For hundreds of years, seders have concluded with the words: “Next year in Jerusalem.”

Jerusalem. A name that means city of peace, integrity, wholeness.

Jerusalem. A city of walls, ancient and new. Walls of misunderstanding, hatred, and violence between religious and secular, Jew and Arab, woman and man.

Jerusalem, what is our hope for your rebuilding?

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Poem: An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion

by Yehuda Amichai

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion

And on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy.

An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father

Both in their temporary failure.

Our two voices met above

The Sultan's Pool in the valley between us.

Neither of us wants the boy or the goat
To get caught in the wheels
Of the "Had Gadya" machine.

Afterward we found them among the bushes,

And our voices came back inside us

Laughing and crying.
Searching for a goat or for a child has always been
The beginning of a new religion in these mountains.

Source: Yehuda Amichai: Poems of Jerusalem and Love Poems