Neighbors

“Neighbors – Women Creating Reconciliation” – 2013

In 2013, the PCFF Women’s Group organized an event in the series “Neighbors – Women Creating Reconciliation – bereaved Israeli and Palestinian women promote reconciliation and hope”. The event was hosted by the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and included a food market and photography and art exhibits, that displayed the personal and national narratives of both sides and the role of women in settling conflict.
In this event, the Women’s Group sought to raise public awareness to the importance of dialogue and acquaintance, the need for mutual understanding and reconciliation, and for understanding the significant role women play in this process.
The event included a variety of activities, among them:

• “The Presence of the Void” – photography exhibit: An exhibition of life and bereavement through the camera lens, in a unique photography project which exposes the internal worlds of ten Israeli and Palestinian women – mothers, daughters, sisters and nieces, who have all lost what is most dear to them in the war between the two nations. The women went on an engaging intimate journey, seeking to photograph the presence of their lost loved ones, and to give voice to the absence, the lacking, the void.
The exhibition displayed photos taken by the project participants, in their natural environment and during mutual meetings held on both sides of the border.
• Artistic exhibition “The Texture of Life”: Life before and with bereavement is expressed in fifteen personal, handmade books, depicting the lives of bereaved Palestinian and Israeli mothers, daughters and sisters. The project looks both at the personal aspect and shared emotions, through a variety of artistic means and through moving delicate texts the participants use to tell their life stories and share their feelings, to ultimately enable understanding and dialogue.
• “Jam Session”: An event showcasing tastings and dishes for sale all made by the Women’s Group. The dishes were the product of a series of sessions with renowned chefs Gil Hovav and Husam Abbas, in which Israeli and Palestinian PCFF women cooked together and made a variety of dishes, with special emphasis on jams and different types of pickles.
• “It Won’t Stop Until We Talk”: Four panels discussing the roles of women in reconciliation processes, with and led by Palestinian and Israeli women, members of the PCFF and guests. 
The sessions focused on the following themes:
  “Peace, the next generation” – educating for peace from women’s perspective.
  “Life goes up on stage” – playback theater presenting real stories from the audience.
  “Mother and daughter” – two perspectives on loss.

“Neighbors – Women Creating Reconciliation” – 2009

The event “Neighbors – Women Creating Reconciliation” grew out of the meetings of the PCFF Women’s Group. The event, which was hosted by the Tel Aviv Cinematheque in 2009, was preceded by joint workshops of group members as a result of the ongoing dialogue between them.
Nearly 100 Israeli and Palestinian PCFF women took part in the event, and the public was invited to take part in a variety of activities:

• “I see you, I see me”: A display of photographs from the family albums of PCFF female members. The photographs were displayed on mirrors, so the viewers not only observed the images on display, which are taken from personal albums of Israeli and Palestinian women, but they also saw themselves and the other visitors in the showroom at the same time.
  The display allowed viewers to take part in the multi-dimensional experience of movement between past and present, between the living and the dead, and between the perpetuated stagnancy of the photos and the life reflected by the mirrors.
• “Women Talk Peace”: Dialogue circles with women from the PCFF and guests, in which PCFF members shared their personal story, and examined with the general public, different and varied ways of coping with loss, reconciliation processes, peace promoting activities, getting acquainted with each other and women’s empowerment. Among the subjects included in the dialogue circles, were:
  – Women’s Group activity
  – The “Reconciliation envoys” project of the PCFF
  – Students Partners
 – Mother and Daughter, two generations of PCFF activities, two points of view on loss
  – Loss and reconciliation, and what they mean to my life
- Where are all the women?”
  – Feminist activity in an ongoing conflict
  – Combining a religious lifestyle with PCFF activity
  – Art in the midst of politics.
• “Windows and Dreams”: a joint work of art of PCFF women, expressing their inner worlds and lives. From this moving meeting of women who do not engage in art, emerged a powerful mutual creation.
• “Magical Threads” and “Nana’s Kitchen”: Personal handicraft and homemade dishes, all made by Palestinian and Israeli women.