`I promise to do more': (Merri Minuskin speaks out on the inequalities in Israel).

As a seven-year-old in the Bronx, New York, Merri Minuskin learnt about discrimination early. `The children used to beat me up and call me a dirty Jew.' After her family moved to Queens, she discovered prejudice from the other side, as she stood up for the black students bussed into her predominantly white high school.

During the difficult years in the Bronx, her anchor was the synagogue near her grandmother's home, where her best friend's father was rabbi. `I used to go to their home for all the religious festivals, and I always had a feeling of being wrapped in a wonderful warm blanket.'

So perhaps it was not surprising that when she arrived in Israel, at the age of 17, she knew she had come home. Or that she soon found herself speaking out about the inequalities in the country.

Minuskin now teaches at the Arab teachers' training college in Beit Berl, and is head of the Middle East Division at the International Institute in the same town. The Institute runs training programmes for people from different countries and also organizes `people to people' meetings between Israelis and those of other nations and faiths.

In her peace work, Minuskin meets with people who have lost everything and are searching for inner peace. `The only way they can find this is through reaching out to the people who have hurt them most. I have sat in groups where people have screamed, yelled, released so much hate: but they still come back week after week because it is in the human spirit to forgive. I have never seen an outstretched hand turned aside in the end.'

Minuskin seized the chance of speaking in Caux to make a startling apology to the Palestinians present: `for the sorrow and loss of dignity my people in Israel have inflicted on them and for the choice to be ignorant that my people make every day. Unfortunately, there is pain and loss and unfairness on both sides, and the media--both Israeli and international--have caused much pain by misinformation or "leaving out" important information. Every morning I make a choice to make a difference. Sometimes I stop short of losing my own position, because I think too much of myself and of my own children. In front of you today, and with God as my witness, I want to promise to do more.'

The mounting violence between Israelis and Palestinians has made it harder to convince people that reconciliation is possible, Minuskin told me later. It is a struggle to raise funds for the Institute's work and to obtain permission for Palestinians from outside Israel to cross borders to take part in it. And, although she stresses that there are many people in Israel like her and that most of the money she raises for relief to Palestinians is given by Jewish people, she finds it a `tremendous struggle to convince people in Israel that we need to start working from within'.

Last year she taught a course in reconciliation to 60 Arab women. `They went through all the steps of pain and anger.' Then she invited two visitors from overseas to speak to the class. When they began, the women started to weep. When asked why, the women replied, `We're crying because when you speak we hear Merri.' They had realized for the first time that Minuskin was not just a lone voice, that peace between people was possible.

It is the same knowledge--and the support of the people she works with--which gives Minuskin the strength to carry on. `Sometimes I feel as if I am walking into a wall again and again.' But, she told the Caux conference, `It is this house, the people here, who give me the courage to continue.'