A Project for Palestinian and Israeli women

Over the years I have been involved in working for Peace. Here are a few glimpses.
During the morning of September 11, 2001 I participated in the Board Meeting of the Israel Interfaith Association. That same day in the early afternoon I participated in a new Executive Board that met for the first time to found the Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA) to work from the grassroots towards achieving a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. In the afternoon during a peace meeting of ICCI at the SEAM MUSEUM at which the USA Ambassador was to participate we learned about the horrible terrorist attack that happened in New York, USA. Today the IEA comprises some 42 groups across Israel. A year later I was one of three women who founded Reut Sadaqa, one of the earlier groups of IEA.

On the 11th December 2001 the first women group of IEA was founded of which I was one of its founders. The first meeting was held at the American Cultural Center in Jerusalem. Later that year another group of women was formed though not part of IEA yet a number of its members were from IEA; I joined that too. This group called itself the Quilt Group. Women from varied social strata, political, ethnic and religious groups met monthly in different places, usually in a member’s home. We had many discussions, planned together, planted trees in Neve Shalom and worked at embroidering a hand on felt with motifs of PEACE to be mounted into a quilt. The end result is beautiful. This quilt has been exhibited in different places both in Israel and beyond its borders.

Here it is filmed in this You Tube when we gathered on 11th December 2011 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the foundation of these two interfaith groups.

Sr Carmen Farrugia NDS