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About
AMEN is a center for feminine celebration of wisdom and power. At its heart, AMEN accommodates a therapeutic community for women who are dealing with mental challenges following experiences of sexual violence. AMEN’s therapeutic model is set to answer these women’s specific needs and save lives.
This solution is the first of its kind, offering hope to thousands of men and women around the world!
AMEN is operated by the NPO Ohela – promoting spaces for knowledge and communal-feminine healing.
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Therapeutic community
AMEN’s therapeutic community allows women with C-PTSD a safe space for healing. We specialize in feminist, holistic and trauma-informed professional therapy. Thanks to our devoted and skilled team of social workers, counselors and volunteers, we are able to assist our women 24/7. We believe that every woman has the power and wisdom to prevail and grow from adversity, and yet no woman should ever do it alone. Within a supportive community, surrounded by nature, AMEN’s women make their own path to survival, healing, and flourishment. The tools they acquire here at AMEN allow them to embark on their own independent, new journey.
The therapeutic community operates in Tiv’on and is intended for women over 18 years of age.
We are currently running a pilot in Tiv’on, titled “Small AMEN”. It had opened earlier than planned, as women’s distress has increased greatly during COVID-19 lockdowns. We are still setting everything up, and it’s all coming together. When we complete our pilot, AMEN’s therapeutic community will accommodate 12 women in fulltime stay, 12 women in daytime stay, and 12 women in our mature group. We work days and nights to ensure we can operate when fully booked. The demand for your service is soaring, and the waiting list is long. It all comes down to COVID policy, room availability, spaces and equipment, personnel, volunteers and training, budget and donations. As of now, we can accommodate 7 women in fulltime housing, and 6 women in daytime stay, including our mature group. We expect fulltime and daytime stay for 12 women each to be available soon.
Feminine Wisdom school – Gynecosophy
Gynecosophy (Gynka = women, Sophia = wisdom) is a school developed by Marva Zohar, combining ancient feminine tribal medicine and western-world knowledge. AMEN offers a 4-year training program for women who wish to support other women and girls trough a communal, holistic and feministic perspective.
This training is intended for pioneering women who are drawn and attracted to becoming a founding generation for the newest and oldest profession. Women who wish to create AMEN, our land where women heal, to build and develop communal clinics and expand women’s support circles in every stage of life.
The Feminine Wisdom School also offers a Circle Wisdom course, a Birth into Being course for childbearing women and teachers in training, an introductory course for nature and earth holidays, annual ceremonies and events, communal midwife training (that will open next year), and more.
Communal clinics
A place of women for women in any phase of life. A space dedicated for listening, healing, connecting to empowering knowledge, and building a community. The clinic offers Gynecosophic treatment, midwife support during pregnancy, Arvigo massage for women and girls, different ceremonies including the closing and opening of the bones, circles, support for women who suffer menstrual pain, and support during menopause.
The first clinic for women opened in Jaffa during Spring 2015 by Marva Zohar, Lihi Amitzur Lobel, Carmel Janah and Anna Peretz. Since then, dozens of similar clinics have opened nationwide.
Additional activity
AMEN runs the center for ancient crafts, operated by our therapeutic community, as well as a feminine wisdom shop, the land and sustainability team, and a diverse community of volunteers.
Our Vision
The Ohela NPO creates, initiates and promotes spaces of healing and knowledge for women; places for women by women in any phase. These spaces are dedicated to listening, healing, connecting to empowering knowledge, and building a community.
In a perfect world, gender violence wouldn’t exist, and the daily struggle of survivors of sexual violence living with PTSD would have subsided. But as long as rape, incest and sexual violence still exist, the least we can do is make sure there are resources and places that allow women (and men) who were hurt to recover from their painful trauma, and heal in a supportive and encouraging environment. Our vision is to have a safe healing space for every woman who suffered gender violence, anywhere in the world, and for that space to include supportive and valuable feminine wisdom circles – just like in ancient times, when once a month, during menstruation, the women of the tribe would leave their daily routine, all at the same time as their cycles synchronized, and retreat to the red tent together, where everything took place. This was a feminine space where they could take some time for themselves, rest and reset, breathe, share and learn, rely on each other and connect to inner energy. In the red tent, communal feminine wisdom of body and soul healing would pass down from generation to generation. To us, a space like the red tent is of highest social importance – so we named our organization “Ohel La”, a tent for her: Ohela.
Our Goals
We strive to create communal feminine healing spaces, where every woman and girl can experience herself as a source of self-knowledge, knowing what she needs to rebirth and heal herself, while focusing on healing from rape and gender violence. These spaces will educate, train and share knowledge with professionals, decision makers, family members and society as a whole.
AMEN in the media
01/21/18
“I don’t know why I survived, and my friends didn’t”
“it’s hard to stay in a world that won’t recognize the suffering you went through, and make space for your pain”.
01/30/18
“I can’t go to anymore funerals”
Marva Zohar, a midwife, volunteer and sexual attack survivor, in an interview for Ynet about the crowd fundraising campaign she set up to create AMEN, the space for women who were sexually hurt and suffer PTSD.
11/5/19
Gam Ken Tarbut
A moving interview with Marva Zohar – poet and the CEO of the Ohela NPO that is founding AMEN, a land where women heal. Listen
01/29/21
Village of good hope
“I believed that the state and its institutions will find a solution for survivors of sexual violence, and it took me some time to understand it won’t happen. The way I see it, creating this place is a will left by every friend of mine who took her own life”. Read
YNET
February 10, 2018
Land Where Women Heal
On a mission to create a healing place for women who suffered and fulfilling a promise to a friend who died. Read
By Natalie Chetboun