Today, the first full day with President Obama, we reach out to peace by building peaceful and trusting relationships. Please read the following message from Elana Rozenman in Israel. Namaste!!! Ann
Dear Ones,
This afternoon Israeli and Palestinian women from Jerusalem and Hebron — Muslim, Christian, and Jewish — met at El Halev – Israeli Women’s Martial Arts Federation in Jerusalem (http://www.elhalev.org ) The women all appear in the stunning new book “Sixty Years, Sixty Voices: Israeli and Palestinian Women”
(www.60voices.org). The beauty of this book is that it demonstrates the many truths here and shows the complexity of our conflict through the words and experiences of a wide variety of women on both sides. The common core is that all of the women express their conviction that peace is possible.
The recent violence caused many of our TRUST meetings to be postponed, and we weren’t sure whether this one could take place. But there was a core of special and determined women who wanted to get together today, and we even obtained a permit from the Army for a Palestinian woman to enter from Hebron.
Since most of the women who appear in the book have never met each other, we started with a circle of introduction and the women began speaking about their families and their work — each of them serving their communities and women in unique and powerful ways. Very soon we experienced the easy rapport of women and found ourselves discussing intimate matters. Quickly feminine bonds were established — and although we had created a space to have a sharing session about what we’d been going through in recent weeks, the women strongly preferred to leave that topic behind — and instead to share empowerment exercises led by our hostess Yudit Sidikman, the Director of El Halev. She explained the importance of self-defense for women and instructed us in how to break a brick using the power of our voices, our bodies, and our determination. Then one by one, each woman took a turn to
concentrate all her power in her hand and smash a concrete block. You can
view fotos of some of us in action at
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/emailAlbum?uname=erozenman&aid=52935169429775
26945 For some of us, the experience brought a tremendous release of the
tension we’d been carrying for weeks, for others a surprised and exhilerating awareness of their power — to carry into their personal and professional lives. With this energy and enthusiasm we quickly planned our next meeting to be held at a school in Hebron in one month. We pray that by that time relations between our peoples will have improved and more Palestinian and Israeli women will be able to join us.
This event had the agreement of the attending Palestinian and the Israeli women to be publicized. During the past weeks, many contacts, activities, and planning have taken place among our women that could not be publicized because we were in the midst of a war situation. The women we work with include some Palestinian women have been physically threatened and forced to have no contact with Israelis. Others are under social pressure because of the ban on “normalization” — which means that there can be no normal contacts or work between Palestinian organizations with Israeli organizations. So instead we gave moral support to these women who have been participating in Palestinian women’s non-violent demonstrations.
Many of our Israeli women were under tremendous pressure because they had sons or husbands serving in the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza, or they had married children staying in their homes to escape the bombardment of Hamas rockets from Gaza. Some of our women in Southern Israel were spending days in bomb shelters because of the Hamas bombardment. So even though we have been in constant contact with each other, and even giving condolences to families of fallen Druze or Israeli soldiers or to Gazan parents, or visiting Israeli or Palestinian wounded being treated in Israeli ospitals – this has been a private time to protect ourselves and each other, to strengthen each other’s service and sacrifices with love and support – so that we could reunite when the violence ended.
As some of you who live and work in violent conflicts know, there are times when you must work quietly and without publicity because of the danger — physically and socially — to the people involved. The fragile bonds of trust must be nurtured and protected when people are killing each other. So we are grateful that we currently have ceasefires and a respite from the violence on both sides that will hopefully enable us to begin working openly once again. We feel blessed to have the courageous and committed women who came together today to continue the process we began when we gathered thirty Israeli women and thirty Palestinian women to share their voices, their lives, and their experiences in our book.
With this feeling of encouragement I then attended a private screening of the Inauguration of President Barack Obama at the American Center of the U.S. Embassy. As I watched the sea of Americans cheering their new President and the wave of change and hope that he represents, I was filled with optimism for all of us that we’re entering a new era with great promise — and a call to serve and to sacrifice in order to fulfill that potential. I will carry that feeling into our TRUST planning meeting tomorrow as we begin to chart our future activities.
I appreciate all the prayers and support that have been sent to me and to TRUST by so many of you. This outpouring of love has sustained us in the midst of so much darkness. This global connection of love and understanding will in the end triumph and transform the feelings of vengeance into acceptance and mutual understanding. And upon that basis we will be able to reconcile and build peaceful and trusting relationships.
Much love,
Elana Rozenman, Executive Director, TRUST-Emun, www.trust-emun.org
