By Marat Shpolyansky
 
Hello All Friends, Classmates, Israelis, Americans, Germans, and Masters:
 
I've taken my sweet little time posting an email to all of you for the simple reason that my spirit shudders at the thought of trying to finalize this amazing trip. In some way, I just wish that it would go on. I wish that the electricity of our small group would connect each of us like a giant lightening bolt, energizing our lives and our individual projects.

For those that want to know what my experience in Israel was like should refer to the blog that I am updating weekly at, wanderingjewdiatribes.blogspot.com. This email is really more about thanks and appreciation than about some synopsis of a life changing experience.

Sitting here, back in the relative safety of my Disney office, I can't help but keep a constant vigil on the news agencies coverage of the events unfolding in Israel. It pains me and worries me.
 
I can't seem to put words to the concern and frustration I am feeling and I am a world away from it, whereas many of you are there in the middle of it.

Each of you has left an indelible mark on my life, whether we became friends or simply spent time together cloistered in the Cinemateque discussing the one topic that unites all of us and brings out the passion in our convictions.Each of you, crept slowly under my skin and found a permanent spot, which will always remain in some way yours.

We have all returned back to our worlds, we have all taken our places on our own individual stages but each of us has been directed on that stage whether by the Masters or by each other to find new meanings, to open new horizons, to explore, discuss, engage, thrill and captivate.

I feel a little as though I were dropped into a test tube with a few dozen other catalysts and allowed to react. What went in is no longer what came out.I don't know if any of you have had that same experience but I sense the change thousands of miles away.
 
I hope that each of us finds that pot of gold at the end of our personal rainbows. I hope that in this mad world in which we sometimes feel powerless, each of us has the strength to rise to the occasion, to inform and provoke through our work, to change stagnant ways of seeing and thinking, so bridge barriers of language and ideology, to truly find our spot on that greatest of stages - LIFE.
 
I look forward to seeing each of you again in the future, wherever in the world that may be. For now, my home is always open back here in sunny Los Angeles. For all those that gave me scripts and short films; I am looking at all of them and reading them. I promise to respond to each of you individually. I should have all my photographs by this weekend and then will put up a site where they can be viewed and downloaded. As for the video footage, I am looking at all of it and will try to figure out how to arrange it in some coherent manner (there are about 4 hours worth). We will enjoy it together at some later point.
 
Peace, Safety, Respect,
Next Year in Jerusalem,