Jean Zaru
Our Third Paul Wattson Lecturer in Halifax is Dr. Jean Zaru, the presiding clerk of the Ramallah Friends Meeting in Palestine. As a Palestinian woman living under Israeli military rule and at the same time finding herself in a traditional culture, her life has been devoted to the struggle for liberation - liberation for individual people, for women, and for all peoples. She has done this through her work in her own community and internationally. For many years Dr. Zaru taught at the Friends Schools in Ramallah. She served as president of the Jerusalem YWCA and continues to be a member of the YWCA national board. From 1983-1991 she served as the vice-president of the World YWCA. Dr. Zaru served as a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches 1975-1983, and from 1981-1991 she was a member of the WCC's Working Group on Interfaith Dialogue, and has served as a member of the International Council of the World Conference for Religion and Peace. Dr. Zaru is one of the founding members of Sabeel, a Palestinian Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem, and is presently the vice-chair of its board. She was invited as a Dorothy Cadbury fellow in Selly Oak Colleges in 1993 and was also invited to spend a term at Hartford Seminary in 1992. She has been the keynote speaker at numerous conferences around the world and her papers have been published in many books. She continues to struggle for human rights and women's rights and continues her work in dialogue with persons of other faiths.
November 1997