Some 30 Catholic educators from the United States found themselves in the line of fire in northern Israel as the recent crisis between Israel and Lebanon began, but several said it gave them a new perspective on the Middle East.

Despite the flare-up on Israel's northern border with Lebanon, the educators decided to travel to Israel as planned as part of the Anti-Defamation League's Advance Bearing Witness program, designed to give educators an opportunity to gain firsthand knowledge of Israel against the backdrop of Jewish history, the Holocaust and Catholic-Jewish relations.

The group was traveling in the north and was to spend the evening of July 14 in Tzfat when word came that Katyusha rockets had fallen on the city. In the days that followed, Katyushas also fell on Tiberias one hour before the group was scheduled to go there.

"It was a surreal feeling. For us as Americans, it is so outside of our experience, aside from 9/11, which was a paradigm shift for us," said Pat Sykora, a religious studies teacher at Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, Calif. "We hadn't expected to be in the middle of a war zone."

She said she was fearful at first, but that there had been an "odd sort of peace in the midst of it all."

"As we listen to the people of Israel, we hear in their voices that life must go on in spite of the fear which surrounds the area on a regular basis," Sykora said. "It was very powerful for me.

"It is not easy to be in that situation when you are surrounded by people (who are your enemies)," she said. "We can sit across the ocean and smugly say, 'What a mess that is; they don't want peace,' (but) it saddens me that as Americans we don't get a very complete picture of the situation. The situation here is beyond politics; it is much deeper. I wish every American could understand the situation here more clearly and on a deeper level."

In the midst of the violence she heard "voices of hope and reason" among the people they met, and she said she came away with more hope for a peaceful solution to the conflict.

"I sit in awe (of the people here.) Yes, it is important to see the holy sites here, but more important to hear the voices. The diversity of voices ... is incredible," said Sykora. She said she sensed a feeling of solidarity among both Jewish and Arab Israelis under the current circumstances.

The educators met with Jewish and Arab Israelis as well as Catholic religious leaders, including the papal nuncio to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Archbishop Antonio Franco, and Melkite Archbishop Elias Chacour of Akko, Israel.

Their near-brush with the missiles helped give them an idea of the pressures Israelis live under, said Milly Garcia, a sixth-grade teacher at St. Cecilia Elementary School in Omaha, Neb. She said many from the group decided to participate in an emergency blood drive.

"This has given me a much greater empathy for the Israeli people than reading the newspaper would. Being here at this time with the troubles has touched me deeply," said Garcia. "People who are condemning Israel are not considering the whole situation and don't appreciate the position (Israel) is in (with) neighbors putting her in danger."

Israel is doing what it needs to do to protect the country with its strong response against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, said Garcia.

"From my position I wouldn't condemn (Israel)," she said, despite the high number of civilian casualties in Lebanon. "Israelis don't set out to kill civilians."

More than 230 Lebanese civilians have been killed since the outbreak of hostilities July 12, and Hezbollah has fired more than 700 Katyusha rockets at Israel, killing 13 Israeli civilians.

"It's an attack. When something hits, you've got to hit right back," said Bill Mason, a religion and social studies teacher at Immaculate Heart of Mary Grammar School in Brooklyn, N.Y. "There may be an issue of proportionality, but that is for people smarter than me (to say). It is a different experience we are having here (rather than) just watching CNN."

Meanwhile, the ADL criticized the Vatican's response to the current crisis as "terribly one-sided and shortsighted." In a July 17 press release, it noted that the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, condemned Israel for what the ADL said was "defending itself against repeated unprovoked attacks on her soil," and Pope Benedict XVI said July 16 "neither terrorist acts nor reprisals can be justified, especially when there are tragic consequences for the civilian population."

"Given Pope Benedict's recognition of the growing global threat posed by Islamist terrorists, we are saddened that the Vatican would issue such counterproductive statements that seek to lend moral equivalency to the unprovoked terrorist actions of Hezbollah and Hamas with Israel's defensive actions to protect its civilian population," ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said in the statement.

"The Vatican's positions are terribly one-sided and shortsighted, given that the goal of Islamist terrorists is to wage war against all nonbelievers, including Christians," Foxman added, saying the Vatican continues to be "mired in a false paradigm" that equates "terrorist actions by Islamist extremists who view both Jews and Christians as infidels and seek Israel's destruction with, on the other side, Israel's right to defend itself and eliminate the ongoing and growing threats to its citizens."

---CNS