By Maya Brilliant for The Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD)
Twenty-two women from different cultural backgrounds and religions met, hiked, ate, and shared in a beautiful Jerusalem setting on the seamline between East and West Jerusalem. This was the fifth monthly meeting of ICSD’s Women’s Faith and Ecology project. We started our meeting at the ICSD workspace on Mount Zion, walked together along the Old City wall and then on a tree-lined trail to the beautiful Hinnom Valley. After getting to know each other a little bit, we started discovering what we have in common. Starting with our common interest in the environment, we soon ended up talking about our bond of sisterhood that can help us through the hardships that we experience – especially now when times are difficult.. After sharing our thoughts and feelings with each other we started an Origami workshop where we learned how to make a peace crane together out of reused paper.
According to the Japanese tradition, the origami crane symbolizes peace. Therefore, after each of us wrote on a used piece of paper a personal peace message, we folded together the paper into twenty-two peace cranes. We then hung all the cranes together on an olive tree (who leaves symbolize peace) and gathered for a group photo. While the recent events left all of us with a lot of pain, confusion and despair, meeting together with women who share who seek peace helped us leave the gathering with a great sense of hope in our heart.
If you are interested in joining us for future meetings of the Women’s Faith and Ecology Project in Jerusalem, please contact Maya Brilliant at MayaICSD@gmail.com or Hiba Dawud at hdawud@interfaithsustain.com.
To read more about the Project, click here.
