Our CEO Nancy K. Kaufman, along with the Israel Action Network is leading a week-long study tour in Israel for a group of progressive women leaders from the US. Read her dispatches all week at the NCJW Insider.

We just finished our second day of the Progressive Women Leaders trip to Israel and it was jam-packed.

We began the day meeting with Dr. Dalia Fadila, a Muslim educator whom I had gotten to know in New York City when we co-sponsored a program with the Inter-Agency Taskforce on Arab Issues.

Dalia travelled a couple of hours from her home to be with us. Dalia is an amazing, inspiring woman. She shared with us her experience as a highly educated Muslim woman challenging the status quo to improve opportunities for younger generations of women. After serving as Acting President of Al Quasimi Academy and being passed over for the permanent position by a man two levels below her, Dalia decided to start her own supplementary schools, teaching English to young Arab girls. Dalia is a true role model for the up-and-coming generation of Israeli Arab women who are passionate about improving their communities.

We then traveled to Arrabe, an Arab village in the Galilee, where we met with the director of Kayan, an Arab feminist organization NCJW has funded through our Israel Granting Program. It’s an organization I also worked with closely when I ran the Boston-Haifa Learning Exchange between NGO leaders in both cities. We met with a dozen women who have been part of the women’s groups organized by Kayan in Arab towns in the Upper Galilee. We learned about the challenges these women face (particularly single women) when they try to make changes in their lives and their communities.

After our conversation we left the village and headed east, stopping at a moshav — a type of agricultural community common in Israel — for lunch. We then toured the Upper Galilee and ended up in the Golan Heights looking a short distance to Damascus. We received a military briefing about the current crisis in Syria and its impact, and potential impact, on Israel. Only last week, Israel took in seven Syrian refugees for medical treatment in Safed.

After a stop at Nof Ginosar kibbutz in Tiberias, we ended our eventful day at a fabulous restaurant on a moshav on the way back to Akko.

The 16 of us on the trip have bonded and are having a really rich educational experience. 

Read more about the trip from Geri Palast of the Israel Action Network and Kierra Johnson of Choice USA.