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Yesterday, I went to a group meeting in Ein Kerem composed of Palestinian and Israeli women who share their healing techniques with each other. The group started about five years ago in German nun’s house in the area and, though she’s since had issues with getting her visa renewed and can’t get back to the area, the group has gone on to meeting every week to share massage, reiki, etc. Despite my obsession with judging everyone I meet on their horoscope signs and getting monthly massages, I tend to be a bit wary of anything containing too many kumbayas or deep breaths. This was, though, a pretty interesting experience, as it allows for this group of women to go beyond the typical reconciliation strategy of talk, talk, talk, adding the component of touch into the program. I can’t say that I felt particularly different after I was treated by a reiki practitioner yesterday, though, when she began to teach me how to perform it myself, it gave me a much needed chance to just sit, be, and pay attention to my body and to someone else’s–something that I sort of let fall by the wayside in the craziness of Jerusalem. I did fall asleep during my treatment, though, and spent most of the time internally whining about how my back and arms hurt when I was learning to give treatment to someone else. I am a terrible meditator–I once went to a day-long seminar at a Zen Buddhist center and left angry. Angry! I am so unrefined.

The group of women was really varied in age, profession, and were from all over al-balad (a phrase that a friend taught me a few weeks ago, meaning ‘the country’, that serves to unite Palestine-Israel and take away some of the hostile emotions associated with using one over the other. Of course, it has political connotations, but I like what it attempts to do.): there was a woman from Ein Kerem; one who proclaimed herself as a “wanderer”; one woman from the border of Lebanon. Three women came from Sur Baher. One women, one of the leaders of the group, is a registered nurse, has seven children, and teaches women’s classes on Qur’anic tafsir (interpretation) at al-Aqsa. I don’t think most of the group knew how to deal with the fact that she is munaqiba (wears the niqab), as a few of the ones that I considered pretty comfortable with Palestinian culture made comments such as “You have such a beautiful face, why do you wear that?” It’s wholly possible that I am interpreting these questions incorrectly, though; they may have just been genuine curiosity mixed with the frank nature of Israeli culture and translated into English (thanks, guys). One of the women from Sur Baher had her origins in Ein Kerem and expressed the excitement of returning to the neighborhood. Her family had owned land prior to 1948, when they fled to Bethlehem. She had married a man from Sur Baher in the days where “getting a blue hawiyya (identity card) was easy”, but the rest of her family remained in Bethlehem, unable to visit the town where their familial ties lay. This really surprised the Israeli woman, a reaction that in turn surprised me. We hear so often about the movement restrictions concerning Palestinian identity cards; I suppose it’s one thing to hear about such concepts and to meet someone whom the policy directly affects.

–Molly

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