Ronny Edry is indeed a Fierce Gentleman: in his touching TedX talk, he tells the story of how he inadvertently kicked off an international grassroots peace movement.
The reason I hold up Ronny as an exemplar of the Fierce Gentleman archetype is that he so resolutely holds two apparently competing instincts: a level of practicality born out of his experience as a paratrooper in the Israeli military, and a level of idealism based on what I can only surmise is a huge heart.
Ronny, and everyone who has joined his Movement, have done the truly courageous thing: they have stood up even in the face of odds that appeared insurmountable in order to send out messages of peace and love between peoples. They have sown seeds of peace that you can be sure will sprout sometime in the future. Who knows: maybe these seeds have already prevented another round of senseless violence.
Ronny, who after his time as an Israeli paratrooper certainly acquired a certain competency in violence, has now earned his competency in ahimsa, nonviolence: another badge of a true Fierce Gentleman.
I donated to Ronny’s group to earlier this year when the Facebook phenomenon first materialized, and now they’ve got a new campaign. It’s worth donating.
