Group of Jewish and Palestinian women uses dialogue to build bridges between cultures [Video]

They call themselves Zeitouna — a group of six Jewish and six Palestinian women in Michigan that has been meeting twice a month for more than two years. The name is the Arabic word for olive tree, and their motto is “refusing to be enemies.” 

The safety of the group and their environment has allowed the women to remain committed to each other in the face of Oct. 7 and the war that followed.

“You absorbed my pain, as I absorbed your pain. It’s important to just have a space, a place where everybody is there with open arms,” Wadad Abed, one of the group’s members, said during a meeting.

Diane Blumson, another Zeitouna member, told CBS News, “There’s room in a humanitarian way to recognize the trauma of the other. And people have lost that ability right now.”

The women of Zeitouna are spreading that message far beyond the …