Jerusalem, Israel. In celebration of International Women’s Week, one hundred Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Druze women visit, learn and understand more about the lives and struggles of the women of the Druze community.

The Northern branch of the Women's Interfaith Encounter held a celebration of International Women's Week, in the Druze village of Daliat haCarmel on the topic of the Status of Women in the Druze community. One hundred Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and Druze women attended from many different villages, towns, and kibbutzim. Tzafi Makladeh led participants in a tour of Daliat beginning with a visit to Yad Lebanim where they were shown a moving memorial to the over 280 fallen soldiers from the community and heard about their burial and mourning customs as well as their beliefs in reincarnation. They also saw the village’s memorial to Yitzhak Rabin and the shrine to their prophet Jethro and walked through the hills to the Community Center. In their meeting, they first heard more about the position of Druze women in their society, and then were given the opportunity to share their common struggles within patriarchal religions and societies, and their hopes for their daughters to have easier lives.

Poignantly, on the following day, it was learnt that a 14 year old Druze girl from a nearby village had been killed in the terrorist bombing of the bus in Haifa. The whole village was in mourning, and the Women’s Interfaith Encounter was able to send personal condolences to the family and the community. As they write: “We are all bound together in the mutual suffering of our situation, the tragic deaths of innocent children, and find comfort within our mutual study and supportive relationships.”