SUBIACO — Human rights activist and Subiaco Academy teacher Kyle Kordsmeier has spent three summers working with Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups in Israel’s West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip. He discerned his vocation through multicultural experiences.
“I took a social justice class in Subiaco Academy as a sophomore,” said Kordsmeier, a 2002 graduate, “but what really opened my eyes to the whole world was meeting so many different people from so many different cultures. Subiaco’s an oasis — it’s really unique.”
As a sophomore philosophy and religion major at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Kordsmeier saw a film on Israel and Palestine and realized that he really needed to work for peace and social justice there. His neighbor, Arun Gandhi, grandson of Indian leader Mohandas K. Gandhi and director of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-Violence in Memphis, encouraged him.
Kordsmeier, 23, took his first summer trip for four weeks to Israel in 2004.
“When I arrived in Israel with a few friends, I was greeted by Rush Shalom, an Israeli human rights group,” he said. “They helped us to get to parts of the West Bank and showed us how we could help the Palestinians.”
He emphasized that many Israelis and Palestinians believe that the road to peace in Israel must begin with an end to the occupation of Palestinian territory.
“I’m trying to change the image of the human rights workers,” he said. “Our stance is really pro-Israel. We believe Israel has the right to exist within its own borders, but we believe and know that the occupation and human rights abuses of the Palestinians are the cause of the sporadic terror attacks within their country.”
Living with the Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Kordsmeier said he saw how difficult their situation was.
“Palestinians must pass through numerous checkpoints, waiting on long lines, to go short distances,” he said. “It can take two hours for people to travel 6 or 7 miles. Israeli settlers block the roads to try to prevent Palestinian children from going to school. At checkpoints, the Palestinians are harassed and belittled by the Israeli soldiers. They even hold up ambulances with critically ill passengers.”
On Fridays, after Muslim Sabbath services, Palestinians in Hebron go to the Wall, built in 2002 after the intifada, to engage in peaceful demonstrations. Israeli soldiers often throw sound grenades at the crowd, arresting and beating some of the demonstrators.
“We’d work with children in the refugee camps,” Kordsmeier said. “We played improv games and let them do some role-playing. We’d accompany them to school and help them get through the checkpoints.” The human rights workers monitored the checkpoints throughout the day, trying to get the Israelis to move things along when they were at a standstill.
Conditions in the Gaza Strip were even worse.
“I only made it to Gaza for three days,” Kordsmeier said. “Every day Israeli warplanes fly over Gaza and cause sonic booms. Windows shatter twice a day. Sixteen year olds are losing their hair because hunger and malnutrition are so prevalent. People live in half bombed-out houses. During the intifada, 12,000 Palestinian homes in Gaza were destroyed.”
On Aug. 1, 2006, Kordsmeier participated in a peaceful demonstration outside the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem, holding up signs protesting the violence in Lebanon and singing in several languages. Israeli police came in cars, vans and on horses to break up the demonstration. When Kordsmeier’s friend Qusay was arrested, beaten, handcuffed and sprayed with pepper spray, Kordsmeier tried to intervene and was beaten with fists and batons.
After the police released a sound grenade into the crowd, they brought in Kordsmeier and other human rights workers for four hours of interrogation, abuse, humiliation and strip searches. Although he and the other human rights workers were released, he was met at the airport while waiting for his return flight, deported and banned from re-entering Israel for 10 years.
“That type of abuse is normal, everyday life for Palestinians,” Kordsmeier said.
Fortunately, he suffered no internal injuries or broken bones, but he was severely bruised.
Kordsmeier, who grew up attending Holy Cross Church in Crossett, was able to start a new job several weeks later in August 2006 as an instructor at Subiaco Academy, teaching Scripture, world religions, Spanish and drama and coaching baseball and tennis. When he has a rare day off, he travels around Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Missouri to share his story.
This summer, he plans to visit Colombia and work with indigenous human rights workers to help local farmers keep their lands. In Colombia, he said, it is common for land to be privatized and taken by corporations looking for natural resources.
“Someday I want to work in human rights work and advocacy full-time,” Kordsmeier said.
But for now, he said he is happy to be working in the multicultural Benedictine community at Subiaco Abbey, where students from 10 different countries show him that, in an atmosphere where people are committed to God, values and human dignity, peace can be a reality.
