Invisible and oppressed- that’s our stereotype image of Arab women. But here I am, leading a retreat in the West Bank for forty Palestinian women who seem every bit as powerful as any of my Western sisters. Most are Muslim, a few are Christian, and the four of us who have come from the US are Jewish.
Since 2005, I’ve led workshops in Israel that unite Jewish, Arab, Druze and Bedouin women in a spirit of peace and healing. But the glaring absence of women from the West Bank and Gaza always saddened me. To enter Israel, they needed permits that were difficult if not impossible to come by.
The Sacred Feminine, In All Her Magnificence by Jalaja Bonheim, Ph.D. – Creations Magazine