My name is Reut, I’m 25, originally from Oranit [a settlement straddling the Green Line northeast of Tel Aviv] and am currently a special education and African studies major at Tel Aviv University. Less than a year ago after spending six months abroad, I returned to Israel with an uneasy feeling about the situation here.I found I was both critical and ready to support the positive and beautiful aspects of Israel. At that time, there were so many harsh expressions of outright hatred. I really appreciate disagreement, which I consider an important characteristic of a democratic society, but hatred is another matter. Hatred blinds, and it seemed to me then that so many people here were losing their sight. Then I saw YouTube clips of Yael Deckelbaum’s Prayer of the Mothers and the 2016 March of Hope. I was so moved by these inspiring short films which proved to me that, in fact, not everyone here is blind and that indeed hope is rising among Israelis again – and that I wanted to be among the hopeful ones.
When I returned to Israel, I did not have to make any effort to join Women Wage Peace. It simply happened through a friend of my parents who registered me. Last May I came to the opening meeting of its young women’s chapter and immediately fell in love with the movement. I shared a circle with young women whom I had never met and immediately felt right at home. We all shared, aloud,what is, unfortunately, still not very popular to say today: we want peace, we believe in the power of women, and we want to make a change. Our activity has certainly intensified since that meeting. We became a cohesive group, we organized more meetings for young women, started a Facebook page and an Instagram account, and divided ourselves into various teams. Slowly the Young Women’s Chapter has been growing to the point where today we have about 400 active young women and more than 1,000 followers. There are now student groups in Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, and Tel Aviv; there will soon be one in the north. I started my activity in the Young Women’s chapter as the Instagram monitor, then joined the Strategy Team to address the question of how to increase our numbers quickly. We decided to do this by organizing informal meet-and-greet meetings, making phone calls, and staffing information booths at music festivals.
Since joining WWP, my dream was to bring the movement to my fellow students at Tel Aviv University from all the different groups on campus, especially Jewish and Arab, secular and orthodox women, to learn about the movement and join us. Because we believe that turning our dreams into reality is every woman’s responsibility, I talked to the Student Association and began collecting signatures at the Social Engagement Fair on campus. The high response rate led to a dialogue meeting, followed by screening the movie Pray the Devil Back to Hell about the Liberian women who brought peace to their country, and taking part in Women’s Week sponsored by the Student Association.
There is still much work to do among young women in Israel but it is amazing to see the progress we have made so far and to think how much more we can do when we choose to unite. I hope that the ‘bug ‘called Women Wage Peace will go on infecting more and more women and men and that one day we will be privileged to live here with our neighbors in peace and quiet. Amen.
Translated from Hebrew by Donna Kirshbaum
