Author: Yvette Nahmia-Messinas
Type: Feminist Poetry on Healing Israeli-Palestinian RelationsISBN: 978-965-91284-1-9
Year of Publication: 2010
They All Sound Like Love Songs: Women Healing Israeli-Palestinian Relations was written the night I returned from a two-day-long Palestinian-Israeli women’s gathering in Beer Sheva, in May 2009. The women’s gathering was jointly organized by the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development and a Palestinian women’s organization working for peace in the region. I was one among 40 women participants. The gathering helped me realize that we women are the healers, and that it is up to us to do the healing work towards peace in our region.
They All Sound Like Love Songs is in itself a part of a creative healing process. The poems dwell on the common qualities of women, shared hopes, shared burdens and shared dreams. They speak about connection, communication and cooperation among women. I hope and wish this collection of poems triggers many more creative women’s processes of healing and peace in the region.
About the author
Yvette Nahmia-Messinas is a mother of three daughters, writer, reiki teacher and reiki and Grinberg method therapist. Since August 2008 Yvette lives in the pluralistic and environmentally oriented community of Kibbutz Kramim in the Negev, slowly finding her way into women’s activism and empowerment in the region. Prior to moving to Kibbutz Kramim Yvette was living on the island of Aegina, Greece where she supported women who had cancer in their healing process, and taught reiki to women as a self healing tool.
An ex-Jerusalemite and a native Athenian, Yvette taught Greek to adults at the Greek Community Center in Jerusalem from 1996 until 2002. Yvette also served as the senior writer and managing editor of the Yad Vashem magazine between 1998 and 2000. Since 2005 she has been contributing articles to Aleph on women and Judaism the bimonthly magazine of the Jewish Community of Athens.
Yvette holds a BA in Psychology from the American College of Greece, and a Masters in Jewish Civilization from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a graduate of Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and the Senior Educators’ Program of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Since 1995 Yvette has participated in and has led women’s groups in Greece and Israel, and is currently facilitating the weekly women’s circle in Kibbutz Kramim. In 2005 Yvette joined forces with her husband “green” architect Elias Messinas in establishing the environmental NGO Ecoweek to raise public awareness on environmental issues, and to empower women and youth towards sustainable living. As ecoweek chairwoman Yvette initiated in May the Midwives of Peace Project that aims to empower women as healers of themselves and their communities.