Whoever heard the flute played in any of the Movement’s events has heard of Neta Shemes – a flutist whose flute and good hearted smile escort her everywhere. Neta was born and grew up in Kibbutz Shamir at the foot of the Golan Heights. Until 1967, the kibbutz was at the Syrian border and came under many heavy bombardments. In 1974, Neta’s mother was assassinated by a group of terrorists who managed to infiltrate the kibbutz from Lebanon. Nine years later, her brother, Major Amir Galili, was killed during the first Lebanon war. Neta knows a thing or two about bereavement and about the terrible cost of conflicts. She has been active for many years in The Bereaved Families for Peace Forum.
“I have been active in The Bereavement Families for Peace since 2000. Like the Women Wage Peace (WWP), in this Forum we embroider and weave reconciliation and tolerance by trying to understand the other side and by forging friendships without resorting to stereotypes or to fear. I have been praying for peace for many years. The desire for peace became stronger after my mother and brother were killed. The terrible pain of their loss propelled me to look for a place where I could yell out the pain of war and shout out for the need for peace.”
But before anything else Neta is an artist and her artistic talents are expressed in music and in Plastic Art. She has been playing the flute from an early age: “playing for me is a way of making contact and of communicating. I like playing mainly songs and when people around me listen and sing with me, we are all winners.” She started her artistic activities in the art of gold-smiting, but when she met Avraham Hateymani, an embroiderer and an outstanding teacher, she became fascinated by his art and took a colourful, convention breaking and enriching journey with him. “Embroidery offers me two significant points of view: embroidery as a traditional women’s craft, and embroidery as material and a branch of artwork which combines different techniques but always embroidery too. In my studio I create a variety of art works and handy crafts.”
Her path from the Bereaved Families Forum led naturally to WWP. “As far as I am concerned WWP was almost born out of the Families Forum.” She finds that the social tradition embedded in embroidery relates beautifully to the activities within the movement. “I relate happily to the waging of peace, encompassing it and accepting it. Recently, I have been co-ordinating, together with the wonderful Sara Kaspi, the WWP activities in Lev Hasharon area and now I can no longer distinguish between myself and my role.
Today, I am demanding peace for my daughters and their children, for the sake of the generations to come, so they could live here and not look for their future in Berlin…”
Translated from Hebrew by Sarit Bloom
