In the Judean Hills, 2003
With Ibrahim and Father Max Mizzi in Dublin, 2002
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In the Judean Hills, 2003 With Ibrahim and Father Max Mizzi in Dublin, 2002 |
"When I returned to Berkeley in 1991, I got involved with the Aquarian Minyan of Jewish Renewal, and at the same time with Habad. Habad sent me to learn in yeshiva in Crown Heights.
"I came back to Israel in 1994 and worked as a goat herder in Moshav Yavniel in the north. Those goats helped me return to Jewish practice more than any time I spent in yeshiva. I could appreciate that the practices of Judaism were deeply connected to the Land.
"Part of my becoming more observant was undergoing circumcision when I was 25 years old. As I became more observant, I started engaging in intimate dialogue both with extremist Moslems and pacifist Sufis."
In 1997, the organization Interns for Peace sent McLean back to Israel. He went to live in Tamra, an Arab village in the Galilee, training to become a professional in the field of Arab-Jewish co-existence, where he worked in local high-schools, bringing together Jewish and Arab students for encounter sessions.
Since that time, McLean has met with many Sufi sheikhs and imams. He has also met with many rabbis and teachers of Judaism, including Rabbi Yitzhak Bar-De'ah, Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Ramat Gan, and Rabbi David Broderman, Chief Rabbi of Savyon.
He has traveled extensively, speaking at the UNESCO Conference on Inter-religious dialogue on Culture and Peace, in Tashkent, and for the Israel Interfaith Association at a conference in Pedoulas in Greek Cyprus.
He traveled with Sheikh Khalil Elbaz to the Peace Maker gathering held at Auschwitz, bearing witness together with Germans, Poles and Holocaust survivors. "The Sheikh broke down in tears when we came to the site of the Selections," McLean remembers.