Three women from Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths shared their personal experiences with political tension in the Middle East before a packed crowd of dozens of students, faculty and Charlottesville community members last night.
The event, "Jerusalem Women Speak: Three Women, Three Faiths, One Shared Vision," was part of a tour that aims to raise awareness about the conflict in Israel and Palestine and correct religious stereotypes about the situation, said Susanne Waldorf, program director for Partners for Peace, a non-profit association from Washington, D.C., and sponsor of the tour.
"Women are the voices you do not often hear from the Middle East," Waldorf said. "We want to demonstrate that people from the three different faiths can get along and it's not primarily a religious conflict."
The three speakers included Nahla Assali, a Muslim Palestinian born in West Jerusalem who also toured with "Jerusalem Women Speak" when it originally began in 1998. According to Waldorf, the message of the tour has become more dismal since the Israeli re-occupation of Palestinian territory in September 2000.
"The situation now as it stands is the worse I have seen," Assali said. "It's stagnation."
The two other speakers were Michal Sagi, a Jewish Israeli who spoke out against checkpoints erected around Palestinian communities, and Nuha Khoury, a Christian Palestinian who said she maintained faith despite the dismal situation in Palestine.
According to Khoury, every person in Palestine is forced to live off of two dollars a day.
"All of this is dismal but always there is hope," Khoury said.
Audience members included students from politics courses and board members from the Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice, a co-sponsor of the event.
Mieka Brand, a Graduate Arts and Sciences student from Jerusalem, said she attended the event because she identified with the speakers and held a strong interest in the conflict in the Middle East.
"There are not too many opportunities to talk about this situation from an insider perspective with a lot of respect for the different sides and with a deep understanding of the complexity of the situation," Brand said.
The women began the tour on Wednesday in Washington, D.C., and will travel through Virginia to North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia by the tour's completion April 2.
"We thought U.Va. would be a good choice on the tour," Waldorf said. "It is a good school and we try to hit different communities."
The University's Middle Eastern Studies Program also helped organize the event.
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