LIVINGSTON’S Path to Peace Mural

Path to Peace Project

Hi! For those who do not know me, I am Drew Kipnis and I am a Livingston, NJ native. Recently, I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah in Israel. During our time there, we were fortunate to visit a community known as Moshav Netiv HaAsara. This Moshav when first seen looks like any other community that we might have here in Livingston. However, it is not gated like ours are with people who announce your arrival. It is fully gated and locked down and surrounded by barbed wire and an actual wall. You stare up into the sky and notice balloons flying overhead and again, at first think how sweet this appears, until you realize that the balloons are look out points for Israeli soldiers to monitor what goes on in Gaza to protect all of Israel. You can see a flag flying high in Gaza that has a man’s face on it and words written in Arabic which translate to “we will revenge you.” This Moshav, which sits on the border of Gaza, is actually where the rockets were shot into just a few weeks ago. Men, women and children in a moment's notice are often told they must vacate their homes for weeks at a time. My parents pointed out to us just how fortunate we are to have to only worry about exams and which friends are in our classrooms, and not where the closest bomb shelter is. Sadly, the people of the moshav, and all of Israel, live, as do the innocent Palestinian people (not hamas and the other terrorists), with a big cement wall that is there to protect them from the constant shooting and bombing at their homes everyday. And, sadly we live in a country where children do have real threats that are so different from the threats that our parents had as children growing up.

Tsameret Zamir, a mother, a community member, and an artist all in one, decided that she couldn’t stand to stare at this wall that reminded her of hate. So instead she decided to make small clay stones to decorate the wall. From this, a mural called “The Path to Peace,” which can be seen from Gaza and Israel, and is written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English was created. Every day tons of people come there and place a stone with a prayer on it in hopes of establishing peace and promoting the issue of tolerance in a community.

In light of recent events in this town, and in general how the world has been behaving, I thought it would be great to do something like this for our community. What a great way to teach about tolerance and kindness to all and to help further unite such a strong community with a message that should be ingrained in us all. I am fundraising to collect enough money to purchase enough stones from the Path to Peace visitors center. And, at the suggestion of Tsameret, we would hope to build a mural of our own with the members of the Livingston community. We have already proposed the idea to the town council, the school board, and the superintendent. All of whom met us with equal enthusiasm to help establish such a beautiful and meaningful mural for a town such as Livingston. This mural would be a sign of how progressive, inclusive and tolerant this town can be. Please help me make this LIVINGSTON’S Path To Peace by donating to my go fund me. All proceeds will go to creating this mural and to the path to peace learning center in Israel. Thank you!! We look forward to building this together with each and everyone of you come spring time!! We will be sending periodic updates so that you can equally share in this process.

Thank you!

Peace, Shalom, Salam

Drew Kipnis