Frank Romano | Storm Over Morocco

September 6, 2009 | Comments Off

Interview with Frank Romano [12:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The newest edition of Storm Over Morocco includes an Epilogue on the author’s recent quest for spiritual peace among religions in the Middle East, notably highlighting interfaith activities in Israel and Palestine. He takes readers to the middle of the Jenin Refugee Camp where he spoke with many former prisoners of the Israeli government. The author believes that from the Jenin Refugee Camp, the heartthrob of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, will flow the river of peace that will reach the four corners of the world.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Spirituality, History, Politics, Inspiration, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, PODCAST

Eva Etzioni-Halevy | The Triumph of Deborah

September 6, 2009 | Comments Off

Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors. My first guest will be Eva Etzioni-Halevy, and she’s the author of the novel The Triumph of Deborah. The second guest on the show will be John Wareham. He’s the author of The President’s Therapist, which is a fascinating book, and it’ll be fun to talk to him. And then we have Sarah Allen Benton, the author of Understanding the High Functioning Alcoholic: Professional Views and Personal Insights. It’ll be a great show today. And without further ado, I’d like to welcome Eva Etzioni-Halevy onto the show. She’s the author of the Triumph of Deborah. Welcome to the show.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: No, thank you very much. It’s nice to be on your show.

Dr. Kent: So tell me a little about this book, The Triumph of Deborah.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: Well, it’s a story about one of the most special women in the Bible, the purpose of Deborah. She was like a sort of, like a national leader, chief justice, chief religious leader, or acting one, a very prominent woman. Maybe the most prominent woman in the Old Testament of the Bible. And this is about her and about her relationship with a warrior named Barak. Not Barac Obama, another Barak, and the novel is about, basically about their relationship and some other people who come in as well.

Dr. Kent: Well, and now women in the Bible have been famously under-represented in society, and you’ve written these three books, The Song of Hannah, The Garden of Ruth, and The Triumph of Deborah. Talk about the importance of women in the Bible and of course then in your books.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: Well as you say, they have been sort of represented as side characters, unjustly, I think, and because they’re very special women. They are strong women and each woman is different from the other. Each woman has a very important goal and has a very complex emotional makeup. And in my novel, in my three novels actually, I try to push the women into the center of the stage, to turn the spotlight on them and to hand them a sort of loudspeaker so that we can hear their words loud and clear across the generations. This is really what my novels are about, apart from being entertaining and very readable and enjoyable novels.

Dr. Kent: Well, now, when we look at The Triumph of Deborah, we’re looking at the front cover, and it’s a beautiful image of a strong woman. Is it a story about her relationships, is it a story about like you said, her sending off the warrior Barak, it’s a war story?

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: Well it’s a little bit of a war story, but more importantly it’s a love story with a twisting plot, with a lot of suspense in it. It’s based on a very intriguing story in the Bible which really, I could hardly believe it when I saw it written. Let’s cast our minds back about 3,000 years ago to ancient Israel. Israel was in deep trouble because it was threatened with destruction by the Canaanites, and this national leader Deborah, she calls Barak to come to her from a different part of the country, and she says, “You have to go out to war so save our people from this act.” And here’s where the very intriguing part comes in. He says to her, and I quote, it’s in the Bible, “If you come with me, I will go. But if you don’t come with me, I will not go.” So it’s very strange. That set the wheels of my mind turning, and I said to myself, this is 3,000 years ago and the warfare is for man, not for women at that time. And so why did he want her with him in the battlefield? And she goes with him not only to the battlefield, but to his hometown. So why did he want her in his home? What was the true motive, the true reason that he wanted her with him? And yet she was a married woman with children. So then the next question of course was well, what would the husband have to say to that? What would any husband say if his wife went off to distant parts with a handsome young man and left him to do the babysitting? So this is really what passes me off, and this is what the novel is basically about, the relationship that developed while they were away. And when they returned, and some other women come in and also those who have defeated Canaanite’s king, coming as well, and their very complex relationship, love relationship, that develops between all those people.

Dr. Kent: So what started you off in this series wanting to write these books based on the Bible, and then going deeper into these women’s lives?

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: Well it so happens that at some space in my life, rather late I must say, I started to read the Bible and I was totally fascinated. I found it to be an amazing collection of books, something very different from what I had thought. I found it to be full of the most dramatic stories about, full of he most dramatic stories about people who lived thousands of years ago. And yet they’re so close to us, so similar to us in their hopes and their anxieties and their desires. And I was just really entranced by them, and particularly by the women. I started to identify with the women. I felt as if they were part of me, and I was part of them, and I just felt totally compelled to write about them.

Dr. Kent: Well and your story is also very compelling as a woman, and as a role model. You got a PhD as well as having escaped from Europe many, many years ago. Tell me a little about how you came to writing.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: Well, by profession I’m really a sociologist, a Professor of Sociology, and now I’m a Professor of Math, just retired, and I’m a, when I had the time to write I started to do something completely different. I really consider myself a Biblical novelist, which is very unusual, and people sometimes think that it’s something very strange and very odd, which people don’t usually do. But I wanted to express myself in a different way, in a completely different area, to write. I’d written before, academic books, which were heavy and difficult to read, and I wanted to write something which is attractive and light reading, enjoyable reading, which people would not have to read for the course work, but would want to read for just for simple enjoyment.

Dr. Kent: Right.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: And this is how I came to this area.

Dr. Kent: Well, now how about coming from a family with two very strong feminists, my sister and my mother, many of their criticisms of the Bible are the sort of anti-woman sentiments that come out of the Bible What kind of, obviously this choosing of characters and lifting them up is extraordinary. What kind of other things have you confronted or run into in the Bible and re-reading it in this time in your life?

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: Well I once said that the Bible is anti-women. It certainly describes society where women did not have many rights, women lived in a male dominated society, and that was considered natural at the time. Again, taking into account that it was so, so many years ago. But the women, it’s very an interesting paradox. The women of this class is very strong willed. Women who did not just sit around and bemoan their fate and say, “Oh, we don’t have any rights.” But they went out and empowered themselves. They didn’t have any power, they took power into their own hands and they achieved things, they shaped fate to do their bidding, and they were just incredibly strong, and they can, particularly Deborah, I think, and really be a role model, a shining inspiration for modern women.

Dr. Kent: How specifically, would you say?

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: Well she, if you have feminists in your family, you probably know the expression, she broke the glass ceiling.

Dr. Kent: Yes, yes.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: As we call it today. You know, they say there’s a glass ceiling that women cannot break because they are women. And she broke the glass ceiling 3,000 years ago under difficult conditions. So of course not every modern woman wants to become a national leader, but I think what we women today can learn from Deborah is that we’re strong, we can do it, we can, whatever our area, whatever the walk of life in which we want to realize ourselves, we have this thanks to achieve what we want to achieve. She could, if she could do it so many years ago, under such difficult conditions, there’s no reason why we should not be able to do it today. So I think this is what we can learn from, particularly from Deborah, but also from other women in the Bible described in my other novels.

Dr. Kent: Well, so the book is called The Triumph of Deborah, and the other books are The Garden of Ruth and The Song of Hannah. Are you working on another?

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: I’m working on another one, it’s about a lady named Tamar. She’s the daughter of King David, and she suffered the incestuous rape of her brother. But I’m still struggling with this novel, so it’s still far from publication, but I’m certainly working hard on it, and I hope it’ll come out as good, as fascinating, a page turner, like my three written novels.

Dr. Kent: Well, wonderful. It’s been such an honor speaking to you. I’ve been speaking to Eva Etzioni-Halevey, and her book is called The Triumph of Deborah, and…

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: I just want to mention that the books and samples, Deborah and the other books, are available through bookshelves. If they’re not there they can be ordered and online, on Amazon.com and also on Barnes & Noble, particularly Amazon.com has got a very good price for The Triumph of Deborah, so I hope it will (inaudible).

Dr. Kent: Absolutely. And there’s excerpts and more on Eva’s website at evaetzionihalevy.com.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: That’s right.

Dr. Kent: It’s been an honor speaking to you.

Eva Etzioni-Halevy: And a pleasure for me. Thank you very much.

Dr. Kent: Yeah, and my next guess guest on the show is John Wareham, and he wrote a book called The President’s Therapist, and it’s a psychological thriller. We are going to be right back to speak to him. Come back for that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Spirituality, TRANSCRIPTS, History, Religion, Politics, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Inspiration, PODCAST

Darren Littlejohn, Author of The 12-Step Buddhist

May 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors! It’s Friday again today, and this is Dr. Kent. I’m excited to have three authors on the show and one musician, as always. Some great books on the show today. I’m going to speak later on in the show to Steve Knopper. He’s the author of Appetite for Self Destruction, that’s a great book about the crash of the record industry these days. Later on in the show, At Face Value, by Terry Healey, an incredible memoir. At the end of this show is a group called Likeness to Lily, and Susan Oetgen from that group. We’re going to listen some of the music and chat with her. Without further ado, at the beginning of this show I’ve got a fellow on named Darren Littlejohn, and he’s written a book called The 12-Step Buddhist: Enhance Recovery from Any Addition. Welcome to the show, Darren.

Darren Littlejohn: Hi. Thanks very much for having me, pleasure to be here today.

Dr. Kent: So give us all a nutshell of this book.

Darren Littlejohn: This book is about deepening recovery for anyone who is either involved in a 12-step program, or wouldn’t be involved in a 12-step program because they’re afraid of the Judeo-Christian religiosity. It’s for anybody who knows an addict, anybody who treats addicts, anybody who’s suffering from any kind of attachment related (inaudible), and it’s applicable to what Buddha said, “All beings who suffer.” So we’ve combined the 12-steps, which are about attachment gone wild, and Buddhist terminology attachment is one of the root causes of our suffering, but in the addict it’s way out of control. So we try to get sober and get free of our attachment in the extreme form with the 12-steps. This really illuminates the Buddhist path because this is, after all, what the Buddha taught. This is hard to see if you’re, it’s easier to see, I should say, if you’re an addict already. So the two paths have a way of really complimenting each other and illuminating the nooks and crannies where it might otherwise be a little difficult to see.

Dr. Kent: Tell me a little bit about, to the non 12-step person, and to the non-Buddhist, give us some introductions into those two different worlds.

Darren Littlejohn: For the non-addict, everybody, of course we go from the Buddhist perspective. So everybody, according to the Buddhist teachings, suffers from not getting what we want and thinking that whatever it is that’s going to make us happy is really what we call I Buddhism the inherent cause of happiness. So in other words, one of my teachers always uses the reference of chocolate cake. And if chocolate cake were the cause of happiness, I would simply back up a truckload to my front porch, have an unlimited supply of chocolate cake, and obviously we know that that’s ridiculous. After your second piece you’re sick. So chocolate causes a temporary happiness. But then if we have too much of it, it becomes the cause of suffering. So for the non-addict, even if you’re not a food addict, we can look at these examples in our own life. Anything that we think is going to make us happy: more money, better job, better house, (inaudible), things along those lines. We start to examine this and see that, hey wait a minute, what I thought was going to make me happy is not really the source of true happiness, any way you look at it. And for the non-Buddhist, those terms are what work best, just looking at the three types of common known Buddhism, which are attachment, aversion, which is, when we don’t get what we’re attached to, we simply turn that around into something we don’t want and have an aversion towards entering. In 12-step terms we get a big resentment over it. So you don’t have to be a Buddhist to really understand attachment, and the fact that what we think we want is not in the long run every enough to make us permanently happy. As a matter of fact, most people don’t even believe that total, absolute happiness is possible. Most people don’t believe that ending suffering is possible. So all beings suffer according to Buddha. That’s the first simple truth. Life is suffering, it’s not a negative, it’s an observation. What it means is basically what I’ve just described. What we think makes us happy in the long run really doesn’t, so there’s something more, maybe something on a spiritual plane. That’s basically what the chapter’s about.

Dr. Kent: And describe for us also, many of us know the 12-step program. I have many family members who have gone through it, but it is deeply Christian most of the time. Talk about what inspired you to, clearly it’s coming from something personal in you. But what inspired you to do the 12-Step Buddhist? It makes a lot of sense, and I know that, for example, Native Americans use some of the 12-step processes with their own religion. Where did you get this idea?

Darren Littlejohn: I started in the 12-steps in 1984, and I had a sobriety period of ten years. During that period I moved through the various (inaudible), and metaphysical Christianity, the science of mind, all of these types of positive thinking, and could really very much have Judeo-Christian Creator God monarcheistic based philosophies, which were really well suited to 12-step recovery. Then I got into mediation pretty seriously, after a few years in recovery. I found myself in a spot, after a few years of sitting, staring at a blank wall, I was practicing Zen Buddhism, I found myself in a spot where what I saw really wasn’t improving. What I was looking at, as I followed that path and noticed my body, labeled my thoughts, after years and years of that with therapy and 12-step recovery, and education and psychology and so forth. I found myself in a really dark, depressed place, and I didn’t want to look anymore, it wasn’t looking too good. I couldn’t really get past that block. The concept of praying to something that was going to fix me, or putting responsibility for my life outside of myself. Even though I was willing to surrender and willing to follow the steps and principles, I never really felt that that task really amounted to much, I terms of un-enduring happiness. So after all this week, after ten years of sobriety, all kinds of zen mediataion therapy and everything else, I found myself in a place that was dark enough for me, that I made the choice to go back and try the various substances of my addiction again. So when I came back, because that doesn’t work, because the disease is incurable, the disease doesn’t go away with abstinence It actually continues and sort of deepens. So when I came back in 1997 I had to re-examine everything that I’d ever thought about before, and I got very much a good vibe again in 12-step recovery and zen Buddhism, and psychotherapy, but it wasn’t I found the teachings in Tibetan Buddhim. Which really explained a lot, and it went into a lot of detail of various types of methods and visualizations and practices that went hand in hand with the 12-steps. So that inspired me to continue my spiritual path and to really stay involved in both the 12-steps and in Buddhism. But I found that the problem I had is that in the 12-step program most people settle for just as much spirituality as is necessary to get sober through the day. Most people aren’t capable of a real, super deep seekers are looking with a real spiritual (inaudible). Some are, maybe not to a degree, but the people who are super into it are few and far between. And those are the people who really stand out and become sort of legendary in the 12-step treatment community. In the Buddhist community I found that I was sort of an addict… when an addict speaks, particularly from the disclosure that we use in 12-step rooms, we basically tell anybody anything, we air those feelings, whether or not its appropriate, until you learn better. But we really learn how to kind of be raw and truthful, and after many years of that, it’s pretty hard to tone down. So, finding myself being in the Buddhist groups, sharing, or having relationships or communications with teachers and so forth, it’s really kind of awkward. Then I thought it was a bit odd that I would be so honest. “Wow, that’s such a wise thing.” I’d say, “Oh, that’s not wise, I heard it in a meeting.” So I really had to learn instead of doing one or the other, instead of graduating from the 12-steps and finding a better, spiritual path, which leads to more disease and relapse, at least it did in my case, and in the case of many others. Instead of choosing this or that, I had to learn how to do both and find the similarities. What we talk about in 12-step meetings is (inaudible) the difference is. I found so many profound similarities between the 12-steps and Buddhism that I started blogging about it and eventually got a lot of feedback, people really enjoyed the writing. I decided to put those thoughts together, and came up with a lot of methods for the book after I started working on it. I found that there is actually a lot more than I even, I really think I just scratched the surface in the book, to be honest with you. Even though there’s a ton of chapters, and most people are finding it to be pretty dense work to get through it. I feel like there’s actually a lot more to be said on the topic.

Dr. Ken: Well, it’s so fascinating. Let’s talk about the issue of Buddhism. It’s a very accepting religion. I had a fellow on the show about a year ago who wrote one of the Dummies guides on Buddhism, and he sort of explained a lot of it. It’s a fascinating and very accepting religion, whereas Christianity isn’t necessarily all that much. Talk to that a bit.

Darren Littlejohn: I have kind of a saying I made up here, don’t throw the Buddha out with the bathwater. You can look into the deep teachings of Jesus through the Sermon on the Mount, for example, and you can see, for example, teachings on karma if you just take the principle of we reap what we sow. If you really take that principle and you look at karma and you look at Buddhism you can see that we’re talking about the same thing. However, people hear what they want to hear, people take the message and turn it into whatever they want. So I don’t discount the teachings of Christ on any level. As a matter of fact, many Buddhists feel that Jesus was a Bodisapha, or a very highly developed practitioner, maybe a Buddha, the completely awakened one. So there’s really no discounting of the teachings, but the way people behave is a little bit flighty there. There’s some room for improvement in a lot of it. And even Jesus said, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine,” and what I think he meant by that was if people aren’t really ready for the truth, try to give them what they can handle. Give them the teachings that they can deal with. You can even see there’s some Buddhism in the very beginning of what was recorded orally, and later written down, from what Buddha taught, was one type of system. That later evolved into other types of systems, which were much more advanced, much faster paths, and not everybody’s ready for that kind of thing. Some of us, for example, I would say, we just need to keep our mouths shut and not cause any harm to anybody else, and that’s enough of a spiritual practice. For others of us, we can get involved with other types of practice, which actually start to utilize some of the energy that we have, and to work with the breath and visualizations and so forth, and actually instead of repressing anger completely and shutting it off, you really start to kind of use the energy to try to assimilate that, and integrate that into our daily life. So Buddhism to me is really more of a mind science, and a massive system of methods, which are available to help transform the sufferer into one who is completely awakened and free from all suffering, just like the Buddha. Within that framework, there are fundamentalists in Buddhism. There are fundamentalists in Christianity. So I think that if you really use the teachings of Jesus, you’re not so far off from the teachings of Buddha. I wouldn’t say that they’re completely the same, and there are philosophers out there who talk about the similarities and differences, but who are the people that you want to associate with, and how are they living their lives? That becomes a different conversation. This is the same in the 12-step community, for example, we have a saying, stick with the winners. So when a newcomer walks in there, just coming off the street and detoxing from crack or oxycotin, or something really bad, and we tell them here’s what you do, find those people who have what you want in recovery, and go ahead and stick with them. And that really works to a high degree for many people. However, depending on the group that you’re involved in, and that location in the country that you’re at, and the individual who happens to be the one that who touches you or that you connect with, you might get involved with some really sick people. There are sick people in the 12-step community, that’s why we’re all there. We say, it’s a good thing we’re not all sick on the same day, luckily. But again, within the 12-step community you will also find fundamentalists who are really kind of fascist and militant about their value system. I’ll give you an example of that. In the AA literature it says we realize, we know, and we have been told, when it comes to prayer and meditation and things like that, the world’s diverse and full, go find them. We’re going to talk about matters medical, (inaudible) and religious. I went to a meeting not too long ago, on Thanksgiving, and there was a guy slamming his hand on the table saying, “This is the only book I read, and the only book I’ll ever need.” And I was just wondering if you read the part in that book that said go read other books. So we don’t want to throw the Buddha out with the bathwater, we don’t want to throw the teachings of Jesus or Buddha or the 12-steps out, because some people, out of their own fear, stick to a rigid viewpoint, to the point where they feel that they’ve got to impose those belief systems on others. The 12-steps is supposed to be free and open for us to have a higher power of our own conception, but many, many people feel that it’s very Judeo-Christian oriented, and that if you don’t come along with the group thing, that you’re not welcome, and they don’t feel comfortable. And that’s what I like about the audience that I’m trying to address with my book, The 12-Step Buddhist.

Dr. Kent: Well, it’s been a fascinating discussion. I could keep talking with you all day, but I have to get to my next guest. I’d love to have you on again and talk more about this. It’s so deep. The book is called The 12-Step Buddhist: Enhance Recovery from Any Addiction. There’s a lot more specifics that I wanted to get into and we didn’t have time for, but there’s some real plans in this thing, and it’s a useful book for a lot of people. Where can we find out more online?

Darren Littlejohn: At the12stepbuddhist.com. I’ve got podcasts, daily tips, some blogs, all kinds of resources and other information on there. And you can order a signed copy of the book right from the website.

Dr. Kent: Well thank you so much for chatting with us.

Darren Littlejohn: Thanks for having me, I’d love to talk to you again sometime.

Dr. Kent: The 12-Step Buddhist: Enhance Recovery from Any Addiction, by Darren Littlejohn. It’s got a foreword by Robert Thurman. Go out and pick that up, it’s a gorgeous book, and some pretty amazing content for all of us. Most of us know someone going through the recovery process, pick up a copy of this book and go to the12stepbuddhist.com also, or Google Darren Littlejohn. My next guest on the show is going to be a very exciting one again. This is a good show today, and Steve Knopper is the author of Appetite for Self Destruction, and we’re going to talk about the record industry and how it’s having trouble here in the digital age. So come on back to that.

Posted by admin | Filed Under Medicine, Motivation, History, Health, TRANSCRIPTS, Spirituality, AUTHOR INTERVIEW, Inspiration, Religion, PODCAST

Dr. Allan Hamilton | Spirituality & Medicine

March 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Interview with Dr. Allan Hamilton | The Scalpel & The Soul [14:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I enjoyed speaking with Dr. Allan Hamilton immensely, about spirituality and medicine — two topics not often mixed in polite company!

Frank Romano | Author of Storm Over Morocco

March 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment

Dr. Kent: Welcome to Sound Authors! It’s a beautiful day out here in New York, there’s still snow on the ground and I’ve got four guests on the show today, three authors and one musician. At the end of the show it’s my honor to have musician Sara Lee Guthrie on the show with me, the daughter of Arlo Guthrie and the granddaughter of Woody Guthrie. Before that, I’ve got three authors and my third author will be the author of The President’s Henchmen; Joseph Flynn. I’ll be speaking to the author of No Urn for the Ashes – Alison Sawyer, a beautiful story and right now I’m speaking to my first guest, his name is Frank Romano, the author of Storm Over Morocco. He’s written an incredible book that is placed in an area we’re thinking about all the time these days. There’s been some serious unrest in the middle east and when hasn’t there been, honestly. So welcome to the show Frank Romano.

Frank Romano: Hi Dr. Kent, glad to be here.

Dr. Kent: Tell me a little bit about Storm Over Morocco.

Frank Romano: I was studying in 1977 at the Sorbonne in Paris trying to find myself and studying philosophy and had sort of a vision that if I traveled to the middle east maybe on the way I would find myself, find out what my spirituality was and maybe help in the peace process. So I just took a train and went down to northern Africa. Started out from morocco and was going to head out across Africa and then Dr. Kent, I decided that I would learn about Islam before I got there because that’s one of my goals. So I was invited, I met this group that invited me to learn about Islam in their mosque and learn Arabic as well and after a week of doing that, I was no longer free to go. They had me imprisoned and it turned out to be an extremist group there on the outskirts of Sri Lanka.

Dr. Kent: I’ve always wanted to go to morocco. I don’t know if you know but I’ve actually been in the Middle East for awhile, I lived in Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Frank Romano: Oh really? Great, so you know about the area, good.

Dr. Kent: Oh yes and I try not to read the news about each day’s bloodshed and this and that. But now talk about I wanted to go to morocco on vacation but now you ended up in I guess the cradle of the Middle East in the holy land. Talk about the conflict there as well.

Frank Romano: Yeah Dr. Kent I just got back as a matter of fact and my goal is to bring together different religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, but in particular the three main religions that believe in one God. I organize interfaith teach marches and I just got back yesterday from a ten day visit to Bethlehem. Of course I visited Jerusalem one day but I’m focusing on involving the Palestinians since it’s hard for them to get through the checkpoints and stuff in Jerusalem to participate in a myriad of groups that are doing things for peace, serious groups in Israel except they can’t get in there. I go to Palestine and I’m trying to just contribute in my own little way to bring people together and start thinking about working together.

Dr. Kent: What’s your take on the whole situation right now?

Frank Romano: Well for one thing people have a tendency of putting Gaza in the same basket as the west bank and we’ve got two different places. In other words we are organizing now to go into Gaza and do the same thing for sure. Do the peace march and of course bring in medicine and so forth because it’s difficult right now. My take is this, I really feel, as opposed to a lot of people, a lot of Palestinians, have no hope, they don’t think they’re ever going to settle the crisis, there’s always going to be conflict, and they’ll never have their auto determination with respect to a country having their own country.

So my take is this, there is a chance for peace and a lot of people are talking about ways of doing it and helping people financially but the bottom line is we got to get over there and start working with these people and I wrote Storm Over Morocco version and I added a last chapter of a meeting I had with extremist militant Muslims in the Jeanine Refugee Camp, which is suicide bombing derived and the suicide bombing that took place in Jerusalem came from there, and from Hebron to talk with extremists first and even those folks really want to work with Israel, I mean sincerely and if we can get beyond the hate and knee jerk stereotypes that one person of one religion has of other people.

For instance an extremist Muslim might think that a Jew because he’s a Jew is an agent of the devil because they don’t understand what Judaism is about. So my goal Dr. Kent is not a political goal, bring people together to work together for peace but take religion out of the conflict. That’s my take.

Dr. Kent: Absolutely. The work I did quite a while ago, I’ll tell you in a nutshell. I work for an organization called Seeds of Peace for a few years.

Frank Romano: I’ve heard of them, yes!

Dr. Kent: Then I created a curriculum called Sound Peace and I actually was in a very similar way hoping to bring kids together in a musical way and talk about the conflict and then all of the fighting started. It was a very hopeful time when I went over there, it was the year 2000. I was there when all the fighting broke out again in the autumn of 2000.

Frank Romano: That was the second [inaudible] that you were there?

Dr. Kent: Since then it hasn’t stopped and now with this incursion into Gaza that was just breathtakingly awful in terms of the toll on human life. Is there hope over there?

Frank Romano: You know Dr. Kent there is hope and I spoke with a Shake in Jerusalem, a Sufi Shake whose daughter just got married five months before the conflict broke out and now she’s stuck in Gaza and can’t get out. A lot of people are pointing the finger at Israel, others are pointing the finger at Hamas, I believe that when they can both sit down with the help of the US and realize mistakes because both sides have committed errors. People are now pointing fingers in particular at Israel and yeah they had to react against the missiles being shot into their land. But the Hamas I think on their end of it were provoking this attack as well.

So I do see there’s a lot of serious minded people, lots of effort to work with both sides, haven’t given up, even though yes it has intensified. I think with the new administration it seems to be open on both sides of the fence through the delicate negotiations and bringing in these groups there’s a lot of angiose over there, which is the types of group you were. Seeds of Peace work with people that are members of it and the music thing you did probably would include Jews and Palestinians together to play music. These groups are starting to crop up again.

In spite of the conflict, the bottom line is the very difficult part is people will not go into the west bank and its difficult to get in and out of Gaza but that should evolve. I think people should go into the west bank and see that the Palestinians are not just frothing at the mouth bloody terrorists. Most Palestinians want peace and work with them as well as the Jews. I’ll tell you I’ve met Jewish soldiers on the checkpoints and they’ve got a bad rap. They’re always a minority that commits atrocities in every army and every altercation but those young Jewish soldiers want peace as much as anybody does and I spoke with them and they would rather not be at the checkpoints. If somehow Israel can feel that their borders are secure. Some people say it’s a two state solution; I’m not sure, but you know what? There is a lot of positive vibe happening but I’m going over there three to four times a year trying to coordinate all these groups working on both sides of the fence. I think peace can happen with just good old fashioned hard work and working with people. I really believe that.

Dr. Kent: It’s such a fascinating topic. There’s so much depth to it and at the same time it’s been about nine years since I’ve been over there but not much changes at the same time. It’s perpetually the same situations over and over. The first thing that they say when you show up is what are you? And you have to identify yourself; are you a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew and once you identify yourself the amazing thing about the Palestinians or the Israelis is I was able to identify and fit with both, like you say you do. They’re great people.

Frank Romano: I’m going to add another chapter to Storm Over Morocco 3 about just that. Three days ago I met an angio in Bethlehem and there are many Jews working there. they’ve been warned to not even go to the west bank but they’re not being held hostage or being held and they’re working not just blindly on the side of the Palestinians, they’re working for peace and I really feel hopeful but with concerted efforts and hopefully the news will come down. Often the news is filtered from Israel and the US and they pull the fear string so that it will mobilize people to focus on the aggression coming from Palestine as opposed to the true problem.

The state of Israel is in danger here. Why do I feel that? Well first of all they had to fight. The mandate in 48 wasn’t just giving a part of land to form a state of Israel, they had to fight for it but now as human beings, as Jews are, just like Palestinians, they’ve gone overboard in the settlements and religion is very much a part of it. The settlements in the west bank are mainly inhabited by Jews who feel it’s their duty and obligation to be in the west bank. But the religious interpretation of the Torah, which I think is a misinterpretation, so there’s all kinds of religious elements here that working with people, getting beyond whether you’re a Jew or Muslim you hit the nail right on the head; that’s the solution.

Now Jews have conflicted with each other as Agnostic Jews and Cathartic Jews and many Jews now have moved beyond that. Why not now Jews and Palestinians? The Jews just say I’m Jewish, not I’m a cathartic Jew, I’m not an agnostic Jew in Jerusalem and there was tension between the two types of Jews and they’ve gotten over that. I think we can do the same thing with respect to Palestinians. Instead of having a two state solution we could say we are human beings living in the holy land inst4ead of polarizing into different religious and political groups. That’s what causes tension.

So my work is bringing people together to love each other but dig in there and bond together by doing stuff together. Palestinians, Jews and Christians in that particular area, and its going to happen, we’re going to have peace. It may not be in our lifetime, but we’re planting the seeds now and I feel positive it’s going to happen, I really do.

Dr. Kent: It’s been a real honor chatting with you and I’d like to talk with you another time, we’ve run out of time today but we had such a nice chat we’ll have to hook up again down the road.

Frank Romano: You bet! Anytime Dr. Kent.

Dr. Kent: Storm Over Morocco: Finding God in the Midst of Fanatics, by Frank Romano. I can’t wait till the next time.

Frank Romano: Thank you very much doctor.

Dr. Kent: I’ll be back with our next guest on the show who is Alison sawyer who wrote a book called No Urn for the Ashes. Come on back for that.

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