Hatte Blejer on Clubhouse

Bio

Mother. Grandmother. Working for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians since 1972 when my Argentinian husband and I were students in Jerusalem.

Both peoples deserve peace, human rights, and self-determination. I do not support the current policies and government in Israel. I feel the suffering and loss of both Israelis and Palestinians.

I studied Arabic and Islamic history for over a decade. I lived in Jerusalem and in Cairo. I studied at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the American University in Cairo. I have friends and close family who are Israeli, Palestinian, and from all over the Muslim world.

I see myself as a bridge. With a Christian Mayflower descendant mother, Hispanic Jewish husband, having lived in Jerusalem while becoming fluent in Arabic and Hebrew, as a student of Islamic history. I have feet in many worlds and empathy gained from close relationships over five decades.

My career was in natural language processing and artificial intelligence.

In my retirement I care for my grandchildren, write, do genealogy research, and work to restore a Jewish cemetery in Poland where my family lived until being murdered in 1941. As part of my work in Poland, I have partnered with non-Jewish Poles so I have seen and felt reconciliation despite past injustice and violence.

Geni curator. Board member JGSLA. PhD linguistics. In addition to Arabic, Hebrew and Spanish, which I know well, I also studied Amharic, Berber and a few more languages. My genealogy expertise is in Jewish families of Suwalki and Lomza of NE Poland. Interest in Volhynia, immigration to Rock Island, Jewish agricultural settlements in Kherson, and Moises Ville settlers in Argentina.