An introduction to Tamera

I am almost 95 and learning about Blogs. This is my first venture, and I’m just back with members of my family from Portugal, where I first took an online course and then last summer (2019) participated in an introductory week seminar on global healing. Some of you may know me to have experienced Kristallnacht in 1938, after which my parents put me on a Kindertransport (children’s train to England). It wasn’t until 1995, when I was 70, that my wife and I returned to visit where I was born. This experience was an attempt at reconciliation from the German government. Thus began my process of healing and my willingness (for the FIRST time) to share my story with my children and colleagues. A few years later, I felt I had benefitted from the reconciliation experience, and we were offered the opportunity to go back with my whole family. We were also provided the chance to become German citizens (and citizens of the European Union). In my second reconciliation visit, we lived with a German family (the husband was a headmaster of a gymnasium and his wife was the director of a particular education school). We were introduced to the village in which they lived and used it as “headquarters” to visit: Nuremberg, where I was born; Kitzingen am Main, where my father was born; and Bamberg, where my mother was born. 

Before we took this trip, I discussed the plans with my whole family to gain both their interest and approval for undertaking such a venture. I wanted them to understand, as much as possible, what it was like to be a Jew who was persecuted and survive. I came to learn that to protect my children, grandchildren, and generations from coming, many attempts had been made to create peaceful communities that researched global healing. I discovered Tamera, in southern Portugal, a community that has spent over fifty years living together and building a community that practices peace from many different angles. There are four ingredients that they have found are necessary: #1 Trust, #2 Community, #3 subsistence living, and #4 Love. Again, members of my family and I traveled to Tamera to participate and live in the community for nine days. The experience highlighted how difficult it is to start and practice living peacefully. I’m sure; if you think about healing an injury, you are used to placing a band-aid over the cut. It is a simple first step; you must begin and learn by doing then see what the outcome is for peace. One must carefully examine the environment where the peaceful community is being practiced. What are the climatic conditions? What kinds of biological life are there?