Or (=Light) Women's Interfaith Encounter of Haifa - 15th November 2008:

In our first report we shared our experience in the wedding of the son of one our group's members. Since the wedding in the Haifa Muslim neighborhood of Kababir, a few months passed and we were invited to our friend's home and were delighted to see pictures from the wedding. We heard additional details about the tradition: how difficult it is to hold a traditional an Ahmedian wedding, since there are four different ceremonies involved, to each many people are invited, mainly as Kababir is one big family. We learned about the bachelors' party for the groom and the henna celebration for the bride. The henna celebration does not include decorating the bride with henna but only a symbolic tray with henna on it.

Then we focused on introduction with the new member who joined our group. This new member has heard about us through the Interfaith Encounter Association and the wide circulation of its emails. Every time a new member joins, we all introduce ourselves to her and we again found also this time that there are still things we don't know about each other, even though our friendship is growing for three years. It seems that the routine encounters enable growing closeness with time, and the openness and intimacy that come with it, so we can now share even less happy and more difficult aspects of our lives and get support from the group.

As always – the refreshments were diverse and tasty.

The next encounter will take place at one of our Christian friends' place, so that we can get the impressions and taste the customs of Christmas also this year. The Christian friends proposed a dare that is between the Catholic and Greek-Orthodox New Year.

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