We Are Women of a Certain Age
Formed to travel to Palestine in 2004, Women of a Certain Age continues to advocate for Palestinian human rights. We are proud to have WCA members who are active in the U.S. Boat to Gaza, The Jenin Freedom Theatre, Jews Say No!, Brooklyn for Peace, Code Pink, Granny Peace Brigades, ISM, MECR, and more. Our list of friends is a growing community, and we encourage others to work with us. As mothers, grandmothers and daughters, we believe in the power and responsibility each one of us has to effect change. In the summer of 2004, we traveled to the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. We stood beside women and men who, like us, wish to live in a just world at peace. We met with Palestinians whose voices have not been heard outside the walls of occupation.We traveled to learn and returned to educate and inform our family, friends, co-workers, indeed, our fellow citizens to the true and terrible nature of the Israeli occupation.
We traveled because we cannot remain silent in the face of such obvious injustice. We cannot remain silent when Israel builds an Apartheid wall that divides a people, that tears asunder villages from fields, people from their livelihoods. We cannot remain silent when illegal settlements are maintained and expanded onto other people’s lands. We cannot remain silent as the Israeli army enforces the Occupation with walls, fences, razor wire, checkpoints, roadblocks, tear gas, bullets and bombs fired from helicopters upon innocent people. We cannot remain silent when Israeli bulldozers (made in the USA) raze Palestinian homes creating thousands of new refugees in a land of refugees.
While some of our members had over 60 years of experience as activists, for others it was an introduction to direct action. Our group was varied; teachers, social workers, artists and lawyers, Jews, Christians, Muslims and secularists. Each brought a different contribution to the group. Two women brought their daughters. Some documented the trip in photos, video and diaries.
As individuals we had a desire to see things first hand, but the group provided the impetus. We hope that as Women of a Certain Age we might inspire others to do the same. Here are some ways to travel to Israel/Palestine: Alternative Tourism Group,Birthright Unplugged, Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, Fellowship of Reconciliation,International Solidarity Movement, International Women’s Peace Service, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and more. If you’re new to this and you’d like to form a group like ours, write to us, we’d be happy to share our experience.
We are Women of a Certain Age drawn together in support of the people of Palestine and their resistance to occupation. We support projects that keep the reality of life on the ground in the Occupied Territories visible, and we use our collective experience to advocate for change in U.S. policy in the Middle East.
Women of a Certain Age 