By Jess Daninhirsch
Gadeer Kamal-Mreeh was often the only woman in the room while she was a member of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament). She described to a group of Jewish students a moment when the Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel Benny Gantz asked if he could sit on the same sofa as her during a meeting. She said she was not sure because no woman had ever been in a situation before in which she was allowed to sit next to the prime minister in the first place. They tried it anyway.
Kamal-Mreeh is a trailblazer for the Israeli Druze community, as she is the first Druze woman to serve in the Israeli Knesset (Parliament).
On October 25, Kamal-Mreeh visited Maryland Hillel to talk to Jewish students about the Druze community in Israel and her experiences as a member of Israel’s Parliament. Though she is not Jewish, she currently serves as a senior shlicha (Israeli emissary) for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington.
Kamal-Mreeh delivered a 30 minute speech, accompanied by a slideshow and followed by a question and answer session. In her presentation, Kamal-Mreeh touched on the village in which she grew up and how she became interested in journalism. She described bringing a camera with her to school and interviewing people about life at school. From a young age, she would sit in front of a mirror pretending to be a news anchor.
Kamal-Mreeh comes from a Druze family in Daliyat al-Karmel, a small village near Haifa in northern Israel. The Druze people are a religious ethnic minority who make up a very small portion of the population of Israel, though Druze people also reside in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Although Arabic is her first language, she is the first Druze woman to anchor a Hebrew-language news program on Israeli television in 2017. In 2019, she was elected to the Knesset, making history as the first Druze woman to do so.
Maryland Hillel hosted the free event, and SparkIL, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and Reshet Ramah–the alumni network for the Ramah Camping Movement–sponsored it.
“We were thrilled to have our first campus event at the University of Maryland and work with Hillel and Reshet Ramah to make it happen,” SparkIL’s director of marketing and business development Noah Allen said. “Gadeer [has] an important story to tell, both about herself and the Druze community as a whole… Telling their story…leaves students with both knowledge and a tool to take action.”
Kamal-Mreeh emphasized the importance of traveling to the outskirts of Israel when visiting the country. According to Kamal-Mreeh, that is where visitors find the true uniqueness and beauty of the country. “Next time you travel to Israel, don’t stop in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or the Kotel; go beyond. Go to the periphery of Israel and explore the amazing aspects that we have,” Kamal-Mreeh said.
Kamal-Mreeh also spoke briefly about her time in the Knesset. She often advocated for women’s equality, especially for positions of power, and she continues to do so today.
“I was the only woman in many rooms,” she said, referring to newsrooms and meeting rooms. “Druze women are working so hard towards equality…When you are the first to do things as a woman, you need to pave your path. It’s very challenging because the Druze community is a conservative community. It’s still a patriarchal community, although we are succeeding to break glass ceilings.”
Junior Sara Blau is a campus ambassador for Reshet Ramah and one of the coordinators for this event.
“It’s great to have a new perspective come to campus,” she said. “I love that she showed the students the importance of speaking to a person.”
Diversity in perspective was one of Kamal-Mreeh’s main points.
“Don’t talk about them; talk to them,” she repeatedly emphasized, referring to the act of engaging in conversations with people who come from different cultural backgrounds.
“I believe in people,” Kamal-Mreeh concluded. “I believe that each one of us is a social agent that has the power to change the globe.”
Featured Image: Gadeer Kamal-Mreeh points to her presentation that accompanied her speech at the speaker session hosted by Maryland Hillel on Oct. 25, 2022. The bottom picture regards a 2014 terrorist attack on a Jerusalem synagogue. Photo by Jess Daninhirsch.