“Prayer of the Mothers” is a song by singer and songwriter Yael Deckelbaum. It was created together with women of the movement “Women Wage Peace” which aims for a peaceful and nonviolent solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since its creation in summer 2014 during the escalation of the conflict in Gaza, which saw over 2,200 people killed, it is bringing together women from all nations and of all religions to set in motion a dialogue to end war and violence and to awaken a new spirit of hope and fundamental change, which can only be created by embracing the power of women, the power to care, to protect and to nourish.
It was they who also launched the “March of Hope” together with a broad coalition of women’s organisations and which saw thousands of Israeli and Palestinian women march together for two weeks across Israel to Jerusalem in order to demand a nonviolent end to the conflict acceptable to both sides. The march ended on October 19th with a joint Jewish-Muslim prayer for peace by 4,000 women in Qasr el Yahud on the northern end of the Dead Sea and a call for action to end the conflict by 15,000 protesters in front of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem.
Next to Yael Deckelbaum artists like Lubna Salame, Anat Malamud, Maysa Daw, Daniel Rubin, Miriam Toukan and the Rana Choir participated in the song. The video shows impressive footage of the March of Hope as well as a message from Leymah Gbowee, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace for her contribution to end civil war in 2003 in her country Liberia, offering her blessing for a peaceful solution and encouraging everybody to continue to fight for peace: “Peace is possible when women of integrity and faith stand up for the future of their children”.
