Dear Chevra ---

Do you like your dessert at the beginning of the meal, just as we make the Afikomen -- and then hide it away to taste a whole meal later?? --

Here is the Afikomen. More later!

We are working on a Passover SEDER OF ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN, built on the "telling -- Ha'Aggadah" -- of the stories of two peoples who are dying for peace -- or rather, dying because there is no peace.

We urge you to get ready to actually hold such a Seder, perhaps on the fifth night of Pesach -- Sunday night, April 4 -- which this year is also Easter Sunday and is the anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King.

For those of you who have contact with Arab-Jewish dialogue groups, we urge you to explore holding this Seder jointly with Arabs and Jews together.

For those of you who have been working in a Jewish context, the Seder will work that way too.

We expect to have a text available by February at the latest, and you will be able to copy it (and amend it if you like) for use in your own Seders.

Enough dessert. We'll come back there, as we do with the Afikomen. Now -- the parsley and the other greens, to begin with.

A great deal has happened since we together broke the silence that had imprisoned peace-committed American Jews.

Our speaking out made a difference:

High US officials have told us that our ads in the NYTimes, Forward, and Jerusalem Report helped convince the White House that the Jewish community would not object to strong US insistence that the Netanyahu government sign the Wye Agreement.

So the White House did insist. And Netanyahu signed.

But we also need to realize how limited that agreement was and is.

As we sit here writing and reading, Israeli bulldozers are breaking through olive groves and farms on the West Bank to make "bypass roads" (closed to Palestinian cars) that exist only to connect Israeli settlements on the West Bank with Israel proper.

And with the instigation and blessing of Netanyahu's foreign minister Sharon, settlers are illegally taking over Palestinian hilltops -- while the Israeli Army is ordered to look the other way.

The effect of these roads and these land-grabs is not only to shatter long- held family homes, but to cut off parts of Palestine from each other, and to make a decent self-governing Palestine impossible.

Just today, the Netanyahu government once more reneged on the Wye agreement -- and the US said so, out loud.

All this -- and the harder issues are yet to be addressed!! -- Like some form of dealing with Jerusalem that meets the needs of both peoples, and how Israelis, Palestinians, and the US can affirm a State of Palestine living viably and peacefully alongside Israel.

We need to do more, if peace is to come.

In order to ACT effectively, we all need both to KNOW more and to FEEL more deeply committed.

We see the Seder of Abraham's Children as one powerful way to KNOW more fully and to FEEL more deeply.

Fifteen years ago, three rabbinical students joined with an American Christian who had spent many years in Lebanon, to write "The Seder of the Children of Abraham." It helped a generation of Jews learn how important peace is to Israel and to Palestine, to the Jewish people and to the Arab peoples, and to all the world.

Now we need a new Seder. So several American Jews and Arab-Americans are working together to shape such a Seder. A leading Jewish magazine has offered to publish it, in time for it to be used in April.

The new Seder of Abraham's Children will draw on the traditional symbols of the Seder -- with new meanings. A possible example:

FOUR MORE QUESTIONS --

(Question 2) Why do we break the matzah in two?

Because the bread of affliction
becomes the bread of freedom --
when we share it.
Because the Land that gives bread
to two peoples
must be divided in two,
so that both peoples may eat of it.
So long as one people grasps the whole land,
it is a land of affliction.
When each people can eat from part of the Land,
it will become a land of freedom.

And the new Seder will have stories. Like the heart-searing eyewitness telling by Gila Svirsky of what happened when the Israeli Army bulldoze a Palestinian home -- and both Israelis and Palestinians joined in nonviolent resistance. The worst -- and the best!! -- of Jewish, Arab, and human behavior.

Gila's eyewitness telling went 'round the world. It helped force the government to suspend the home demolitions, at least for a while. (But three Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem have been demolished in the past month.)

We need to learn more reality. More about the new roads. More about the horrors of terrorism. More about Israelis and Palestinians who are standing together for peace , and more about American Arabs and Jews who are learning to talk, cry, and laugh with each other. Becoming partners for peace.

More than ever , as the most thorny issues move into negotiation, we need committed US Jews, Arabs, and allies who, through the knowledge and heart gained from the Children of Abraham Seder, can speak out in a cooperative voice.

So get ready for the SEDER OF ABRAHAM'S CHILDREN. Start finding partners. And people to plan it. And a place to hold it. And reporters to cover it.

Thousands of years ago, when a million Jews and more would gather in Jerusalem to celebrate the overthrow of Pharaoh, their spiritual celebration was also political strength.

Can we create a Pesach that will help to free TWO peoples from the bloody nightmares of the past?

Pray for the peace of Israel, pray for the peace of Ishmael, pray for the peace of all the world -- The whole world shall live in peace.

Shalom and salaam --