Tal Kramer
Former Executive Director of Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel
Working with women who have been raped or sexually abused, you must listen to hear their particular needs, desires, and voices. They are so varied and so different from each other. Everyone reacts differently in the world of sexual abuse, and each person has a different way of coping. [..]
Ghada Issa Ghabboun
Co-Director of Hope Flowers School in Bethlehem
My father worked ten years before he managed a room for us outside the refugee camp. Even the walls and windows weren’t complete, but it was a palace because it was outside the camp. Father used to say, “We are the victims of the victims.” He meant the Holocaust victims, but my Israeli friends try to build bridges. We have a painful history, and it has to stop. We can’t keep killing each other. [..]
Ilanit Melchior
Co-Director of StartUp Jerusalem
When you invest in the economy, you invest in relationships. The market is the creator and founder of relationships. Jerusalem is the poorest city in Israel, young people are leaving. You find a lot of ultra-Orthodox who are not part of the working labor. We want to make sure in years to come that this will not be an empty city. And we want realistic operations between East and West Jerusalem, a reality where people respect each other and work together. The economy is a primary way to do this. [..]
Gita Hazani
Director General of Mosaica Center for Inter-Religious Cooperation
When the fears are gone and both sides say what they really feel, they open their hearts and say very difficult things. Someone says, “When you talk about your ownership of the holy temple, I feel someone put a knife in my heart and turned it. It’s so difficult to hear you talking this way about my holy place.” [..]
Rachel Aspir
Chair of NAAMAT for the Jerusalem area
I was born in Iraq, and arrived here at age four or five. It was traumatic, my parents fled from Iraq secretly. If I have a recollection of that aliyah, of that journey to Israel, it is of my father being separated from my mother. The men had to leave on their own, and my mother stayed behind with my brother and me. My brother was a baby in her arms. My parents never spoke badly of Arabs. Abdullah—I remember him as a nice uncle who brought us sweets—helped my mother cross the border to get my brother and me where we needed to go. [..]
Aysha Ibrahim Hudali
Mother of political prisoners
My granddaughter keeps saying, “I want my Mommy, I want Daddy.” She waits. When she hears the doorbell she expects her dad, but when it turns out to be someone else, like her uncle, she cries, “Where is Daddy? You said Daddy was at work, why didn’t he come home?”[...]
Rivka Grabovski
Director of Daycare Center in Sderot
I hear the noise of the Qassam rocket, and the loudspeaker and the red alert, and my heart’s beating quickly, and I can’t catch my breath, and what do I do now? It can happen anywhere. You can be at home, at the center, in the street. I live in fear. I feel I have a sixth sense with which I can hear better, concentrate better. I’m so frightened and tense—but courage is key. Don’t give up, despite everything. I continue to walk for exercise, do my shopping, take classes, visit my girlfriends, and come to work despite the fears, anxiety, and trembling. I tell myself not to give up, but to get up and do the impossible. [...]
Fatima Shehada Ja’fari
Political activist, women’s organizer, and former political detainee
No institution has given Palestinian women anything. Women have to grab their rights from men. I was the only woman invited to the anniversary celebration of the Fatah movement. I asked the men, “Was the revolution launched by men only? No, it was launched by men and women. Women have always struggled. Have any of you brought your wives, sisters, or mothers to the struggle? You only get us involved when you want us involved. Then you put us aside. You vote for women because you have to, not because you choose to.” [...]
Sarai Aharoni
Facilitator with Isha L’Isha-Haifa Feminist Center
Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security was accepted by the United Nations Security Council in October 2000 and is seen by the international women’s movement as one of the biggest achievements of the movement during the last decade. It officially recognizes the need to incorporate women in all peace negotiations and everything to do with conflicts—prevention, management, and resolution. [...]
Salwa Abu Lebdeh
Camerawoman and documentary filmmaker
I am a director. I try to show a picture that’s different from the one you see on television that depicts a nation being killed, a nation that lacks life—with only funerals and flags. I show our life: a people with a history, civilization, and heritage. [...]
