Ruth Matar, co-founder of Israeli women’s group opposing land concessions after Oslo, dies
Published October 22, 2018
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Ruth Matar, co-founder of the Women in Green movement that opposed land concessions following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, has died.
Matar, who founded the movement with her husband, died Saturday. She reportedly was in her late 80s.
She was a child Holocaust survivor born in Vienna and lived in the United States, where she worked as a jewelry designer, before moving to Israel.
Ruth and Michael Matar founded the organization originally called Women for Israel’s Tomorrow in response to the idea of forming a Palestinian state under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. The group sought to counter media stereotypes of the people opposing land concessions by showing mothers, housewives and career women who could intelligently articulate Israel’s cause. It became known as the Women in Green due to the green hats its followers wore during group activities.
The group continues to hold educational programs, tree plantings and an annual march around the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem on the fast day of Tisha b’Av that attracts thousands of participants. It also created the Oz veGaon Nature Reserve in the forest near the Gush Etzion junction in memory of the three Israeli teens who were kidnapped from there by Palestinian terrorists and killed. Some 30,000 young people participated in the preparation of the reserve over two years.
Matar stopped working with the Women in Green in 2005 for health reasons. Her daughter-in-law, Nadia, assumed leadership of the group and runs it with Yehudit Katzover.
Matar was buried Saturday night at the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Jerusalem.
