Women’s Faith and Ecology Seminars in Jerusalem

For more from ICSD conferences, please see this video on the Faith and Ecology Conference in Jerusalem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2dBheg8_jY&t=2s
The Women Faith and Ecology Project in Jerusalem engages Christian, Muslim, and Jewish women in the Jerusalem area for inspiring seminars on faith and ecology.

The most recent seminars in late 2015 and early 2016 focused on women’s leadership, ecology and faith and involved various lectures, workshops discussions, and an environmental outing to the Jordan River. They are being followed by a local environmental fair, highlighting ecological workwomen-planting and activism taking place throughout the greater Jerusalem area. The meetings were attended by women of the three faiths, with six Christian, Jewish and Muslim speakers. The meetings were attended by Jewish and Arab women from Jerusalem, as well as women native to Turkey, the U.S., Europe, and New Zealand. We had women from the Bedouin sector, East Jerusalem, Arab villages around Jerusalem, Arab Christians, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox, reform, and secular Jews. The women came from various professional backgrounds- some working as religious leaders, others in ecologically oriented organizations and other great leaders and wonderful people. Sessions included textual study based on texts from Bible and the Koran which focused on ours and God’s responsibility towards the earth. We spoke of our own and nature’s vulnerability, and women’s role in this as a mother, teacher, daughter, wife and activist. We spoke of the challenges that the world and Jerusalem faces in terms of environmental challenges and what our role can be in changing it- as women who are an integral part of their community and as religious people and clergy.