What is the book about: It is set in the Middle East: Israel and Palestine. This Holy Land to many, has been enmeshed in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts for over a century, characterized by prejudice, cycles of violence and failed peace talks.
“Is it possible to resolve a conflict that has lasted for so long?” The author, Nitsan Joy Gordon and her colleagues asked almost thirty years ago. And then: “What can we do to help?”
This book is the inspirational story of this adventure, their quest.
The way Nitsan and her colleagues chose to help is by empowering and training Arab and Jewish, Israeli and Palestinian women to create safe havens where people, caught in a conflict, can meet together, dig deep, face what hurts and heal it. Their groundbreaking approach — including Dance/Movement Therapy, Listening Partnerships, Healing Touch, Radical Aliveness (RA), Playback Theater and Internal Family Systems (IFS) — teaches women to harness conflict and intense emotions as a way to achieve empathy and deep connection with perceived enemies. The women then take these transformative practices into their communities, tribes, organizations, to spread the healing.Nitsan’s book recounts how she got involved in working for peace, the amazing approaches they found useful for peacebuilding and stories of powerful moments in their workshops that were so moving and inspiring, she simply had to write about them.Nitsan believes this work is relevant to women and men everywhere in the world where there is conflict. Whether it’s a conflict you are looking to resolve inside you, in your home, community or country, this book will give you new insights, skills, inspiration and hope. (Cover Illustration: Drawings from Hülya Özdemir)