Phillip Barron
The Herald Sun
January 17, 2008
When Martin Luther King said that true peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice, he had in mind the idea that lasting, real peace is possible only when we actively take responsibility for it.
Marv Axelrod is tired of hearing promises of peace in the Middle East only to be later disappointed by the dissolution of dialogue. He’s tired of all the news coming out of Israel being about conflict.
Axelrod is not someone who complains about something he is not willing to help solve. “I want to do something rather than just sit around and wait for someone else to fix it,” says the seventy-two year old.
This May, he is planning to pedal a bicycle three hundred miles across the Negev Desert in Israel to promote peace. While he has never ridden a bike in desert conditions before, Axelrod is a busy man by anyone’s standards.
When he retired from the New York City board of education fourteen years ago, a friend told Axelrod that the key to growing older would be to remain active.
The high school English teacher moved to Durham and quickly got involved in his new community. In the time he’s lived here, Axelrod has taught ESL courses through Durham Tech and Duke’s Continuing Education program, has made presentations for the Durham Arts Council, he has taught English in Latin America, he performs for retirement homes with the Village Players, and writes articles for the Menorah, the monthly newspaper of the Durham-Chapel Hill Jewish Federation.
“I also do programs for the Carolina Health And Humor Association (HAHA),” says Axelrod. “It’s Jewish humor. It’s stand up comedy; but sometimes I get tired and sit down.”
Frank Ferrell of Ninth Street Bakery thinks he first met Axelrod the way he meets many people: when Axelrod came in to Ferrell’s shop as a customer. “We have a similar sense of humor,” says Ferrell, “and he’s raising money for a good cause.” Ferrell has pitched in to help Axelrod meet his fundraising goal of $3600.
Riding his bike this summer is a way to keep moving, too, to remind others that age is not a barrier to staying active, Axelrod says.
He’s been a cyclist since he got his first bike, his uncle’s heavy Schwinn with a horn on the handlebars, when he was Bar Mitzvahed at thirteen. As he grew older, he developed a taste for longer rides. After retiring in New York and moving to North Carolina, he completed both the MS150 and the Ride Across NC in the late 90s.
He’s no stranger to riding a bike in a foreign land — he and his wife have biked around Holland, Spain, and Nicaragua — but he’s never had to raise so much money nor felt so committed to the cause.
The 2008 Israel Ride is a fully supported benefit ride, raising money for the Arava Institute. Arava is an academic, environmental studies and leadership institute situated in the Negev Desert. The institute welcomes Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, and other Arab students and researchers to study regional environmental issues. “If peace is possible in the Middle East, then we have to work together,” says Axelrod. “If people can come together, survive in the desert, learn how to get the desert to bloom and desalinate water, then there can be peace.”
For more information
Israel Ride
http://www.israelride.orgArava Institute
http://www.arava.org/To support Axelrod, you can donate through the Israel Ride website (choose Sponsor a Rider and search Marv Axelrod’s name) or send a check payable to the Arava Institute to:
Marv Axelrod
116 Brook Lane
DURHAM, 27712