Linked with Women in Black Movement – worldwide, with the Coalition of Women for Just Peace CWfJP, and with Center for Women’s Global Leadership CWGL (on 15. Jan.).
She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.
Haya Shalom was born on December 4th 1944 in Jerusalem,Israell, to an Israeli-Sephardic fifth generation family. She is a graduate of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in History Studies. As a feminist, human rights activist and a Lesbian, Shalom is especially sensitive to issues concerning women’s oppression. Shalom is one of the first women who joined and assisted the Women in Black Movement, protesting for more than 16 years against the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West bank. She strongly believes in the efforts she makes towards peace advocacy, despite the difficulties of being often unpopular and positioned at the sidelines of society. She is optimistic about the possibility of effectuating change, even if it is slow and gradual. Shalom’s vision for a peaceful future is based on the initiation of a radical change that will crumble the definitions of the patriarchal society. She emphasizes,:“Not only to achieve minor changes, but to implement a drastic change that will enable the feminine language to brake through and place a different shade on issues concerning solidarity, war and peace, violence against Women, non-violence resistance, Lesbian rights and more” … (1000peacewomen 1/2).
She is named as Political Heroe.
She says: “We need to achieve and implement a drastic change that will enable the feminine language to break through and tackle issues concerning solidarity, peace and violence against the rights of women”. (1000peacewomen).
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Haya Shalom – Israel
She works for the Women in Black Movement WiB: find WIB.org, and (old, but with Address to the Security Council of the United Nations): WIB.net, for Coalition of Women for Just Peace CWfJP (homepages in english, in hebrew and in arabic), and for the International Gay and Lesbians Human Rights Commission IGLHRC.
Haya Shalom, a spokesperson for the radical left Israeli group « Women in Black » told IMRA today that Aliza Olmert, wife of Acting PM Ehud Olmert « was never a member of Women in Black, never attended nor was ever invited to attend any activity of Women in Black » … (full text, 14 February 2006).
Find her on Google Book-search, and on Google Group-search.
She visited the Center for Antiwar Action, in Kosovo.
(1000peacewomen 2/2): … Between 1980 and 1984 Shalom was an active member of “Kol Haisha” (The Woman`s Voice) in Jeruslem, Co-Organizer of the first women protest against the invasion in Lebanon.
In March 1986 she participated in the International Lesbian Conference in Geneva. This conference inspired her to found the Community of Lesbian Feminists in Israel, in 1987. Its mission was to help advance Women and Lesbians’ rights in Israel. Since its inception in January 1988 the Committee has organized the activities of Women In Black.
In December 1988 Shalom co-founded the Women and Peace Coalition. She was the coordinator of “Bat Adam”, a coalition of women’s organizations to prevent violence against women. Since 1991 Shalom has participated in international women’s and lesbian conferences. Among the issues she has dealt with are solidarity, peace promotion, violence against women, non-violence resistance and the role of lesbians in our society.
From February 1993 to June 1994 she was a coordinator of the International Coalition of Women’s Organizations for Agunah Rights. (Agunah in Hebrew means “a chained” woman: a woman bound in marriage by a husband who refuses to grant her divorce or who is missing and not proven dead).
In March 1995 Shalom initiated and organized the first Women Poets’ Festival. Since 1996 she has been a member of the International board of advisory of the International Gay and Lesbians Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC).
During 1996 and 1997, Shalom was a member of the Board for Bat Shalom, the Women Center for Peace. She was also elected as Chair of Board of Members of “Kol Haisha” (The Women’s Voice), a feminist multicultural center in 1999- 2000. In recognition of her invaluable efforts towards supporting the rights of gays and lesbians, Shalom was awarded the Community Prize of the Gay and Lesbian Community In 2000.
Shalom has been very active in the Coalition of Women for Just Peace, an organization that has become one of the leading voices in Israel advocating a just and viable peace between Israelis and Palestinians ever since its founding in November 2000, only six weeks after the current Intifada broke out. The Coalition pools the efforts of independent women and nine women’s peace organizations (amongst them Women in Black).
Its members are a mix of Jewish and Palestinian women (all citizens of Israel), taking action to amplify the voices of women calling for peace and justice for all inhabitants of the region. The Coalition of Women for Peace seeks to mobilize women in support of human rights and a just peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors, working to strengthen democracy within Israel.
The Coalition aims to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land; to facilitate full involvement of women in negotiations for peace; to establish the State of Palestine side-by-side with the State of Israel, based on the 1967 borders; to demand Israeli recognition of Jerusalem as the shared capital of two states; to oppose the militarism that permeates Israeli society; to achieve equality, inclusion and justice for Palestinian citizens of Israel; to ensure equal rights for women and all residents of Israel; and to achieve social and economic justice for Israel’s citizens.
The Coalition also provides emergency supplies to women and children in refugee camps, and school supplies to thousands of Palestinian children affected by the Israeli occupation. With the escalation of violence over the recent years, it has become harder and harder for peace movements in Israel to gain public support.
Nevertheless, the Coalition remains strong, both independently and in collaboration with others, believing that peace is possible and that women have a key role in making it happen. (on 1000peacewomen).
links:
Center for Women’s Global Leadership;
Letter from Jerusalem: A Center for All God’s Children, by Esther Hecht, Decembeer 2000;
The Google download book: SUITCASE, refugee voices from Bosnia and Croatia, 1997, 203 pages.