When Naurit was a little girl, she learned a song whose lyrics included “Hurry, hurry, it’s dangerous outside!” Her parents sang it as they rushed to the bomb shelter while rockets from Gaza flew overhead. On Oct. 7 2023, her family spent days hiding in that shelter as Hamas killers stalked overhead. Naurit (all names have been changed for security reasons) was in Haifa when she learned that her city of Sderot, close to the border with Gaza, was being attacked. Helpless, she stayed on her cell phone all day as she learned of more friends being murdered, raped or abducted, including her younger brother’s close friend who was kidnapped. She was heartbroken that she was unable to comfort her brother or her dog whimpering under the bed. Naurit is an Israeli peace activist. Fleeing is nothing new for her family. During World War II, her grandparents escaped Hungary one step ahead of the Nazis and settled in what was then Palestine.
Whenever Ramah, a young Palestinian woman living in a refugee camp on the West Bank, leaves her home, she says a poignant goodbye to her family because she doesn’t know if she will return alive. Like all the women in her camp, she carries onions in her handbag as an antidote to tear gas. Israeli troops are a constant presence and they’re the only Israelis she ever interacts with. She knows that to disobey any of their orders will bring “woe and suffering” upon herself and her family which fled Israel in 1948, one step ahead of Israeli troops attacking her village and settled on the West Bank.
Ramah is an artist and she has a sheaf of graphic watercolors depicting her home. Adar, her Israeli friend, held the drawings as she described them to a tearful audience of about seventy. Adar and Ramah are close. Adar dresses in casual Western-style clothing, Ramah in traditional Palestinian garb. When together, they share a palpable affection, their arms draped across each other’s shoulders. For both young women, now in their early twenties, meeting years ago for the first time as teenagers was a miracle, for the structures in Israel-Palestine make it nearly impossible for them to mutually interact, communicate and break down the walls of mutual fear, hate and demonizing.
They have done so here in Santa Fe, New Mexico where a program called “Tomorrow’s Women” has been bringing together teenaged Israeli, Christian Arab and Palestinian girls from Israel, Gaza and the West Bank for workshops on peacemaking and women’s empowerment skills. I had met them years before on my flight home from back east. After the Gaza war started, I shared coffee with Holly, their executive director who shared her vision that it will be the women of Israel and Palestine who will bring peace and justice to both peoples. “Women are the way forward,” she said and stressed that the girls in her program learn and practice “compassionate listening” as well as being able to express freely in a container of safety.
In 2024, I attended their open house at a beautiful qigong center outside of Santa Fe on land where various Pueblo tribes had once journeyed to resolve conflicts between them. The 12 women; four Palestinians, a Christian Arab and seven Israelis ranging in age from 17 to 26 shared their stories. The women held nothing back but also brought humanity and reality to the impersonal headlines, signs and slogans seen and heard over the years. They alternated between Jew and Arab, each introducing the other as their dear friend.
“We don’t compare suffering,” said Holly. “We don’t prioritize one group’s suffering over the other. All are suffering and all have the need to be heard.”
I spent the afternoon grilling hamburgers for the assemblage. A few days later, as I flew east for Randy Kehler’s life celebration, I saw the Palestinian contingent at their gate in Albuquerque airport, awaiting the first leg of their 18-hour flights to Amman, Jordan. They recognized me and we exchanged warm greetings. I was quite moved and wished for nothing but for them to be safe and happy.
Last year, I sat next to Aisha, a young Palestinian woman at Tomorrow’s Women’s annual gathering. In the course of our conversation, she mentioned she was an artist, as am I. Soon, we were trading our websites and became Instagram buddies. We still are, united if only by our love of creativity. In the end, it’s only the human connection that truly matters.
Daniel A. Brown lived in Franklin County for 44 years and has written a monthly My Turn column for over two decades. He lives outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife, Lisa and dog, Cody. More information about “Tomorrow’s Women” can be found on their website, https://www.tomorrowswomen.org/