Women’s group fights for peace after 77 years of war

Esther Blum doesn’t know how peace is going to happen between Israel and Palestine.

But, she said, “We gave war a chance for 77 years. Maybe now is the time to give peace the same amount of time.”

Blum, a member of the Winnipeg chapter of Women Wage Peace, made that comment to a group of about 25 Jewish seniors at the Remis Luncheon at the Gwen Secter Creative Living Centre on Thursday.

“Maybe peace (in the region) won’t come in our lifetimes,” Blum went on to say, noting Israel has often been in conflict with its neighbours and Palestinians inside the country since its founding in 1948.

“Maybe it will take 77 years. But we have to work towards something,” she said.

Blum, a retired professor of social work at the University of Manitoba, is one of about 50 local women who are part of the Winnipeg chapter of Women Wage Peace. The organization was founded in Israel in 2014 by Vivian Silver, the Winnipeg-born and raised peace activist who was murdered in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

Today, Women Wage Peace is Israel’s largest grassroots peace movement, composed of women from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities. It also has chapters in Canada, Australia, Europe and South America.

The Winnipeg chapter started in 2024 and has about 80 members, with 15 to 20 women meeting monthly to talk about the situation in the Middle East and to learn listening skills.

A goal of the group is to create opportunities for Jewish and Palestinian women to talk with each other.

“But everyone is still hurting too much over the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and the war in Gaza,” Blum said. “But we are still hoping we can do it.”

Right now, members of the group are reaching out to the local Muslim community.

“It takes time for us to learn how to listen from the heart,” Blum said. “But little by little, we are making progress.”

As a symbol of their desire to bring Jewish and Palestinian women together, members of Women Wage Peace in Winnipeg wear turquoise scarves that combine the blue of the Israeli flag with the green of the Palestinian flag.

Blum said the media is quick to cover the violence in the region but pays almost no attention to peace initiatives such as the People’s Peace Summit in Israel early last month.

The summit, titled It’s Time, brought together more than 7,000 people from 60 peace-building organizations. The goal was to talk about ways to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a political agreement to promote self-determination and security for all.

Blum said she supports Israel’s right to exist as a state.

“But that doesn’t mean Palestinians can’t have their own state,” she said.

Blum added that the current Israeli government is not popular with a majority of Israel’s citizens, with 73 per cent telling an Israel Democracy Institute poll earlier this year they believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should resign.

The next election in Israel for the Knesset, the nation’s parliament, is in October 2026.

“Then, the people (in Israel) will have their say,” Blum said.

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