Sahar

Sahar grew up in Beit Jala, in an Orthodox Christian home. As a teenage girl she dreamed of guiding tourists. Leading people step by step and allowing them to discover new perspectives. She was accepted to tourism studies at the university, but had to stop her studies in order to help support her family and nurse her sick mother until she passed away. A few years later, Sahar also lost her husband. And so she became an orphan, a single mother, and a young widow.

Every time someone gave her a food basket or a bottle of oil, she felt deep gratitude. One day she looked at her kitchen shelves and noticed that she had maybe five or six bags of sugar and rice. 'What will I do with all these?' she asked herself. She felt she had to give from what was given to her. She called a friend and asked: 'Do you know someone who needs?' Thus, from between the shelves of her small kitchen grew and climbed what she calls: The Vine. The true vine. A small vine, weaving and reaching every corner where a person needing comfort is found.

"What keeps me going is that I still have something to help with. If I wake up in the morning and see that I have a message that someone needs medicine or someone is hungry, then on that very day I can go and help."

Sahar created a circle of mutual support. Friends bringing friends. Women like her who heard about her deeds and offered to join, partners along the way with various initiatives like the Peles Center. The aid grew and reached people whom the world forgot: lonely elderly people, single mothers, disabled individuals, people experiencing homelessness.

Sahar may not guide tourists from London and Rome, but she guides people who lost their way step by step, and she teaches them to discover new perspectives - on their world. And just as a good guide knows how to find paths that others do not notice, so Sahar knows how to find the way to the heart even when it is buried in its loneliness under layers of pain.

"He remembers nothing, but he remembers that we come on Tuesday. It is encouraging to know that the person remembers that we are coming, waits for us, and then cleans up the house a bit, or does something himself."

Sahar looks directly at those from whom others avert their eyes. She enters places that other people are afraid of. She does not flinch. Steps inside without hesitating and brings with her a strength that is felt even before a word comes out of her mouth.

There was one woman in particular who taught her not to hesitate. Not to wait. An old woman who lived in total isolation, in a small room at the entrance to a parking garage. She lived in darkness and terrible stench, surrounded by trash bags she collected every day. Everyone passed by her and ignored her. The first time she visited her with her friend, Sahar could barely breathe, but from among the piles of garbage she saw the woman herself, and that was all she wanted to see. They returned to visit her a week later, and when they left they took a few trash bags out with them. On the third visit they were happy to see that she herself had started taking a few bags out of her home. On the fourth visit - the door was closed. Forever. The woman had passed away. 'It taught me not to wait,' says Sahar.

"When there is an open door, you have to enter and not wait. It might be a once-in-a - lifetime opportunity to show love."

On other occasions, in the space between Beit Shemesh, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, Sahar meets women from all worlds. She has a deep understanding of every woman - Arab, Jewish, or other. She knows that pain is the same pain, worries are the same worries, loneliness is the same loneliness. Through shared pain she tries to be a bridge between women who have never met, telling them that the difficulties are similar. Here and there, there and here. That's how Sahar operates: without barriers. Without unnecessary defensive walls.

She after all knows pain from up close. Her pain became a source of life, a source of inspiration, a source of impact. She herself is living testimony that one can survive crises without hardening one's heart, and become a blessing. Just like her name, Sahar (Dawn), she was born to illuminate dark spaces with first light. And she knows, even a caring 'good morning' can be the beginning of a change. A change of beginning.

"I see difficult situations, but I make a change. Even a small one. It eases the pain a bit, that we can't make a huge change, but at least that they feel someone is thinking about them."