Jaleh Tavakoli and I went to Israel for a week as part of a delegation of people from across the Middle East invited to join a group called Sharaka. Sharaka means "partnership" in Arabic and the NGO is a partnership between the UAE and Israel that was inspired by the Abraham accords. Their mission is to "Shape a New Middle East- Together".
While we were there we visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial, as well as the Nova Forest, which holds an Oct 7th memorial. It was the first time for both of us - Jaleh with roots in Iran, and me with roots from Gaza and Israel. We discussed what surprised us, what enraged us, what our favorite  and least favorite parts were and so on...

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