Christmas Encounter of Haifa Women's Interfaith Encounter Group on 3rd January 2009:

In order to mark Christmas we set an encounter between the Catholic and Orthodox dates. We held the encounter on January 3rd, in the home of one of the group's women. She had a beautifully decorated Christmas tree and on the porch lines of blinking lights, with the charming Haifa Bay in the background. The meal was excellent, with a wide variety of dishes, produced by the host and her daughter, who was called to help.

Of course the most important element was the conversation. In this encounter we were joined by a new member – a Jewish woman who was born in Damascus and speaks fluent Arabic. She also has experience in encounters, in the framework of "Woman to Woman" and she told us a bit about her experience in the last women's conference that took part in Nazareth in the end of December.

The conversation was flowing in spontaneously and naturally new issues related to women came up. Apparently, although we know each other for three and a half years, whenever we have a new round of acquaintance we learn new details about our members. This time we heard about the life of one of the Ahmedi women, who shared with us how much she loved school in her childhood, and even though they lived very crowded in a small home she used to close herself in the bathroom to prepare her homework and even managed to excel. Despite that, her parents made her stop her studies when she was 14, in order to wait for her marriage, which came when she was 19 years old. On the other hand: her young sister, who was born many years after her, into a wider home with better conditions, refused to finish her studies despite the fact that then her parents wanted her to do so. Our friend fulfilled herself through her daughters, who studied to finish high school and even academic studies.

We are all happy and looking forward to the next encounter, planned to take place in Kababir at one of our members' who recently had twin grandchildren. We were all happy with her for the exciting birth.

Back to Reports)