Jerusalem Women Speak Schedule Information
24 October 2002
Jerusalem Women Speak Schedule Information
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PARTNERS FOR PEACE
1250 4th Street Southwest
Suite WG1
Washington, DC, 20024
October 24, 2002
For more information contact: Michael Brown
Phone: 202-863-2951
E-mail: pfp@igc.org
Jerusalem Women Speak:
Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared City
Christian, Jewish & Muslim Women Speak on the Situation in Israel and Palestine
Headlines proclaim Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli attacks. To understand the situation requires going beyond the headlines. Partners for Peace is sponsoring a national speaking tour of three ordinary women living in extraordinary times:
Jean Zaru, Christian Palestinian, Age 62, Presiding Clerk of the Ramallah Friends Meeting
Adi Dagan, Jewish Israeli, Age 31, Staff Member at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem
Muna Shikaki, Muslim Palestinian, Age 22, Defence for Children International, Palestine Section
Tour schedule
Washington, DC – Nov. 11, Monday – DC World Affairs Council
Portland, OR – Nov. 12 – 13, Wednesday – World Affairs Council
of Oregon
Los Angeles, CA – Nov. 14, Thursday – LA World Affairs Council
Riverside, CA – Nov. 15, Friday – Riverside World Affairs Council
Houston, TX – Nov. 18 – 19, Tuesday – Houston World Affairs Council
Dallas, TX – Nov. 20 – 22, Wednesday – Dallas World Affairs Council
Wichita Falls, TX – Nov. 23, Saturday – Midwestern State University
Washington, DC – Nov. 25, Monday
Interviews, talk show appearances and additional community events are currently being scheduled. They may be arranged by contacting Partners for Peace.
Partners for Peace is a Washington, DC based NGO whose mission is to help bring about a lasting and just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Jean Zaru, Christian Palestinian, 62
- Presiding Clerk of the Ramallah Friends Meeting in Palestine.
- Taught ethics and Christianity at Friends School in Ramallah.
- Her brother, who graduated from Haverford College and Harvard University, joined the Palestinian struggle and was disappeared in Lebanon in 1976.
- Relatives fled from their homes in 1948 war.
- Husband almost killed when Ramallah was bombed in 1967 war.
- A founding member of Sabeel, a Palestinian Liberation Theology Center.
- Spoke extensively to non-governmental organizations and church groups in Holland, England, Sweden, Norway, Australia, South Africa, the United States, Canada, Geneva and Nairobi.
Adi Dagan, Jewish, Israeli, 31
- Currently works at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem.
- Worked for Adva, a center for research on social equality in Israel and the Israeli Organization for Family Planning.
- Served two years in the Israeli Army.
- Recently joined Machsom Watch, an organization of women who go to different checkpoints around Jerusalem to document and influence the attitude of the army toward Palestinians.
- Father was born in Romania and immigrated to Israel in 1962. He was arrested by the Communist government and held for nine months in prison for activities on behalf of the Zionist movement.
- A grandparent came from Russia before the Second World War. Her grandparents used to keep in their house new immigrants who arrived at night on ships from Europe to the Tel Aviv harbor, escaping the British patrols. They were the only surviving members of their family from Russia.
Muna Shikaki, Muslim, Palestinian, 22
- Staff at Defence for Children International/Palestine Section.
- Her love of writing and journalism as a high school student and in college enabled her to explore controversial issues within Palestinian society including her concern about the Palestinian Authority. Recently awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to begin an MA in Magazine Journalism in the United States next year.
- Participated in Building Bridges for Peace, a program in Denver, Colorado that brings young women from the United States, Israel and Palestine to discuss political and social issues.
- Her father is a refugee from Zarnooqa, a village destroyed in the 1948 war. He spent his early years living in a tent in Gaza before securing a scholarship that enabled him to obtain a university education in Jerusalem, Birzeit, Lebanon and Columbia University.
- Her mother and mother’s parents are Muslim Bosnians who moved to Palestine when Ottoman rule in the Balkans was collapsing. They fled during the 1948 war and became refugees in the West Bank.
