Pillar of Peace: Cross-cultural Understanding

Commentary by Liora Herman, Marketing and Outreach Manager
I have grown up a child of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist movement, without knowing its full history or the impact it has had on the development of the Jewish State, and more importantly the role of healing―physically, mentally, and emotionally―it has played in the global Jewish Community.
Upon birth every child in my family, including my brother, received a lifetime membership to Hadassah as a gift. And it is truly the gift that keeps on giving. The February/March issue of …

Tariro Mateko
Kenya
“Many times women are blinded by lack of information and have to live a life subjected to abuse and violence …. ”
Young women have some suggestions.
I consider the lack of access to information a major barrier to the advancement of women in society, in the political, social, and economic spheres.  The promotion of women hinges on information.
Information + Woman=========Knowledge= Empowered Woman
Vs
Lack of information==========Disinformation
Ten years after the millennium the need for information has become more critical than ever. There is a direct link between access to information and the advancement of women. This …

Just before I was about to depart for the winter holidays I read an article that was picked up in the Utne Reader analyzing several studies and making the case that travel is good for you. It’s supposed to make you smarter. I thought for sure these studies would have been funded by major airlines or travel agencies to encourage more spending on holiday travel and distract us from our ever-thinner wallets, but when I read more closely, the idea made a lot of sense.

One of the major points of the studies is that when we travel, we’re exposed to new things.
And each new location helps us think in new ways.

Level: Community — Pillar: Conflict Transformation

This week’s featured story came in from Washington, DC:
During my freshman year of college, I enrolled in a self-defense class. Every Tuesday night, together with 20 other eager young women, I descended into a dark, dank gymnasium basement where we enacted a series of physical attacks and learned corresponding – hopefully life-saving – defense techniques. When an attacker reaches for your arms, aim for his legs. If his hands are wrapped around your throat, strike at his inner elbows. I was …