda McCarty, an attorney who lives in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, said that it could be easy to sentimentalize things and not do something specific.

"For me, the candle became more than a symbol. It was a reminder for all of us," she said. "We should live more connected lives."

Others noted that the heat from the tea light brought out the fragrance of the flowers of Nazareth and the olives leave embedded in the hurricane wax lamp. It was a sweet, subtle smell that lingered.