Prof. Ada Aharoni is a Peace Culture Researcher, writer, poet and lecturer. She is the Founder and President of IFLAC: The International Forum for the Literature and Culture of Peace. Ada lives in Nesher, Israel.

ADA's HEBREW SITES:
Ada Aharoni's Homepage in Hebrew | World Congress of the Jews from Egypt | Jews from Arab Countries and Peace

French Spanish

INTERNATIONAL IFLAC:
Argentina Hungary Japan Romania Spain

Israel PAZIFLAC in South America

Turn on your speakers, click and enjoy A Green Week or Why?
from Ada's CD To Haim - To Life: Love Poems

NEWS:

Radio interview with Ada

Israeli Radio Oranim recently interviewed Ada on IFLAC and the theme of Peace in her books. Listen to the interview below (Hebrew).

Part 1:

Part 2:

Greeting to IFLAC for 2012

(2011.12.31) Dear IFLAC Directors, Members and Friends,

I wish a very joyful, peaceful and healthy New Year 2012 to each of you.

May the New Year 2012, fully recognize at last, that our IFLAC way: Peace through Bridges of Literature, Culture and Communication is so much better than violence, conflict, destruction and wars!

Please invite all your friends and colleagues to join us, by visiting and adhering to our rich and wonderful site and blog at: www.iflac.wordpress.com in which you can publish your thoughts and ideas, by commenting on thought-provoking articles and items.

This year, with your devoted and kind help again, we will attempt to double the members who have joined us through our above site. Together, we will double our efforts in spreading our IFLAC values to the whole of our global village. We will continue in our noble attempt of creating a beautiful world of humane care and kindness for each other, a brave New World of Peace and Harmony – Beyond War, Terror and Violence.

With all the very best wishes to you and to your families,

Dr. Ada Aharoni
IFLAC Founding President

Ada reads poems in the Syndic Literary Journal

(2011.12.04) Syndic No. 5 is out, featuring multimedia presentations by international authors and artists, including Ada. She reads three of her poems: Universal Woman, A Bridge of Peace and Siniora, My New Friend in Gaza.

Enjoy the poetry reading at Syndic.

Ada spoke up on WomensRadio

(2011.11.24) Speak Up! is a show on WomensRadio in which guests are invited to talk about issues concerning women.

In an interview with the Speak Up! Host Pat Lynch, Ada talked about IFLAC and the necessity of building bridges of peace. Inspired by the recent veil burning in Yemen, she also said that it is time to burn the Burkas as well. In fact, “Burn the Burkas” will be a new IFLAC project for 2012. She said that if the men like the Burkas so much, let them wear one themselves.

Listen to the interview, Peace by Building Bridges, at WomensRadio. At their site, WomesRadio also kindly published two of Ada’s peace poems: A Bridge of Peace and Peace Is a Woman and a Mother.

A Poem to Tali (1956-2011)

STOP THE TEARS

There is nothing in the world harder than to lose a daughter!
Enough of drowning in the sea of tears
Sorrow is a never ending trap
That swallows all my entity, all my hours, all my plans,
Everything seems to me to be shallow, tasteless,
Lacking any horizon, without any goal
Without Tali.

However, this is not what Tali expected of me,
"Go on with your struggle for peace ma,"
She whispered, "For both of us,
When I am not here."

I have to follow her example
To honor her memory with her optimistic message
Full of peace and hope,
To follow her spirit for the creation of a better society,
A better Middle East, a better world
Without violence, destruction, terror and famine,
A new world at peace with itself and far beyond war.

Stop the tears, the work of peace
Is tremendous and Tali expects me to continue
For both of us, and indeed we will all continue
To build your loving peace path Tali, through IFLAC -
In your spirit, with your devotion and with
Your wise angelic smile
Tali.

Your loving mother
Ada

Tali and Lotem
Tali and her granddaughter Lotem

In Loving Memory of Tali (1956-2011)

A COURAGEOUS DAUGHTER CALLED TALI

She had twinkling honey-green eyes
and velvety black curls -
she laughed in the wind
and sang and danced under the trees with the stars
Tali, Tali, Tali, Tali

"You have breast-cancer that has spread"
the doctors curtly said -
"Chimio-Therapy all your life!"
She stopped laughing in the wind
and stopped singing and dancing with the stars
Tali, Tali, Tali, Tali

"I won't let you poison me anymore!"
she firmly said and fled
from the Chimio-Therapy trap -
to grass-juice, green vegetables and fruit
Tali, Tali, Tali, Tali

She won, she triumphed!
She laughs again in the wind
she dances again with the stars -
my lovely, courageous daugther
Tali, Tali, Tali, Tali

(June 2009)

Tali Winkler, my wonderful daughter, passed away on July 8, 2011,
after a courageous struggle agains cancer, for sixteen long and fruitful years.

Now she rests in peace, and
Sings, dances and twinkles with the immortal stars forever.

Ada Aharoni

Tali Winkler (1956-2011)

Israel-Palestine: The need for practical solutions

(2011.07.05) In her new article, Peace and Harmony between Israelis and Palestinians based on Mutual Recognition of National Aspirations, Ada writes: “Processes that take place in a society are rarely reversible; repair of wrongs and compensation of suffering cannot usually be accomplished by a return to the previous situation but by the creation of a new situation that is beneficial while appropriate to the new conditions.”

Geisha Girls

(2011.07.02) Ada was recently reminded about her poem "Geisha Girls" below when she was asked to contribute a poem to a Poetry Anthology on Japan. She wrote the poem in the 1970's while on a half sabbatical in Japan together with her husband Haim. Haim was invited by a colleague to visit a Geisha House, and as a good husband he asked Ada to come with them. Ada of course enthusiastically said "yes!"

"Haim's Japanese colleague was perturbed because only men went to the Geisha House, but he finally invited his wife, because I was present," Ada recalls. "She said that thanks to me she would visit a Geisha House for the first time in her life!"

The poem is inspired by the words she whispered in Ada's ear at the establishment. She later became very active in the feminist movement in Japan.

GEISHA GIRLS

Hai, squid and seaweed in bamboo boat -
Mother, what is she doing to my husband,
rubbing his chest and leg and ego?
Hai, jelly fish and seaweed in roasted eye.
Mother, why did you tell me
they are just psychological hostesses
sometimes singers and dancers, but nothing more -

If a psychologist caressed my breast and leg
wouldn't Kikuji be annoyed too?
And when I need a psychologist, mother,
whom do I go to?
Hai, crab and seaweed in parching mouth,
which unlike yours and granny's
refuses to be custom-choked.

Mother, oh mother, I'm so lonely
when he goes to the geisha girls!
I dangle a thousand million cranes for the day
when the geishas will rise from the tatami
in their rose-winged kimonos,
mount the bamboo boat and float
straight out of our lives.

Sketchbook publishes Ada's poems

(2011.05.08) Several of Ada's poems, including "A Green Week" and "Cosmic Woman", were published in the International Poetry Magazine Sketchbook, March/April 2011 edition. This edition contains poems, art and features by 86 writers from 21 countries.

If a White Horse from Jerusalem

(2011.04.22) Ada's poem "A White Horse from Jerusalem" inspired Professor of Music and Musical Director Bret Zvacek to compose a new piece by the same name. The work was presented in concert with Central New York Jazz Orchestra, featuring legendary saxophonist David Liebman as soloist, in Syracuse, New York in April. Liebman played with Miles Davis in the 1970s.

Ada's own inspiration for the poem was a white runaway horse that found its way to her street in Haifa and smiled at her. It came from the Druze village Ussfiya, incidentally the same village where IFLAC some years later would establish their Tent of Peace.

If a white horse from golden Jerusalem,
bearing a message from the land of global peace
strides so valiantly
in the early dawn hours
of my own street,
as if it were the ocean
as if it were the bright blue sky -
then all is possible...

Read the whole story about The White Horse from Jerusalem in the IFLAC Blog.

New IFLAC Project: The Golden Book of the Jews of Egypt

(2011.04.17) IFLAC has launched a new project: The Golden Book of the Jews of Egypt: My Own Second Exodus.

Out of the 100,000 Jews living in Egypt in the mid-twenties, only twenty old Jews are left there today, after their tragic uprooting.

The purpose of this project is to collect the oral-history narratives of the uprooting of the Jews from Egypt and from other Arab Countries before their authors pass away and take their stories with them.

IFLAC wants to collect these "Second Exodus" stories and publish them in a "Golden Book" in 2012.

The social role of writers/poets

(2011.04.10) Patrick Sammut, Vice-President of the Maltese Poets Association, published an interview with Ada about the role of writers/poets in the light of the recent natural disasters and other world events.

When asked about the role of writers/poets compared to that of politicians, Ada replied, "The politician’s role is to find immediate relief, but his actions will not always be remembered. On the other hand, the poet can express truths that will survive and speak out to generations after generations, as for instance the Peace Poems of the British Poet Wilfred Owen, who wrote during the First World War."

Read the whole interview in the IFLAC Blog.

Conference on the Jews from Egypt

(2011.03.25) On April 4, 2011 Ada Aharoni is organizing a conference on The Collective Memory and the Narrative of the Jews from Egypt at Bar-Ilan University.

Conference Program (Hebrew only)

International Women's Day

(2011.03.08) In celebration of the International Women's Day, March 8, enjoy a selection of Ada's Women Poems.

SINIORA: MY NEW FRIEND IN GAZA

Your shy smile under your veil
And luminous dark eyes in the theatre
Of life, of strife, caught my eye
In the Ability Center in Khan Yunis, in Gaza.
I invited you to take a picture with us
And you charmingly accepted.
I gave you my peace poetry book in Arabic translation,
You read and said: "You love Peace as much as me!"
And you gave me your address, for more of my books.
You pointed out from the window
To the impressive new buildings in Gaza,
And we became new friends.
With women it is as easy as that.

You asked me about my children,
I asked you about your family, your plans,
You showed me your artwork, your workshop,
I showed you my inner writing, my pictures, my peace dreams.
You showed me your impressive museum
With gorgeous embroidered Palestinian dresses,
You gently asked: "Which one do you like best?"
I pointed to the dark blue with red embroidery,
Like the one I used to wear in Egypt, a long time ago,
And in my poetry presentations.
"I'll embroider it for you, and send it to you to Haifa,"
You promptly, softly said.
I was so moved, and hugged you dear Siniora,
My new friend in Gaza.
When our blue bus drove away,
We both had tears in our eyes,
My wonderful new friend in Gaza -
With women it is as natural, as easy as that.

Men! Learn from women for a change,
Let women help you make peace, make friends,
With women it is as natural, as easy as that.

IFLAC Supports the People of Egypt

(2011.02.19) IFLAC considers of historical importance the events which are taking place in the Middle East region, and particularly the democratic change which has been undertaken by the people of Egypt after 18 days of a captivating mobilization, chiefly in the El Tahrir Square in Cairo. As an institution created for promoting intercultural dialogue and understanding, IFLAC considers of utmost significance the participation in those events of young men and women of all walks of life and different beliefs, united by their will to call for democracy and freedom and for a better future for their country. We applaud the unprecedented social movement striving for Freedom, Dignity and Social Justice, and moved by values and principles which are at the heart of the IFLAC mission.

We send our sympathy and condolences to the families of all the peaceful demonstrators who lost their lives during those uprisings. May they rest in peace.

Prof. Ada Aharoni
IFLAC Founder - President

New Year Greeting 2011

Dear IFLAC Members and Friends,

(2011.01.01) I take the opportunity before the opening of the new decade, beginning in 2011, to wish you and yours: peace, happiness, good health and success in all your endeavors.

I am very glad that in 2010 we have had many fruitful achievements, among them: 109,330 people have visited our IFLAC sites, in English, Hebrew, Spanish, French, Romanian and Hungarian. We warmly thank Maria Cristina Azcona, our IFLAC Director in South America, together with her Vice President Susana Roberts, and Harmonie Botella, our IFLAC Director in Spain, for the excellent IFLAC Spanish sites they have created. We also warmly thank Tatomir Ion-Marius, our IFLAC Director in Romania and Hungary, for the wonderful and impressive sites in Romanian and Hungarian.

Warm thanks are due to Solveig Hansen, in Norway, our expert technical editor of the very professional site: Ada Aharoni's Homepage that includes all the above sites, including the impressive and rich Guestbook which you are invited to visit and sign.

Another one of our greatest achievements which we are very proud of is the daily e-publication of our IFLAC Digest Newsletter that provides and spreads information on the progress of the Culture of Peace in the Middle East and around the world. The IFLAC Digest also allows us to connect, inspire and educate ourselves and our environment.

Already 2,645 Editions of the IFLAC Digest have been published on the Internet, and we estimate that it reaches more than 20,000 individuals across the world. We warmly thank Hany Eldeib, the owner and technical director of our IFLAC Yahoo site, for his constant support and faithful work. All the IFLAC Digests, from the very first one to this day, are available on the IFLAC Yahoo site.

Among the many significant and important IFLAC activities in 2010, on the 7th of December 2010, our IFLAC Delegate in Japan, Taki Yuriko, in cooperation with us, sent a letter in the name of IFLAC, to President Obama, to stop all nuclear tests in the present and in the future. We hope this letter will be answered positively very soon.

We warmly greet and give thanks to all the active IFLAC Ambassadors, Writers, Poets, and Members in the WORLD IFLAC NETWORK. In 2011, IFLAC will continue its efforts to pave the way to a culture of harmony and peace in the Middle East and in our global village. We will appeal to governments, global institutions and to the world media, to act as responsible caretakers and trustees of humankind and of our planet. We will ask them to widely spread a global Culture of Peace and of democracy throughout our global village, with the aid of our project the "IFLAC PCTVI: The Peace Culture Television and Internet". The PCTVI would not only widely promote the spreading of a culture of peace; it would also help to eliminate the very concept and practice of war. In addition, it would also promote peace education, and progress and wellbeing for all people, as well as gender equality.

Finally, in 2011, we hope to witness the building of a Palestinian State, living in peace and harmony by the side of its neighbor - the State of Israel, and that both States would flourish, like fruitful "pomegranates full of pearly, ruby grains".

I wish you all, a very happy, peaceful and fruitful New Year 2011.

Dr. Ada Aharoni
IFLAC Founder - President
iflac.com