Jerusalem. Women's Interfaith Encounter CC develops mission statement, May 2005.

Dear Interfaith Friends

The May meeting had a small and focused group that concentrated on creating a mission statement -- something we've been postponing for ages. On the one hand we were disappointed that not more women showed up for this important task. On the other, just 10 women were able to be a very effective working group and several commented on the warm, informal atmosphere that was very productive.

Our evaluations reflected that 85% of the women learned something new about other women and 70% expanded or changed their feelings about others in the group.

With the expert help of Judy Weiss, Wendy's aunt who was visiting and is the incoming president of Hadassah Southern California, we had a session of creatively listing all the aspects of our work together -- which resulted in a list of over forty qualities ranging from harmony, reconciliation, and religious study -- to spirituality, fun, empowerment, singing and dancing. We then grouped all of the qualities into five basic categories and from that created this Mission Statement that reflects  the different aspects of what we experience together:

The Jerusalem Women's Interfaith Encounter is a multi-generational group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian women from diverse backgrounds who are involved in the study and understanding of each other's religions – sharing our different customs, traditions and holiday celebrations .

We believe in welcoming, accepting and respecting the other. We are building bridges of sisterhood and friendship which we experience in our meetings and in our daily life -- so our encounters are a reflection of our beliefs. And we are accomplishing this in the midst of the everyday difficulties caused by the violence of our city and our situation.

We are a program of the Interfaith Encounter Association (www.interfaith-encounter.org) and, as such, a Cooperation Circle of the United Religions Initiative. We are connected with many women's groups worldwide and are strengthened by wonderful men and women who support our work and our ability to build peace in Jerusalem.

We are proud of our accomplishment of defining ourselves as a group and through a group process.  We continue to plan our Pilgrimage -- which has been delayed due to scheduling problems -- but we're looking forward to doing it during the summer.

This report was prepared by Wendy, Elana, and Rose.