Tifferet Oryah is Project Manager at Embrace partner Musalaha. Here she reflects on the pain and violence of life in Israel-Palestine today, the difficulties she faces as a Jewish-Israeli woman and the importance of Musalaha’s reconciliation work.

Musalaha provides opportunities for Palestinian and Israeli women to meet together to increase dialogue and understanding and to work together to be agents of change in their communities.

This month [May 2024] the Israeli women who made the courageous decision to join the Israeli-Palestinian Women's Group met for the first time, taking place a few days before Passover, also known as the Holiday of Redemption. 

This holiday is a period to reflect and ask questions. During the Passover seder, we read the Haggadah, focusing especially on the exodus from Egypt. Importantly, the exodus is made personal and current: “In every generation, each person must see themselves as if they personally came out of Egypt.” We are taught the journey to the Promised Land requires dwelling in the desert where questions become central. 

What is my desert?

What do I need to give up on my exodus from slavery?

What uncertainty am I willing to enter to leave my enslavement?

What sacrifices are required for my freedom?

How is my identity related to Jewish people and others today? 

In light of the ongoing war, these questions take on deeper personal significance on a broader national level for me. I've been displaced from my home on the northern border for over six months, and over 130 Israelis are still held captive by Hamas. After our Israeli sense of security has been shaken, I live in a violent reality where pain can be felt daily on the streets, leadership supposedly representing me fails to bring all hostages home, and instead perpetuate relentless war without hope for a more liberal and democratic future.

How do I reconcile my Jewish identity to this representation?

Is starving an entire population a Jewish act?

Is anyone asking if the cycle of revenge is the way to true freedom?

These questions can leave me feeling hopeless as a young Jewish-Israeli woman in my own country. 

Even during the season of Passover, years of blindness and habituation to pain make it difficult for Israelis to ask questions, let alone see the pain of the other. The leadership of the State of Israel and many Israelis too, are still captive in Egypt.

As a Jewish-Israeli, I carry much pain in our violent reality, but perhaps my truer human pain is the fear of taking a public stance against the continuation of this war, against violence from both sides, and most of all the loss of human compassion. 

During our recruitment interviews with the Israeli women, we kept hearing the women ask “what more can I do?” I was filled with hope as these women brought this question into their willingness to participate in the reconciliation process. Through our questions we search for blind spots and the voices that aren't heard; we enter uncertainty and make sacrifices as we hope and work for the common good, a reality where everyone can be free and secure in their land.

It is these women choosing to participate in reconciliation in this reality, bravely confronting identity questions as I do too, who fill me with hope and a spirit of change. And as I've learned in recent months since joining myself, hope is contagious. 

This article first appeared in Musalaha’s newsletter - available at musalaha.org

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