Mothers without borders

Sarit Zehavi knows she has nine seconds after hearing the sirens signaling an attack to get herself and her five children to the bomb shelter. She is a reserve Lt. Col. in the Israeli Army and lives in the northern Galilee of Israel near the borders of Syria and Lebanon.

Im Nidal, a Palestinian woman living in a camp in the West Bank, has been a refugee since the age of two. She is now in her 70s and says she was visiting one of her sons who was arrested by the Israelis when she discovered five of her other sons had also been arrested.

Eliana Passentin lives with her children in Eli, a settlement just outside the city of Shiloh in the West Bank, surrounded by Palestinian villages. Passentin wants her children to grow up overlooking Shiloh because it’s the place where thousands of years ago, the 12 tribes made their pilgrimage every year. She’s willing to live among hostile neighbors to do so.

Rena Quint, a holocaust survivor and mother of four in her 80’s in Jerusalem writes in her book, A Daughter of Many Mothers, that her mother let go of her hand as they were being herded to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. This saved her life. She writes about the many “mothers” who adopted her, officially and unofficially, after that.

For Zehavi and Nidal, a sense of safety is missing for their children. For Passentin and Quint, a sense of history is important to give to their children.

All four women know what it’s like to live one minute in peace and the next in chaos.

That chaos rained down again in Israel on Wednesday as rockets launched from Syria aimed for the Golan Heights, near Zehavi and her children. She wasn’t the only mother thinking of getting her children out of harm’s way. At least one Israeli mother took to twitter echoing Zehavi’s 9 second race to the bomb shelter.

As an assistant professor at Northwestern University outside of Chicago, I met Zehavi, Nidal, Passentin and Quint on a recent trip to Israel with students. While talking to them about the competing and conflicting narratives of Israel from their different points of view, their similar dreams of freedom and safety for their children emerge.

As a mother of three sons the similarities resonate; all women who know the joys and the struggles of raising children even in the most optimum of circumstances resemble one another.

More than a century ago, Anna Jarvis created the American version of Mother’s Day in honour of her late mother. It became an official holiday in the U.S. in 1914, but ironically Jarvis tried to get it removed from the calendar when it was commercialized.  

As the United States prepares to celebrate mothers in an extremely polarized, political environment, it’s important to see what unites rather than what divides. Perhaps we should create a new Mother’s Day tradition. One in which mothers reach out to and hear from one another, especially those who are on different sides of an issue. Such a mother-to-mother dialogue might shine a light on what we have in common.

There are already a few websites that promote mom-to-mom communication. They include wholefamilyhappiness.com and workingmother.com. Also, there are plenty of mom blogs. Mom.me has a list of its 50 favorite mom blogs.

The women in Israel have already had their Mother’s Day. Yom Ha'em falls between January 30 and March 1. For Palestinians Mother’s Day is celebrated each year on March 21.

Candy, cards, flowers and brunch are nice, but commemorating Mother’s Day with a new tradition of outreach, communication and understanding could be the best way to honour all mothers.