Women Wage Peace!

On Tuesday, I joined 1000 women from all over Israel who travelled down to Sderot and launched a new movement called Women Wage Peace. Despite the rain, we  boarded the “Peace Train” and met at the Sderot Conference. It was a diverse group – so many different women – religious and secular, right wing and leftists, young and old, Jewish and Muslim. We all wore white. We all stood on the lawn of Sapir College, that was bombed constantly over the past summer and for the last ten years. And we all demanded of our leaders – Start Peace Negotiations Now! Because we are sick of war.

These women, and so many others who are joining every day, will not give up. As the movement’s founder Michal Shamir said — we will be in our leaders faces. We will not leave them alone. Every time they sit down to breakfast, we will be there, demanding to know — what are you going to do today to promote an agreement?

Standing next to all these women I never met before, all those mothers, it suddenly hit me. I can’t just make the kids dinner, check their homework, buy them sneakers and wipe their tears when they scrape their knees and  then, when they reach eighteen, send them to their fate. My daughter is in the army, my son will be drafted this summer, and there’s two more at home. And they are counting on me. I have to do everything in my power to make sure that they have a future.

Ever since Tuesday, for the first time since this awful awful summer, I’ve been feeling a little different. I feel lighter, there’s a flutter in my heart. And I smile. Its’ a feeling close to joy. I  think its’ called hope.