Mariella

Mariella is a Jerusalem mosaic shaped within the stone walls of the Old City. Her grandfather fled the Armenian Holocaust and established life out of the ashes. Her mother, a Christian Arab woman from Beit Sahour, brought with her solid roots in the earth. As a child she loved history, dreamed of dancing, trips, and adventures, but the reality of life at home didn't leave much room for dreams. From a young age she worked at every job she could find to help her parents. In their small, crowded home, she would organize a life worth living. As a minority within a minority, between the sound of church bells and the muezzin's call, between the four quarters that became the rooms of her heart, four languages roll off her tongue: Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, and English. How unfortunate that not all of them are welcomed everywhere. She understands the fear, knows the reality, and yet her heart contracts anew every time looks are turned toward her when she speaks Arabic, for example.

"It is truly sad the way people look. You can feel the tension especially when starting to speak, and then people look at you in a strange way, like, 'Are you Arab?'"

Specifically the languages that raise suspicion in the streets become for her a tool of healing. Specifically the words that distance others become for her a point of connection. A bridge between worlds, cultures, and people who seem to have no common language. It is natural for her to be part of a diverse team, sitting together without judgment, trying to understand how to truly help everyone, even if the road is long. At the Peles Center she meets this complexity daily, and acts within it quietly, persistently, out of deep listening. If she could, she would change prejudices, the scrutinizing look, the fear hiding behind it. She would want people to see each other through human eyes: a mother, a father, a person, a neighbor.

"It is very special to sit with a person and understand their story."

These are the eyes through which she looks at people. They enter with a heavy load and she tilts an ear, gathering details. Almost intuitively she seeks to organize with them the puzzle pieces of their lives, to help them get organized. As she did all her childhood. They enter with hardship and leave with one small word: "Thank you," which reminds her how much power each of us has to give, even from the little we have. Every person in her eyes is like a Jerusalem alley with a familiar side and a surprising side. Each of them teaches her to leave her heart, with all its quarters, open.

"There are people who face great difficulties and still hold onto hope, still give a kind of smile, and I try to learn from them how to encourage them, and how to tell them they are doing a wonderful job with everything they deal with."

One woman in particular left her mark on her: a woman with a smile larger than life itself and with a serenity that overcomes hardship. Steadfast for her children, maintaining constant positivity, not complaining, only saying: "Thank God, we succeeded today." Enumerating every good thing that happened to her, small or large. Mariella too thanks God. In her faith she finds healing, direction, and serenity. Not looking back and not chasing the future, but being within today, dealing with whatever comes, searching for a solution in every situation, believing as she says: there is always a way, a solution, an outcome.

Mariella dreams of traveling the world, seeing distant countries, discovering new landscapes, breaking routine. She doesn't know when it will happen, but she is certain: Jerusalem itself is an entire world. A microcosm of beauty and hardship, of healing and fracture, of faith and struggle. The beating heart of the world, in whose rooms one can find everything: cultures, nations, languages, and prayers. A human mosaic that continues to develop and be built.

"Its important not to stay stuck in place, but to always believe that there is a way out of it"