Fly As High As Your Dreams Will Take You

I love this story. I couldn't resist putting it here. It takes courage to go against tradition and follow your dreams. Someone is always telling you why you can't do it, and we all need to see that we CAN DO IT! This is the message..you CAN. If you believe it, if you take the initiative and you work for it, and you never say never...then you will reach your dreams!

How much do you want to bet her community is actually quite proud of her:).



While women in the Druze community are usually prevented from applying to a driver's license, Anan Falah, a 36-year-old dentist from Acre, is set to become the first Druze female private pilot in Israel.

At the age of 18, when she told her prominent Druze family she wishes to study dentistry at Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem, her father raised his eyebrows in disapproval and her mother suggested she joins Haifa's Education College and become an Arabic Literature teacher. The college, her parents then observed, was segregated and she would be studying with other female students in accordance with Druze stringent conservative customs.

Yet Falah was not to be the average Druze housewife. By 2001, she had successfully completed her studies at Hadassah and had been practicing her profession in a private dental clinic in Acre, where she now lives with her husband and eight-year-old son.

Falah was not to be content with her tantamount achievement in becoming the first Druze female dentist. Her husband reaction to her commencing private flying lessons caused an "earthquake at home". "He was furious," she told The Jerusalem Post in a telephone interview Thursday.

"I guess the restrictions imposed upon me as I grew up, and on Arab women in general, have propelled me to want to achieve as much as possible. Flying was one of my rebelling goals," she said.

Her brother Zayed Falah, a lawyer in Acre, started flying lessons in 1993, and soon became the first male Druze pilot in Israel. Zayed was the only member of the family to encourage Falah to pursue her dream of flying.

"To be honest it was more difficult for me to convince my husband and my family of the idea. I don't think the Druze or the Arab community have much reservations about what I am doing. As one Arabic proverb goes: 'Accept yourself first for people to accept you,'" she told The Post.

Falah will pass the final flying test in the coming months and her instructors are confident she will obtain a permanent Private Flying License.

In the little free time she has between practicing dentistry and flying, Falah studies law.

Her father, Attorney Fares Falah, retired from his position as Deputy President of the Acre Magistrate Court last year. Her mother is a retired teacher. "I guess the fact that my parents are educated made it relatively easier for them to come to terms with what I am doing," Falah said.

Article by Joseph Nasr