Ibtisam Mahamid

Ibtisam Mahamid was born in 1960

Ibtisam Mahamid was born in 1960 in Fureidis, where she still lives. Her family comes from Tantura, and she is Muslim. She married at 15 and has 3 children with her husband, Sobhi.

Fureidis had no high school, so she studied at a high school in Haifa. In her 40s she began studying psychology and social science, and later pursued a doctorate in anthropology.

She turned to activism after a bus driver discriminated against her in 1995. With 2 Jewish women from Zichron Ya'akov she founded the Brotherhood Peace Foundation. In 1998 she ran for head of Fureidis and received 200 votes.

She chairs the Peace Begins from Within association and sits on the advisory committee of SHIN, a movement for equal representation of women. In 2002 she founded Anwar, a leadership group of Jewish and Arab women. She leads listening circles between Jews and Arabs.

In 2009 she received an award from the Dalai Lama. In 2014 she co-wrote prayers for peace with Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum.