Eliyahu with Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari, 2004
Eliyahu with Ibrahim at Stonehenge, 2002
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Eliyahu with Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari, 2004 Eliyahu with Ibrahim at Stonehenge, 2002 |
In 1987, McLean came to the one-year Young Judea Program at Beit Riklis, on the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus. He spent part of that year living on Kibbutz Gadot in the Galilee, and with an Israeli family on Moshav Liman.
On his return to the University of California at Berkeley in 1988, he became involved in pro-Israel activities, the Israel Action Committee and at the same time started his bridge-building efforts on campus with the Moslem and Arab students.
He returned to Israel in 1990 for a year at Hebrew University, but when his program was canceled because of the Gulf War in January 1991, and despite his great disillusionment at this time with secular Zionism, McLean stayed.
He found a job with Palestinian Moslem construction workers building Jerusalem City Hall on Jaffa Road, living on the site. After his day's work, he would go to the Jewish Quarter in the Old City, a short walk away, to study with Rabbi David Aaron in the Isralite Institute, thereby deepening his spiritual search.
That search continued when he traveled to Egypt for two months and met a West African Sufi who became his spiritual study partner. They taught each other the inner dimensions of Judaism and Islam and McLean went deeply into Islamic practice.
However, on his return to Jerusalem, McLean found that his Egyptian sojourn and entry into Islam was but a stepping-stone in his return to and deepening commitment to Judaism.
A turning point for him was living on Moshav Me'or Modiin where he was embraced by a community of deeply committed and colorful English-speaking immigrants.