Published: 24 June 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
ANNE SUSSKIND talks to PETA JONES PELLACH about women, religion and her many peacebuilding endeavours
On arriving in Israel on Aliyah from Australia in 2010, Peta Jones Pellach was lucky to almost immediately land her dream job as Education Director at the Elijah Interfaith Institute.
She now belongs to more peace-building NGOs than she can easily count and, by her husband’s estimate, attends at least 17 meetings each month.
She has two main focuses to her peace-building endeavours - religion and women. Without their meaningful inclusion in the conversation, peace talks will always fail, just as they did in Oslo, she argues.
Pellach believes women will come up with a vast array of creative alternatives to the diplomatic and political model of “deciding where the lines sit on a map” that men are so fond of. She says that including religious perspectives is essential to address Middle East complexities.
Pellach is irrepressibly enthusiastic, words and ideas tripping over each other, codas and sidebars and anecdotes added, but always rigorously circling back to her original point: There are “dozens and dozens” of peace-building organisations in Israel, and this gives her hope that there will be peace one day soon.
“It has to happen in my lifetime. I have grandsons, the oldest is coming up to nine, and I don’t want them serving in the army.”
"An acknowledgement by Israelis that the creation of the State of Israel displaced and disadvantaged Arabs living on the land is essential.”
Peta Jones Pellach
The Elijah Interfaith Institute, a small organisation “with a large brief”, works internationally with at least six different religious traditions. Its founder is an orthodox rabbi, and the team’s other permanent member is a Hindu woman. Its aim is respect for the unique features of each religion and finding commonalities “on the spiritual and mystical level” to work together.
