On the 73rd year of Israel, what I wish for a gift is to have the law: One Woman then One Man on every key position in Israel.
Posted: 2021/05/04 Filed under: IFLAC News 1 CommentDear Friends, you have convinced me to run as the first woman President in Israel! Please help, by phoning and emailing members of the Knesset. Thanks, Prof. Ada Aharoni
Posted: 2021/05/04 Filed under: IFLAC News 2 CommentsPresenting Professor Ada Aharoni as Candidate For President of the State of Israel in 2021!
Posted: 2021/05/04 Filed under: IFLAC News 2 Comments
2 May, 2021
Presenting Professor Ada Aharoni as Candidate
For President of the State of Israel in 2021
To: Chairman of the Labor Party, MK Merav Michaeli, MK Efrat Reytan, MK Ibtisam Mara’ana, and to all the Knesset members, via emails.
Re: Presenting Professor Ada Aharoni as a candidate for President of the State of Israel in the upcoming elections on May 20 21.
Distinguished Knesset members, Shalom,
1- I wish to present Prof. Ada Aharoni as a candidate for President of the State of Israel.
2- Cultural Sociologist and Conflict Resolution researcher Ada Aharoni, has a long career of successful activities for the promotion of Israel as a democratic State. She has helped a great deal in promoting the issue of gender equality for this present Knesset, and it is necessary to continue to act in this direction, for the Presidency of the State of Israel, in May 2021.
3- For 73 years, all the Presidents of Israel have been men, and it is high time, in the modern era of Me Too, to elect a female candidate of outstanding caliber, as Ada Aharoni, for President of the State of Israel.
4- I strongly propose Professor Ada Aharoni, who founded “IFLAC: The Israeli and International Forum for the Culture of Peace,” and who has been its World President for the last 21 years. In addition to her high qualities as leader, researcher, including her admirable struggle for the need for peace and gender equality, Ada Aharoni is also a wonderful writer who has published 36 books, that have won her many prizes, including President Shimon Perez Peace Prize.
Presented by Azi Naggar –
Social and political activist in the Labor Party
* You are invited to visit Prof. Ada Aharoni’s websites, and her page in Wikipedia:
Email: ada.aharoni06@gmail.com
Phones: 0544404750 0773202818
A GREEN WEEK
Posted: 2021/04/26 Filed under: IFLAC News 2 Comments
A GREEN WEEK
By Prof. Ada Aharoni
A week like fresh mint
a green week spreading its fragrance
to the roots of my being
“Gometek Khadra!” Have a green week!
My father used to bless us
on Saturday nights in Cairo
after the ‘Havdala’
when he came back
from “Shaar Hashamayim,”
the Gates of Heaven,
the grand synagogue in Adli Street
Have a green week he beamed
brandishing a fragrant mint branch
over our keen heads –
but don’t keep it merely for yourself
and your family – this scented green week –
give it back to the world
fully blossoming …
Who will give me a green week
now that he’s gone?
Now that the “Gates of Heaven”
are shut?
Only peace
only a real fragrant
mint peace.
With admiration and deep friendship, IFLAC Pres. Ada Aharoni
VOICES 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Posted: 2021/04/25 Filed under: IFLAC News Leave a comment
I was one of the first poets who joined VOICES, in 1971, when I read in the” Jerusalem Post” a small notice by Ruben Rose, inviting poets who wrote in English to a meeting in his home in Nave Shaanan, in Haifa. It was a warm and enjoyable meeting, though there were only five of us: Ruben Rose and his wife, Mike Scheidemann, a poet from Holland (sorry I forgot his name), and me. We were invited to read two poems each, one of the poems I read, is the one I am sending to the Voices Chapbook: “A Green Week.” Ruben said he loved it, and I loved the two poems he read, for their sincerity, openness and humor: “Why Doesn’t Anyone Want to Sit Next to me at Shul?” and “My Wife Hid the Biscuits Again!”, and I decided to join the group. We then discussed how to call our group, Ruben suggested “Voices”, and we all agreed.
VOICES grew and developed to the wonderful organization it is today, with the help of its faithful and keen poet members. One of the peaks for me, was the great help of VOICES, at the “XIII World Congress of Poets,” (September 1992), of the World Academy of Arts and Culture, which I presided and organized in Haifa, with the active help of VOICES, and the participation of the best poets from more than 30 countries. The main themes of the Congress were: “Towards the Year 2000 – Creating a World Beyond War Through Poetry,” and “Poetry and Translation.” The beautiful book, covering this marvelous Congress: “A Song to Life and World Peace,” (“September, 1992), which I published later, was created with the editorial help of Voices members: Mike Scheidemann, John Dicks and Ezra Ben-Meir. I am glad that this book is still used today, as a Text Book in several universities around the world.
We were very glad when President Haim Herzog sent us his Greeting, which appears at the beginning of the book, I will quote a few of his lines that warm my heart every time I go back to this wonderful book: “To the World Poets of the Congress: Along with the large number of Israelis wo read and cherish poetry, I am delighted that you have chosen to assemble in Israel. We are accustomed to welcoming international conferences of scientists and economists, physicians and psychologists, but not poets. And it is poetry that illuminates life and reaches to the very depths of our being.”
The Haifa Congress commemorated the great Israeli poet Shin Shalom, whose poetry I translated from Hebrew into English; toward the Congress I published two books of his poems in English. I will end my reminiscence, with a quote from Shin Shalom, which appears on the back cover of the book. When he was asked: “But how can poetry help in ending wars?” His answer was: “A crucial cause of wars is cultural differences. These can be overcome by bridging between nations through a vehicle of culture. The best and most suitable vehicle for this gigantic enterprise, as it addresses both the mind and the heart, is Poetry.”
I hope that one day soon, VOICES will organize a meaningful and fruitful International Poetry Congress in Haifa, with the spirit and impact of the one we had in 1992.
Kind wishes,
Prof. Ada Aharoni
A Review of Ada Aharoni’s Rare Flower by Darcy Curwen
Posted: 2021/04/19 Filed under: IFLAC News 2 Comments
THE BOOK ‘RARE FLOWER‘ BY POET ADA AHARONI
BROUGHT ME PEACE
By Darcy Curwen
“This book will profoundly change the life of every reader. It movingly connects the personal with the political,” Evelin Lindner, Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies
Dr. Ada Aharoni has been recognized globally for her work in peace, poetry, social-cultural issues, for her great contributions towards global peace and women’s issues. Ada has received prizes for her work including: winning the World Crown of Poetry, the British Council Poetry Award and the “President Shimon Peres Peace Culture Award,” to name a few. I greatly enjoyed reading, thinking about and reflecting on Ada’s book, “Rare Flower: Life, Love and Peace Poems,” published in 2012, and in Hebrew in 2021. This powerful collection of writing is guided by Ada’s lived experiences. Rare Flower is further complemented by her linguistic reservoir, sharp and detailed observations and a curiosity rooted in the quest of peace. As the reader we are transported from Cairo to Paris to Israel and beyond.
I was very moved reading about Ada’s experiences with the loss of her dear daughter Tali, to which her book titled Rare Flower is dedicated: “Talia Winkler, my brave and wonderful daughter, passed away at the age of 55, on July 8, 2011, after a courageous and creative struggle against cancer, for thirteen eventful years, in which she continued enjoying life, creating, dancing and singing.” I believe one of the biggest reasons this collection of poems is so noteworthy is because writing from a place of authenticity and vulnerability is ultimately writing from a position of strength and conviction.
Through her writing, Ada exposes the readers to themes of love, peace and change, as well as stability. In my opinion writing is a way of making meaning. Stories and poems are powerful, as they offer a profound revealing of a world of experiences. Through storytelling and her ‘Diplomatic Poetry”, Ada talks about war and peace, as well as social relationships, the past and the future. Her poem Seaweed follows:
I grapple with the edge of the taste
And shape of nuclear bombs–
Probably like deadly rotten
Mushroom and seaweed
Nuclear bombs, to me, refer to a willingness of politicians to harm others in the name of peace, using mass destruction. Through referencing (rotten) ordinary foods the readers envision a taste in their mouth and have a visceral reaction. It is understood this food is poisonous for our bodies, yet Leaders who are War-Mongers, frame war as success instead of realizing that bombs are rotten and shocking to the tongue and are as dirty onions to the whole body.
Ada’s Love, Peace and Women’s Poems
One of her love poems which impressed me, is titled The Marriage of Science and Poetry. The reason I like this title so much is because these two fields, science and poetry, are often pitted against each other as oppositional. One is viewed as objective and the other subjective. One is rational, the other is emotional. Many systems of oppression rely on binaries. Ada says, “Although our methods and tools are divergent, we both want to probe the actuality of things to investigate phenomena beyond their surfaces”.
Through writing, as a form of questioning, Ada is able to draw attention to what is often perceived as what should be good, natural and normal. The poem: “Geisha Girls,” delivers a powerful statement:
Mother, why did you tell me
They are just psychological hostesses
Sometimes singers and dancers, but nothing more?
Through Ada’s visit to a “Geisha House” in Hokkaido, in north Japan, with a Japanese Professor and his wife, Mrs. Kikuji realizes for the first time, what really goes on in Geisha Houses, where her husband goes every day after work. She then decides to leave him, and she wishes that the Geishas should ride the Tatami mat and float right out of their lives.
In her moving Women poems, Ada succeeds to show how not only men suffer in wars, but that women and children too, greatly suffer in war time and face tragic vulnerabilities. She convincingly shows how male systems of power dominate women and their bodies. In her powerful poem: You Cannot Bomb Me Anymore, she writes:
Listen, little big man,
You cannot bomb me
Anymore
Because I don’t allow you
To bomb me anymore
Nor to choke
Nor rape me anymore,
For I have my own strength now
And my own creative
Peace-business now!
Using poetry to call for Peace in her poem: “Chameleon”, she writes:
Let’s help each other
Love each other
Despite our different colors,
Not hurt each other
It is such a loss of humanity, creativity and possibility, when we enact violent systems against those who are different from us, or those we perceive to be thinking and acting differently in society. In sharing with us her beautiful collection of profound and impressive poems about Peace and Love Ada gives us new feelings and perceptions about the pain of losing a child, but also about the joy and hope of living a meaningful and rich life.
In her last poem of the book’s section on “Women”, she writes in “Grandmother and the Wolf”:
They were too grim,
Those brothers Grimm,
And they had it all wrong–
For grandmothers you see,
Are very strong!
Here Ada is able to use a popular childhood story (Little Red Riding Hood via the Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales) to reimagine the narrative of a weak, feeble grandmother figure, which I interpret to reflect broader attitudes about women of all ages and girls. In the poem, at the end, it is the grandmother, who gobbles up the bad evil wolves in society, and not the other way round! Women are more than 51% of global society, and in the “Me Too” era, women too create the laws, and rule the world together with the men.
Through poem writing, Ada flips the script on the traditional and gendered narrative about the weak and defenseless, domestic Grandmother. By doing so, she opens the door for the readers to ask some of the most important questions we as individuals can ask which are: ‘Why is it this way? How did this come to be?’ Her wise, deeply thought, philosophical poems, enrich us with confidence and strength that it can be otherwise, and the time has come for a “Global Me Too – Women’s Revolution”, hinted at in her great and powerful poem: “I Am Not in Your Museum Anymore!” :
Embalmed in your
mummifying caresses
I was a zombie
A bandaged mummy
In an ancient sarcophagus
Patiently waiting centuries
For you to open the lid
When you could spare the time
I loved this poem for many reasons, first, women can no longer endure remaining under the refutable male supremacy. Women were nailed shut in a coffin of customs and circumstances, for ages, where discrimination, war and horrific damages, are considered normal. Secondly, I find it moving that the setting for this liberation of women poem is an imaginary museum, which symbolizes life, and relations of women and men in the past. By firmly declaring in her poem, “I don’t belong to your museum anymore!”, Ada tells the reader and modern society, that she, and all other women, have the right to self-determination, freedom and full equality.
This excellent book enriched me in thoughts and feelings, and it brought me new levels of hope that if I and others act to bring change, it would bring us not only Peace of mind and heart, but also Global Peace in our whole Global Village.
Darcy Curwen
MAY THE NEW YEAR BE FULL OF FLOWERING WISHES AND SMILES! (My latest painting for the New Year 2021. Acrylic on canvas) With love, Ada Aharoni שנה חדשה מלאת פרחים וחיוכים
Posted: 2021/04/02 Filed under: IFLAC News 1 Comment
CONGRATULATIONS TO NICOLE WYSZYNSKI FOR HER DIPLOMA – IFLAC DIRECTOR AND PEACE AMBASSADOR FOR THE U.S.
Posted: 2021/04/02 Filed under: IFLAC News 2 Comments
WELCOME TO OUR NEW IFLAC INTERN DARCY CURWEN 2021
Posted: 2021/04/02 Filed under: IFLAC News 2 Comments
My name is Darcy Curwen. I’m currently studying at the University of Haifa to finish a BA from Eckerd College, Florida. I grew up in the United States and England. Regarding academics I am interested in how systems of power are reproduced and constructed. The United States broadly operates wielding white supremacist ideology, national religious narratives, patriarchy and predatory capitalism. Understanding this I have focused on critical race theory and intersectional and trans feminist teachings.
I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to work with IFLAC and Prof. Ada Aharoni. I very much appreciate that the activism of this organization does not confine itself to one avenue or issue. Communication and information sharing come in the form of poetry, music, international thinkers and so much more. I hope to balance advocacy through listening, asking questions and sharing what I have learned thus far.
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