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Fairchild Aircraft

Fairchild was an American aircraft and aerospace manufacturing company based at various times in Farmingdale, New York; Hagerstown, Maryland; and San Antonio, Texas.

Early aircraft

The company was founded by Sherman Fairchild in 1924 as Fairchild Aviation Corporation, based in Farmingdale, and East Farmingdale, New York. It was established as the parent company for Fairchild's many aviation interests. The company produced the first US aircraft to include a fully enclosed cockpit and hydraulic landing gear, the Fairchild FC-1. At some point, it was also known as the Fairchild Aircraft Manufacturing Company. The Fairchild Aircraft Ltd. of Longueuil, Quebec, Canada was an aircraft manufacturer during the period of 1920 to 1950, which served as a subsidiary of the Fairchild company of the United States. The Fairchild Engine Company was formed with the purchase of the Caminez Engine Company in 1925. In 1929, Sherman Fairchild purchased a majority stock interest in Kreider-Reisner Aircraft Company of Hagerstown, Maryland. The company moved to Hagerstown in 1931.

A series of related designs beginning with the Fairchild FC-1 and continuing to the Fairchild 71 were designed for aerial photography as a result of dissatisfaction towards available aircraft which were incapable of flying steadily enough at a sufficient altitude. In 1935, Fairchild was hired by the US government to do aerial photograph surveys of the United States to track soil erosion and its effects.

A Fairchild FC-2 was used by Richard E. Byrd during his Antarctic Expedition.

World War II
During World War II, Fairchild produced PT-19/PT-23/PT-26 (Cornell) and AT-21 Gunner trainers, C-82 Packet transports and drones. The Fairchild AT-21 Gunner, a twin-engine trainer, was manufactured at a former rayon mill in Burlington, North Carolina. Also large numbers of the Fairchild 24 (C-61/Argus) were produced for the military (principally as the Argus for the Royal Air Force), and continued production after the war for the civilian market. Fairchild ranked 73rd among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.

Postwar
The C-82 Packet led to the C-119 Flying Boxcar, another U.S. military transport aircraft. The C-119 could carry cargo, personnel, stretcher patients and mechanized equipment with the ability to make "paradrops" of cargo and troops. The first C-119 made its initial flight in November 1947, and by the time production ceased in 1955, more than 1,100 C-119s had been built for use in the USAF, the Royal Canadian Air Force and others. Many were converted into waterbombers after being retired from military service.

In 1949, the Hagerstown, Maryland, Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation developed the Chase XCG-20 glider into the C-123 Provider transport which entered service in 1955. In 1954 Fairchild purchased the American Helicopter Company, incorporating it and the XH-26 Jet Jeep as a division. In 1956, the company acquired rights to the Fokker Friendship, producing 206 of the aircraft as the Fairchild F-27 and Fairchild Hiller FH-227. During the 1950s, Fairchild was a large subcontractor to Boeing for B-52 fuselage sections and wing panels. Later, the company built McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom II tail sections, Grumman F-14 Tomcat tails, and Space Shuttle orbiter stabilizers.

In 1964, the company purchased Hiller Aircraft, changing its name to Fairchild Hiller and producing the FH-1100, until 1973 when the helicopter division was sold back to Stanley Hiller. In 1965, the company acquired the Republic Aviation Company.

Following the death of its founder, Fairchild changed its name to Fairchild Industries in 1971. This was a merger of Fairchild-Hiller Corporation, division and subsidiaries: Fairchild Aircraft Marketing Company, Fairchild Aircraft Services Division, Fairchild Republic Division, Fairchild Space and Electronics Division, Fairchild Stratos Division, Burns Aero Seat Company, Inc., Fairchild Arms International, Ltd., Fairchild Aviation (Asia) Ltd., Fairchild Aviation (Holland) N.V., Fairchild-Germantown Development Company, Inc. and S.J. Industries, Inc. Before 1971, Fairchild Industries was a term used to include many of the companies of its founder Sherman Mills Fairchild.

After the name change, the company purchased Swearingen and manufactured the Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner, a successful commuter aircraft that gained orders from the U.S. military as the C-26 Metroliner. In 1971, the company began developing the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II in Germantown, Maryland, which prevailed over the rival Northrop YA-9 in the A-X competition for an eventual production run of 716 aircraft.

The company developed the T-46 jet trainer to replace the elderly Cessna T-37 Tweet trainer, but it was not accepted by the Air Force because of performance problems.

Their association with Boeing continued into the 1980s as they built wing control surfaces for 747s and 757s.

Aircraft production was ended in Hagerstown, Maryland in 1984.

After the company took over Dornier's civil assets in 1996, the company was renamed Fairchild Dornier. The company commenced production of the Dornier 328 in 1998 under license from Deutsche Aerospace AG (DASA).

In December 1999, Fairchild Aerospace Corporation was acquired by German insurer Allianz A.G. and the United States investment group Clayton, Dubilier & Rice Inc. for $1.2 billion.

In 2003, the assets of Fairchild were purchased by M7 Aerospace and the new company was moved to San Antonio.

On December 15, 2010, M7 was purchased by the United States subsidiary of the Israeli defense contractor Elbit Systems. M7 Aerospace does not manufacture aircraft, but focuses on aerospace parts and support services.

Missiles

 * AUM-N-2 Petrel
 * SAM-N-2 Lark
 * XSM-73 Goose
 * SD-5 Osprey

Spacecraft

 * International Cometary Explorer
 * Pegasus
 * ATS-6

title: Fairchild Aircraft


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Arab–Israeli peace projects

Arab–Israeli peace projects are projects to promote peace and understanding between the Arab League and Israel in different spheres. These are part of a broader attempt at a peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. Sponsors of such projects can be found both in Israel and Palestine.

Joint economic efforts and businesses
Israeli–Palestinian economic peace efforts are efforts to promote joint economic projects and efforts between Israelis and Palestinians as a pathway to reach peace between the two groups. They are based partially on official efforts and projects by the governments of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and partially on private efforts by individual companies and business people who seek to promote various ventures which promote economic unity and collaboration between the two sides.

This involves ongoing joint efforts by regional leaders to launch joint new industrial and economic projects, which will create new local businesses and job growth, and promote ongoing cooperation. It is an official joint effort of the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian governments to promote economic cooperation, and new business initiatives which can help both sides work together, and create a better diplomatic atmosphere and better economic conditions. It constitutes a co-existence project, as it is mainly designed to foster efforts in the private sector, once governments provide the initial investment and facilities.

In early 2010, President Shimon Peres took an active and personal role in efforts to promote local business initiatives. Peres personally led a tour of top Israeli executives through the West Bank, and told them about many new Palestinian businesses which show much growth potential. One company highlighted by Peres was the New Generation Technology incubator, a joint Jewish-Arab effort founded in 2002 which encourages new ideas and projects in technology and biotechnology.

Joint industrial parks
One major idea is the creation of industrial parks where Israelis and Palestinians can work together. In 2011, according to Naftali Bennett, there were about 50 factories in the West Bank industrial region where Jews and Palestinians were working together.

Local efforts and implementation
Joint economic cooperation between Israeli officials in Gilboa and Palestinian officials in Jenin has begun to have major results and benefits. In October 2009, a new project got underway promoting tourism and travel between the two areas. Major new business efforts and tourist attractions have been initiated in Jenin. The two regions are planning a joint industrial zone which would bridge the border. Palestinians would produce locally-made handicrafts and sell them through Gilboa to other regions of the world. Another possible project is a joint language center, where Israelis and Palestinians would teach each other Arabic and Hebrew, as well as aspects of their cultural heritage.
 * Gilboa region

Valley of Peace initiative
The Valley of Peace initiative is an effort to promote economic cooperation between Israel, Jordan and Palestinians. It was initially centered around efforts and joint projects in the Arava/Arabah Valley, along which runs the southern portion of the Israel–Jordan border.

The idea for this project began in 2005, when Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority asked the World Bank to analyze the feasibility of this idea.

The Valley of Peace initiative began with a joint proposal in 2008 for a number of water-related initiatives. The study concluded in 2013, and an agreement was signed in 2013 by Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority to move ahead with the plan.

The "Red-Dead" project to build a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea was originally conceived and created within the Valley of Peace Initiative. It was officially referred to within that plan as the "Peace Carrier."

Red-Dead project
In early 2015, Israel and Jordan signed a major agreement to carry out the "Red-Dead" project, and to address the major regional problems of acute shortage of clean fresh water in Jordan, and the rapid contraction of the Dead Sea. A new desalination plant to be built near the Jordanian tourist resort of Aqaba would convert salt water from the Red Sea into fresh water for use in southern Israel and southern Jordan; each region would get eight billion to 13 billion gallons a year. This process would produces about as much brine as a waste product; the brine would be piped more than 100 miles to help replenish the Dead Sea, already known for its high salt content. This would reinforce the status of the Dead Sea as an important economic resource to both nations, in multiple areas including tourism, industry and business.

In December 2015, Israel and Jordan formally released the technical plans to move ahead with this project. In May 2016, Israel and Jordan presented their plan for a Red Sea-Dead Sea canal to the World Bank and other potential investors.

In July 2017, Israel and the Palestinian Authority announced a new deal to provide drinking water for millions of Palestinians. this was part of the larger deal between Israel, Jordan and Palestinians to build a 220-kilometer (137-mile) pipeline to convey water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. One benefit of this canal would be to replenish the dwindling Dead Sea. Also, the water in this canal will generate electricity for local towns, and will also power a desalination plant to produce drinking water.

Israeli-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce
The Israeli-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce was founded in 2009. Its chairman is Eival Gilady, and its CEO is Ofir Gendelman. It has already held its first conference, at which Tony Blair was the keynote speaker. It is dedicated to promoting development of joint economic initiatives and businesses.

Sikkuy
Sikkuy, public service organization founded in 1991, runs Ramadan tours for Jewish Israelis.

Policy groups
The following are organizations or institutions which address and analyze policy issues in a wide range of areas, as well as major projects or efforts which are officially carried out by regional institutions, governments, or NGOs.

Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP)
The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) is a group comprising over 70 leading non-governmental organizations that work to foster reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, as well as Arabs and Jews in the Middle East.

One of ALLMEP's proposals is an independent International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace to support and encourage efforts to build peace in the region.

EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East
EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East is an organization which brings together environmental activists from Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories, to work on common issues.

One of FOEME's major efforts is a regional advocacy project to promote discussion and sharing of water resources.

Mejdi
Middle East Justice and Development Initiatives (Mejdi) is a local grassroots Palestinian organization which was founded by Aziz Abu Sarah, a young Palestinian activist who seeks to advocate cooperation and reconciliation efforts. Mejdi seeks to promote dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. one part of its peacemaking efforts is to promote local economic development, and strengthening of economic cooperation and Palestinian small businesses. Abu Sarah has been consistently involved in a range of workshops and efforts in which he has promoted greater efforts towards reconciliation and dialogue between individual Israelis and Palestinians.

Peres Center for Peace
Peres Center for Peace was founded by Shimon Peres and carries out various policy analyses to advance efforts for peace.

IPCRI – Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information
IPCRI - Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information is a joint Israeli/Palestinian NGO and public policy think tank based in Jerusalem working towards building partnerships in Israel/Palestine. Under shared Israeli-Palestinian leadership, IPCRI carries out research and projects in various fields from economic development to environmental sustainability. IPCRI also facilitates public outreach and track two negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Aix Group
Formed in 2002, the Aix Group is an Israeli-Palestinian-international economic study team that conducts research on the economic dimension of the conflict. Areas of focus include Palestinian refugees, the construction of a territorial link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, development of the Jordan Valley, infrastructure cooperation, the economic status of Jerusalem.

Givat Haviva's Jewish-Arab Center for Peace
Givat Haviva is an education, research and documentation center, founded in 1949 by Ha'Kibbutz Ha'Arzi Federation; it is located in the northern Sharon Valley of Israel. According to its website "The mission of Givat Haviva today is to cope with the major issues that are on the agenda of Israeli society, and to foster educational initiatives, research and community work in the fields of peace, democracy, coexistence, tolerance and social solidarity."

Givat Haviva sponsors the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace. "Established in 1963, the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace is one of the oldest and most prominent institutions in its field. The common bond of the dozens of projects conducted in the Center is the struggle for better relations between Arabs and Jews, better understanding of the essence of democracy and citizens' rights in Israel, and building bridges with our Arab neighbors." One of the Center's leading dialogue projects is Face to Face.

Co-existence foundations and groups
Organizations which promote a variety of efforts and projects aimed at promoting co-existence and dialogue between the two sides.

Roots/Judur/Shorashim: The Palestinian Israeli Initiative for Understanding, Nonviolence, and Reconciliation
At the start of 2014, community activists Ali Abu Awwad and Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger,   along with others, formed "Roots", a group based in the West Bank area of Gush Etzion to promote dialog and eventually trust between Israelis and Palestinian as a path to peace. The group's full name is Roots/Judur/Shorashim: The Palestinian Israeli Initiative for Understanding, Nonviolence, and Reconciliation, and was initially situated on Awwad's family’s land near the village of Beit Ummar in the West Bank.

The Roots project organizes meetings between Israelis and Palestinians who live near each other in the West Bank in order to create dialogue. The project's outreach program includes monthly meetings between Israeli and Palestinian families, a women's group, work with school children, engaging local leaders, a summer camp, language learning, and cultural exchanges. In order to accommodate this wide variety of activities, a centrally-located site in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank is used as a convenient meeting area.

Ali Abu Awwad is a Palestinian activist and pacifist. He is the founder of Al Tariq (The Way) and a member of the Bereaved Families Forum, and tours the world together with Robi Damelin, a Jewish woman whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper, to encourage dialogue and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis. His life and work has been featured in two award-winning films, Encounter Point and Forbidden Childhood. He lives in Beit Ummar, near Hebron.

Ali Abu Awwad, whose brother died in the conflict, attends many meetings with local Jewish residents. One of the first such meetings of his occurred in July 2014, between local Israeli and Palestinians within one part of the Etzion bloc in the West Bank.

Rabbis for Human Rights
Rabbis for Human Rights is an Israeli human rights organization that describes itself as "the rabbinic voice of conscience in Israel, giving voice to the Jewish tradition of human rights". Their membership includes Reform, Orthodox, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbis and students. According to their web site, the organization includes "over one hundred ordained rabbis and rabbinical students". The organization received the Niwano Peace Prize in 2006.

RHR is best known for dispatching volunteers to act as human shields to protect the Palestinian olive harvest from vandalism and assault by settlers living on nearby land; every year, clashes are reported between settlers and Palestinian farmers. In 2008, the volunteer effort encompassed 40 villages. The effort was launched in 2002 when a Palestinian peace activist solicited RHR's help to protect olive pickers against attacks by settlers living near the village of Yanun.

RHR opposes the construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier in any place where it entails the expropriation of Arab-owned land, the division of villages, or cutting farmers off from their fields. RHR achieved a major victory in 2006 when it won a lawsuit to prevent the division by the fence of the village of Sheikh Sa'ad.

Ta'ayush Arab–Jewish Partnership
Formed in the fall of 2000, Ta'ayush (Arabic for "coexistence") is a grassroots movement of Arabs and Jews working to break down the walls of racism and segregation. It engages in daily actions of solidarity to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and to achieve full civil equality for all Israeli citizens.

Coalition of Women for Peace
The Coalition of Women for Peace (קואליציית נשים לשלום) is an umbrella organization of women's groups in Israel, established in November 2000. It describes itself as "a feminist organization against the occupation of Palestine and for a just peace.". CWP says that it is "committed to ending the occupation and creating a more just society, while enhancing women's inclusion and participation in the public discourse".

The groups that founded the Coalition of Women for Peace are Machsom Watch, Noga Feminist Journal, Women in Black, The Fifth Mother, TANDI, Bat Shalom, New Profile and NELED.

The Coalition of Women for Peace came to an agreement on their principles for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at a conference in Nazareth in November 2000.

The Parents Circle-Families Forum
The Parents Circle-Families Forum (PC-FF) is a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members due to the conflict. Together, they transform their pain and bereavement into the catalyst for a joint mission of reconciliation and coexistence in the midst of ongoing violence.

PC-FF was founded in 1994 by Yitzhak Frankenthal whose son Arik was killed by the Hamas. Today, PC-FF includes more than 500 members, half Israeli and half Palestinian. The members conduct dialogue sessions, give lectures, and engage in projects to support tolerance and reconciliation.

Parents Circle creates innovative projects to spread its message of hope and reconciliation. The Forum firmly believes that without reconciliation, there will only be a cease fire and not peace. PC-FF members from Israel and the Palestinian Territories regularly meet even under nearly impossible circumstances such as right after the Gaza war of 2008–09.

The PC-FF's flagship program for the general public is its educational program. High school "Dialogue Encounters" bring two forum members, one Israeli and one Palestinian to classrooms in Israel, East Jerusalem and the West Bank to talk to students about the possibility of peace and reconciliation. Close to 40,000 students are reached each year.

Ir Shalem co-existence program
In many ways the city of Jerusalem has been at the center of the conflict. The Israeli political movement Peace Now in 1994 has created an initiative called Ir Shalem, the goal of which is to build a peaceful equitable and inspiring future for this city, with Jewish and Arab citizens working together to find solutions based on equity and justice. This program brings together volunteer architects, planners, lawyers and other professionals to analyze problems, and offer solutions. Among other efforts, Ir Shalem is developing the first-ever planning model for East Jerusalem that will equitably meet the needs of the Palestinian community.

Seeds of Peace
Founded in 1993, Seeds of Peace brings together hundreds of emerging young leaders and educators from conflict regions at the Seeds of Peace Camp in Otisfield, Maine, USA, including thousands of Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, and Egyptian teens. The mission of Seeds of Peace is to inspire and cultivate new generations of leaders in communities divided by conflict. There are over 6,000 graduates of the Camp from 27 countries.

Children of Peace
Children of Peace is a UK-based, non-partisan, international conflict-resolution charity that aims to build friendship, trust and reconciliation between Israeli and Palestinian children, aged 4–17 regardless of community, culture, faith, gender or heritage through arts, education, healthcare and sports projects and programmes, so that a future generation and their communities might live in peace, side-by-side.

Founded in 2004 by the charity's President, Richard Martin, Children of Peace receives personal support from world leaders including Pope Francis, American Vice-President Joe Biden, Quartet Envoy Tony Blair, British Prime Minister David Cameron, British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, British Labour Leader Ed Miliband, Bill Clinton, French President François Hollande, former Mayor of Hebron Khaled Osaily and Palestinian Envoy to the UK Dr Manuel Houssassian. Three UK parliamentarians from each major political party are Goodwill Ambassadors – Louise Ellman MP, Toby Ellwood MP and Ed Davey MP.

In 2012, one of the charity's Goodwill Ambassadors & Director of its youth ambassador programme, Sally Becker carried the Olympic Flag into the stadium at the Opening Ceremony of London 2012, in Children of Peace's name. Currently there are 20 Youth Ambassadors, from Armenia, Israel, Palestine, Qatar, the UK and the United States.

The charity's approach is to build understanding between grassroots communities in the region. The charity works with more than 140 affiliate organisations in a unique Coalition of Peace in Gaza, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and the West Bank (and in every continent).

Localized co-existence efforts
Specific efforts and specific projects, localized and otherwise, aimed at promoting co-existence and dialogue between the two sides.

Olives of Peace
Olives of Peace is a joint Israeli-Palestinian business venture to sell olive oil. Through this project, Israelis and Palestinians have carried out joint training sessions and planning. It has also led to Palestinian oil production being enriched by Israeli components. It has produced olive oil which has been sold under the brand name "Olives of Peace." This is related to Peace Oil (UK) and Peace Oil (USA).

Neve Shalom-Wahat Al-Salam (Oasis of Peace)
The Israeli Jewish-Israeli Muslim Village of Neve Shalom – Wāħat as-Salām (NSWAS) means "Oasis of Peace" in Hebrew and Arabic. NSWAS provides a remarkable model of longterm coexistence. Formed in 1970 on land donated by the Roman Catholic Church, NSWAS sits between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They organize humanitarian projects, including providing medical assistance for Palestinians.

They also run several schools, two for village and other area children, and they have a training facility called the School for Peace. The children's classes run from pre-school through Middle School and are all taught by both Muslims & Jews in their native languages. The School for Peace however is designed for adult Arabs and Jews from all over the area to learn about each other in controlled seminars run by trained Peace Facilitators.

NSWAS has had many notable visitors over the years. Jimmy Carter, Hillary Clinton, and many others including Roger Waters (aka Pink Floyd) who has performed several benefit concerts in the small village urging Israel to "Tear Down the WALL!"

An American branch recently incorporated under the name "American Friends of Neve Shalom" they are a non-profit 501(c)3 organization that raises funds in the US for NSWAS programs (similar support groups also exist in the EU, and elsewhere).

Hamidrasha Jewish-Arab Beit Midrash
Hamidrasha, a center for study and fellowship, works to address alienation, estrangement, and mutual ignorance between Jews and Arabs. Hamidrasha is establishing an inter-cultural Beit Midrash (Hebrew, "House of study"), which will serve as a basis for mutual personal and communal encounters, and for the study of cultural narratives and modern texts of both peoples. Jewish, Muslim and Christian men and women will engage in a true inter-cultural learning experience, with the goal of making a significant contribution to the ongoing dialogue between Jews and Arabs, and strengthening their reciprocal ties.

Green Action
Green Action is an Israeli non-governmental organization which advocates for environmental activism and social change, and has brought fair trade and organic Palestinian olive oil to the Israeli market. Avi Levi, the director, travels frequently to the West Bank to work with Palestinian farmers, helping them set up and maintain cooperatives and obtain organic and fair trade certification. The products are packaged under the SAHA label. SAHA is an acronym for Sachar Hogen, fair trade in Hebrew, and is also the Arabic word, Saha, meaning well-being or good health.

In addition to olive oil, the main agricultural product of Palestinians in the West Bank, Green Action also sells za'atar, dibbes, organic fruit jam, herbal infusion and pressed olives. The olive oil is also sold in bulk worldwide including to Australia and the US. In the US, Olive Branch Enterprises of Seattle, Washington buys Green Action in bulk and bottles it under the Peace Oil label.

The Green Action – SAHA Fair Trade Website

Peace Oil

Oseh Shalom – Sanea al-Salam Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp
From 2003–2007, the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group partnered with Camp Tawonga over five-years to bring hundreds of adults and youth from 50 different towns in Palestine and Israel to successfully live and communicate together at the Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp—Oseh Shalom – Sanea al-Salam.

Arab Israeli Dialogue
Lionel Rogosin filmed Arab Israeli Dialogue in 1973, an early attempt at unlocking the cultural and political issues between Palestinians and Israelis. It is a filmed debate between the Palestinian poet Rashed Hussein and Amos Kenan, shot in New-York as they were both exiled.

Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization
The Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization is a nongovernmental nonprofit established in 2004 to support collaborative research between scientists in Israel and Palestine. Founding members of IPSO include Nobel prize winning neuroscientist Torsten Wiesel.

The West-Eastern Divan
Founded in 1998 by Israeli-Argentinian pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim and Palestinian-American author Edward Said, the West-Eastern Divan (named after an anthology of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) promotes a cultural dialogue between Israelis and Arabs. A principal activity is an orchestra composed mostly of young Israeli and Arab musicians, who are demonstrating the potential for collaboration between the two cultures on the universal ideas that are communicated by great classical music. They have performed throughout the world. Barenboim has also made this point by going into Palestinian areas and giving piano recitals and master classes.

Comedy For Peace
Comedy for Peace is a non-political effort to use humor to build trust, understanding and a vision for peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

Comedy for Peace was conceived and is being organized by Ray Hanania, a Palestinian-American stand-up comedian – who is married to a Jewish woman. It is Ray’s hope that the power of comedy combined with the power of two peoples coming together on one stage will help Palestinians and Israelis find the courage to look past the pain and the suffering of the conflict and see each other as human beings, as partners and as people who have no other choice but to struggle together to achieve a lasting peace.

Tolerance Monument
A Tolerance Monument sculpted by Czesław Dźwigaj in collaboration with Michal Kubiak is situated on a hill marking the divide between Jewish Armon HaNetziv and Arab Jabel Mukaber, standing opposite the United Nations headquarters in Jerusalem in a park near Goldman Promenade. Unveiled in Jerusalem in 2008, it was funded by Polish businessman Aleksander Gudzowaty as a symbol to promote peace in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

NeuroBridges
NeuroBridges is series of workshops, held in Europe, that began in 2014 aiming to bring together Arab and Israeli neuroscientists in order to promote scientific collaborations and develop personal relations that can help alleviate political distress. NeuroBridges was initiated by the Israeli neuroscientist Yonatan Loewenstein and the Egyptian neuroscientist Ahmed El Hady.

SESAME
The Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East (SESAME) is an independent laboratory located in Allan in the Balqa governorate of Jordan, created under the auspices of UNESCO on 30 May 2002.

Aimed at promoting peace between Middle Eastern countries, Jordan was chosen as the location for the laboratory, as it was then the only country that maintained diplomatic relations with all the other founding members; Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority, and Turkey. The project was launched in 1999 and the ground breaking ceremony was held on 6 January 2003. Construction work began the following July, with a scheduled completion date of 2015. However financial and technical infrastructural obstacles forced the project to be delayed. The laboratory was inaugurated on 16 May 2017 under the patronage and presence of King Abdullah II.

The project cost around $90 million, with $5 million donated each by Jordan, Israel, Turkey, Iran and the European Union. The rest was donated by CERN from existing equipment. Jordan became the greatest contributor to the project by donating land and building construction costs, and by pledging to build a $7 million solar power plant, which will make SESAME the first accelerator in the world to be powered by renewable energy. The annual operational cost of $6 million are pledged by the members according to the size of their economies.

Act Beyond Borders
The project is funded by the European Commission's European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) for Strengthening the role of civil society in promoting human rights and democratic reform, in supporting the peaceful conciliation of group interests and in consolidating political participation and representation (Transnational and regional actions). It is implemented by Future Worlds Center based in Cyprus with the collaboration of the Association for Progressive Education in Honor of Meir Ya'ari (YAARI) and the Palestinian Dialogue Center. The action aims to enhance the capacity in CSOs to actively promote Human Rights within their community, on a national as well as a trans-national level. It actively engages civil society actors from Israel and Palestine to collaborate on jointly developed community action projects that aim to foster mutual understanding, to promote and advocate for the implementation of Human Rights standards in the region. One of the aims is to bring together stakeholders from countries in the same region with the view of facilitating the peaceful conciliation and management of group interests and promoting solutions on divisive matters or controversial areas.

MEET – Middle East Education through Technology
Middle East Education Through Technology (MEET) is an innovative educational initiative aimed at creating a common professional language between Israeli and Palestinian youth. Working together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MEET enables its participants to acquire advanced technological and leadership tools while empowering them to create positive social change within their own communities.

Program founders Yaron Binur, Anat Binur, and Assaf Harlap became aware that many Israelis and Palestinians never get a chance to interact with one another on a personal level, even though they grow up and live a few short miles from one another. Inspired by their experiences of multicultural cooperation in international educational institutions, the founders decided that a fast-paced, intensive program in technology would be an ideal medium to bridge the divide. With this vision, they created MEET in the summer of 2004.

MEET seeks excelling Palestinian and Israeli high school students; admission into the program is very competitive. Once admitted, students meet continuously for three years. Their first summer includes instruction in basic Java programming; this extends into the first yearlong segment of the program. The second summer includes more advanced topics in computer science and introduces a business and entrepreneurship curriculum. The program is capped by a long-term project beginning in the second yearlong segment and extending into a final summer term. Alumni activities maintain the student network after graduation.

MEET graduates have been accepted into top universities in the region and abroad, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The skills and bonds of friendship forged by MEET students, combined with the students' natural talents, prepare them for a successful future of leadership, achievement, innovation, and cooperation.

Aside from its partnership with MIT, MEET has been supported by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (which has donated lab space for the summer sessions since MEET's inception), Al-Quds University, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, and other national and international organizations, as well as many individual volunteers from around the world.

Hand in Hand Bilingual Arab-Jewish Schools
Hand in Hand runs a network of four bilingual (Arabic and Hebrew) schools that serve more than 800 students in Jerusalem, the Galilee (Galil Jewish-Arab School), Wadi Ara (Hand in Hand "Gesher al HaWadi" School) and Be'er Sheva (the Hagar School). Half the students are Palestinian citizens of Israel, and the other half are Jewish citizens of Israel. Students study in both languages simultaneously, and plans call for an eventual expansion to the 12th grade. To Hand in Hand's Website in English

The Institute for Circlework
The Institute for Circlework organizes workshops in Israel that unite Jewish and Arab women, with a particular focus on women leaders. The intention of these workshops is to awaken global consciousness, that is, the awareness of our commonality as members of the human family and of a single planetary community.

Circlework is a method developed by a German-Jewish author and seminar leader, Jalaja Bonheim (www.jalajabonheim.com), which she has been practicing and teaching in the United States for 25 years, and in Israel since 2005. Circlework uses circle gatherings to create a field of open-heartedness and love powerful enough to heal individuals and communities. Circlework is based on the assumption that the root causes of violence and war lie within us, and that our own consciousness is where change must begin.

The Institute for Circlework offered its latest series of circles in Israel during the Gaza war.

TEC-the Center for Technology, Education and Cultural diversity
TEC strives to build trust between Arabs and Jews, religious and secular through joint online courses and initiatives between college students and school children. The center established in 2003 by the heads of ICT in 3 teaching colleges is funded by the Mofet Institute Tel Aviv.

The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies
The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies is an environmental studies and research program, located in Kibbutz Ketura, Israel. The Institute's mission is to advance cross-border environmental cooperation in the face of political conflict. Under the motto "nature knows no borders", the Arava Institute brings together Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and other international students and researchers to enable them to cooperatively solve the region's environmental challenges.

In the Arava Institute's academic program, the participants study a variety of interdisciplinary courses ranging from sustainable agriculture, through waste management, to political ecology; as well as engage in a weekly peace-building leadership seminar that serves as a platform to address the Arab-Israeli conflict, and seeks to provide them with tools for open dialogue and conflict resolution.

In addition, the Arava Institute holds a number of research centers that engage in transboundary scientific work in the fields of water management, sustainable agriculture, conservation, renewable energy, and sustainable development.

Political activists and community groups
Groups of political activists or community activists who work for peace through efforts based on political goals and measures, or community efforts. Includes some groups which are composed of activists from one side of the conflict, and some groups which include activists from both sides.

OneVoice, a project of the Peaceworks Foundation
According to their website "OneVoice is a global undertaking to: "Amplify the voice of moderates; Empower Palestinians and Israelis at the grass-roots level to seize back the agenda away from violent extremists; Achieve broad-based consensus on core issues, configuring a roadmap for conflict resolutions. OneVoice...was developed by over two hundred Palestinian, Israeli and international community leaders...dedicated to strengthen the voice of reason."

This group rejects what they see as left-wing appeasement of Palestinian terrorism by leftist groups; they reach out to moderate liberal and centrist Israelis who want to advance the peace process; they reach out to Palestinian moderates who reject terrorism and suicide-bombings; they work to cultivate a moderate political leadership on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and are trying to pressure both the Israeli government and Palestinian Authority into reaching a just peace. One Voice: Silent No Longer One Voice FAQ

"Seeking Peace, Pursuing Justice"
The Union for Reform Judaism, the congregational arm of American Reform Judaism, has created a project called Seeking Peace, Pursuing Justice. According to their website, their goal is: "to educate and mobilize North American Jewry to support peace efforts and social justice causes in Israel.... This campaign will encourage the North American Jewish community to examine the risks and rewards of peace for Israel and the Palestinians, and to undertake critical, constructive public dialogue on the most pressing social issues facing Israel today—including the status of Arab citizens of Israel and other minorities, as well as other issues of inequality and discrimination." Seeking peace, Pursuing Justice

The Abraham Fund
According to their website, "The Abraham Fund Initiatives is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting coexistence between the Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel. Through advocacy and awareness campaigns, and by sponsoring coexistence projects, The Abraham Fund Initiatives fosters increased dialogue, tolerance and understanding between Arabs and Jews...." The Abraham Fund

Brit Tzedek v'Shalom
Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, "is a national organization of American Jews committed to Israel's well-being through the achievement of a negotiated settlement to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It believes the vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians long for an enduring peace and that security for Israel can only be achieved through the establishment of an economically and politically viable Palestinian state, necessitating an end to Israel's occupation of land acquired during the 1967 war and an end to Palestinian terrorism. Brit Tzedek believes that many American Jews share this perspective, but are reluctant to express themselves for fear they may bring harm to Israel and the Jewish people. Through education, advocacy, local chapter activities, and work with the media, it seeks to generate greater dialogue within the American Jewish community in order to direct U.S. foreign policy toward the realization of a just peace." Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Brit Shalom/Tahalof Essalam
The Jewish-Palestinian Peace Alliance consists of both Jewish and Palestinian peace activists working for reconciliation. It generally favors binational confederation or two-state coexistence, drawing upon fringe historical and contemporary movements as varied as Uri Avneri's pan-Semitism, Buberian Zionism, and even aspects of rightist Canaanism for inspiration. Contributors to its website include Gideon Levy, Doron Rosenblum, Avraham Burg, Meron Benvenisti, Shahar Smooha, David Grossman, Yitzhak Frankenthal, Tony Judt, Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights, and Baruch Kimmerling. Brit Shalom/Tahalof Essalam

Combatants for Peace
Combatants for Peace (לוחמים לשלום) is an organization of Israelis and Palestinians who are veterans of armed conflict, and have concluded that there can be no solution through violence. The Israeli members served as combat soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces, while the Palestinian members "were involved in acts of violence in the name of Palestinian liberation."

The organization, founded in 2005, supports a two-state solution to the conflict. A statement on their website says, "We call for the establishment of a Palestinian State, alongside the State of Israel. The two states can exist in peace and security beside each other."

Israel Palestinian Cooperative for Economic Expansion (IPCEE) EIN: 45-3005555
Israel Palestinian Cooperative for Economic Expansion (aka; International Peace Cooperative for Economic Expansion; Israel Palestine Cooperative for Economic Expansion) (IPCEE) is a small 501(C)(3) founded in the United States and based in Connecticut in 2011, believes that an essential avenue for helping end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to push forward the spread of economic prosperity and improved healthcare for the Palestinians living in the West Bank. Strengthening essential infrastructure and institutional capacity within the West Bank facilitates prosperity and self-reliance—ultimately leading toward a healthy separation and inter-independence between Palestinians and Israelis.

According to the organizations President/CEO, "The ultimate goal for the IPCEE Healthcare Initiative known as Peace through Medicine, contributes to the realization of an independent Palestinian State, living peacefully side-by-side with the State of Israel"

Included in the organization's IRS Form 1023 - IPCEE contemplates that it may make grants to public institutions in Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and this may include the governments themselves. These grants will be to fund the construction of schools, hospitals, libraries, community centers and other social service facilities in impoverished areas in Israel and the West Bank. As explained in the Form 1023, these facilities will provide classes for Israelis and Palestinians in peaceful cooperation to develop their vocational, artistic and other skills. Vocational trainings may include professional training workshops to teach locals the fundamentals of various trades such as carpentry, blacksmithing, plumbing, traditional and modern baking techniques, food service, computer science, textiles and sewing, ceramics, photography, newspaper production, and theater. IPCEE will either provide funds to build, furnish, equip and staff these facilities or share the costs with other non -governmental organizations (NGOs.)

IPCEE may provide grants to both public and private schools and universities in Israel and the West Bank and may make grants directly to the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority to fund the construction of new schools. IPCEE plans on providing food for schools by making grants to the Ministries of Education and the Ministries of Health (or their equivalents) in the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority. Additionally, IPCEE may make grants to other governmental agencies in Israel or to the Palestinian National Authority to provide technical/electronic equipment (computers, software, broadband internet services, etc.), playground equipment, educational materials (books, textbooks, workbooks, etc.), classroom furniture (desks, chairs, chalkboards, etc.), and basic school supplies (notebooks, binders, pens and pencils, etc.) Governmental grantees may also use grant funds to hire teachers, counselors and/or school administrators.

IPCEE may provide grants to existing hospitals and health clinics in Israel and the West Bank and may make grants directly to the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority to fund the construction of new hospitals and health clinics. Grant funds might also be used to hire medical staff (doctors, nurses, specialists, etc.) and/or hospital personnel (staff, administrators, etc.).

IPCEE may provide grants to the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority to fund the construction of new community centers such as libraries, women’s centers, youth centers and learning/language centers. These community centers will offer a variety of resources and opportunities for economically disadvantaged locals, including classes, lectures, language and literacy programs, and vocational training. Vocational trainings, for example, will include professional training workshops to teach locals the fundamentals of various trades such as carpentry, blacksmithing, plumbing, traditional and modern baking techniques, food service, computer science, textiles and sewing, ceramics, photography, newspaper production, and theater. These community centers will also provide public access to useful facilities such as conference rooms, auditoriums, media libraries and computer labs.

Grants would be made to governmental agencies as well as other public institutions in Israel and the West Bank.

Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace
Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (JIPF) is a small group founded in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1982, for Swedish Jews who want to actively work towards a peaceful solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

JIPF's platform include demands for a full Israeli withdrawal, including the evacuation of the Jewish civilian population, from all territories that came under Israeli military control as a result of the Six-Day War, the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state with East Jerusalem as capital and a "solution" to the issue of the Palestinian refugees.

JIPF also advocates and participates in dialogue with Hamas and other designated terrorist organizations.

Women Wage Peace
After the Gaza War in 2014, a group of Israeli women founded the Women Wage Peace movement with the goal of reaching a bilaterally acceptable political peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. While based mainly in Israel, the movement has worked to build connections with Palestinians, reaching out to women and men of many different religions and political backgrounds. The group's activities have included a collective hunger strike outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's formal residence and a protest march from Northern Israel to Jerusalem. As of May 2017, Women Wage Peace had over 20,000 members and supporters associated with it.

Arab-Israeli peace diplomacy and treaties

 * Paris Peace Conference, 1919
 * Faisal–Weizmann Agreement (1919)
 * 1949 Armistice Agreements
 * Camp David Accords (1978)
 * Egypt–Israel peace treaty (1979)
 * Madrid Conference of 1991
 * Oslo Accords (1993)
 * Israel–Jordan peace treaty (1994)
 * Camp David 2000 Summit
 * Israeli–Palestinian peace process
 * List of Middle East peace proposals
 * International law and the Arab–Israeli conflict

The American Jewish Committee
While forcefully speaking out against Islamic anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli rhetoric, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) has worked since 1985 to enhance relations between Jews and Muslims. The AJC encourages and engages in dialogue on many levels with like-minded groups committed to fostering tolerance and cooperation.

Their website states that "The American Jewish Committee has demonstrated a profound commitment to enhancing relations between Jews and Muslims, a vital part of its fundamental dedication to the promotion of interreligious understanding in the United States and around the world. Rejecting the inevitability of a "clash of civilizations," AJC has instead insisted on the possibility of a "community of civilizations" by encouraging dialogue on the highest levels with like-minded groups committed to fostering tolerance and cooperation. In so doing, we have achieved a number of breakthroughs in this vital arena. For well over a decade, AJC has dedicated itself to forging significant relationships with Arab and Muslim leaders around the world. AJC has traveled extensively in the Muslim world – from Morocco to Mauritania, through the Middle East and the Gulf states, to Indonesia. We have met with scores of Muslim leaders, including top officials of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia, Bosnia, Kuwait, Qatar, Malaysia, and Indonesia, to discuss topics ranging from relations with Israel and the United States to the promotion of international Muslim-Jewish dialogue." Seeking to advance Jewish-Muslim relations

In 1986 the AJC publicly condemned the murder by bomb attack of Alex Odeh (in Oct. 1985), a leader of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Santa Ana, California. The AJC had a meeting with the Federal Bureau of Investigation director William Webster about this incident; they urged action to identify and punish those responsible for anti-Arab bigotry. In 1986 the AJC submitted testimony to the United States House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, on the topic of violence and discrimination towards Arab-Americans.

In 1991, on the brink of the Allied war against Iraq, the AJC issued a statement warning the public not to engage in discrimination towards American Arabs or Muslims. In part, they stated, "We are ever mindful of what happened to Japanese-Americans as a result of war hysteria shortly after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Some 120,000 Japanese-Americans, two-thirds of whom were American citizens, were evacuated and incarcerated in internment camps... without any evidence whatsoever that they were a threat to U.S. security. This must not happen again." (AJC statement by executive director David Harris)

From 1992 to 1995 the AJC worked to lobby the United States government to intervene on behalf of Muslims in Bosnia.

In 1993 the AJC sponsored the first national conference on "Muslims and Jews in North America: Past, Present and Future" with the Institute for Islamic-Judaic Studies at University of Denver in October. In 1994 they sponsored the second such conference. The third conference had to be canceled, when the AJC could not found Muslim partners who were willing to publicly condemn the current wave of terrorist attacks on Israel.

In 1999 the AJC helped aid Muslims in Kosovo.

In 2001 the AJC initiated a new project designed to advance understanding between Muslims and Jews by publishing two books: Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims, by Professor Reuven Firestone, a scholar of Islam at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles, was written to describe Judaism to Muslims; Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Islam for Jews, by professor Khalid Duran, was written to describe Islam for Jews.

Children of Abraham
Children of Abraham seeks to build an international community of Muslim and Jewish youth that celebrates their religious identities. Through an engaging project involving a photographic exploration of Jewish and Muslim communities around the world, and honest, unflinching online dialogue, participants form a network of advocates and ambassadors for ground-breaking Muslim-Jewish relations in six continents.

Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations
In July 2007 a new Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations was opened in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is partly financed by a £1 million contribution from Richard Stone, a Jewish philanthropist. In the first instance its students they will study common areas between the two religions. Eventually work will extend into more controversial areas, including the Israel–Palestine question.

Group websites

 * The Novel Catalyst for the Jerusalem Solution A website explaining why one school for the children of the Israeli and Palestinian governments might be the missing piece needed to achieve a lasting solution
 * American Jewish Committee – Seeking to advance Jewish-Muslim relations
 * The Novel Catalyst for the Jerusalem Solution A website explaining why one school for the children of the Israeli and Palestinian governments might be the missing piece needed to achieve a lasting solution
 * American Jewish Committee – Seeking to advance Jewish-Muslim relations

Articles and coverage of various specific efforts

 * PBS interview with Feisal Abdul Rauf
 * Creating Peace at the Grass Root Level.
 * Common Ground, a private view on the peace process
 * Ten top Israeli business ventures that inspire peace in the Middle East, israel21c.org, February 28, 2010.
 * First Palestinian-Israeli arbitration center to run in 2012, jpost.com 05/02/2011.
 * Palestine International Business Forum. PIBF brings together Palestinian, Israeli and Swedish business interests in order to create sustainable economic development in Palestine.
 * Ten top Israeli business ventures that inspire peace in the Middle East, israel21c.org, February 28, 2010.
 * First Palestinian-Israeli arbitration center to run in 2012, jpost.com 05/02/2011.
 * Palestine International Business Forum. PIBF brings together Palestinian, Israeli and Swedish business interests in order to create sustainable economic development in Palestine.

Articles on societal issues

 * Where is the Palestinian peace camp? BBC News 28 May 2007
 * Jewish-Muslim Relations: Using Qur'anic Narratives in Pursuit of Peace Qantara.de, 9 April 2010

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Arab–Israeli peace projects


text:
Jean Barraqué

Jean-Henri-Alphonse Barraqué (17 January 1928 – 17 August 1973) was a French composer and music writer. His relatively small œuvre is known for its serialism.

Life
Barraqué was born in Puteaux, Hauts-de-Seine. In 1931, he moved with his family to Paris. He studied in Paris with Jean Langlais and Olivier Messiaen and, through Messiaen, became interested in serialism. After completing his Piano Sonata in 1952, he suppressed or destroyed his earlier works. A book published by the French music critic André Hodeir, titled Since Debussy, created controversy around Barraqué by claiming this work as perhaps the finest piano sonata since Beethoven. As the work had still not been publicly performed, and only two other works by him had at this time, the extravagant claims made for Barraqué in this book were received with some scepticism. Whilst with hindsight it is clear that Hodeir had accurately perceived the exceptional features of Barraqué's music—notably its searing Romantic intensity, which distinguishes it from the contemporaneous works of Boulez or Stockhausen.

As Paul Griffiths' biography clarified, Boulez had in fact attempted to get the Barraqué Piano Sonata performed for some years after it was finished. Barraqué's music was published starting in 1963 by the Florentine businessman Aldo Bruzzichelli, who provided much-needed material assistance for the composer, but whose promotion could not perhaps compete with that of the better known Universal Edition in Vienna who published Boulez, Berio, and Stockhausen.

Embracing the Parisian avant-garde, Barraqué entered into a romantic relationship with the philosopher Michel Foucault. Together, they tried to produce their greatest work, used recreational drugs heavily and engaged in sado-masochistic sexual activity.

Barraqué was involved in a car accident in 1964, and his apartment was destroyed by fire in November 1968. He suffered from bad health for much of his life. Nevertheless, his death in Paris in August 1973, at the age of 45, was sudden and unexpected, and he appeared to have resumed serious work on a number of larger compositions from the Death of Virgil cycle.

Music and reputation
Barraqué stated that he wrote about 30 works before those that he eventually acknowledged; as far as is known they were destroyed by him. They included a Nocturne and Mouvement lent for piano, at least three piano sonatas, a sonata for unaccompanied violin, and a symphony in C-sharp minor. The presumably fourth, but un-numbered Piano Sonata, for which he gave the date 1952, was his earliest acknowledged work. Barraqué then produced his only electronic piece, the musique concrète Etude (1954), made at Pierre Schaeffer's studio. Subsequently, he planned a large-scale cycle of pieces, La Mort de Virgile, based on Hermann Broch's novel The Death of Virgil, a book which Barraqué's friend and sometime lover Michel Foucault recommended to him. This cycle, along with other pieces deriving from it or acting as commentaries upon it, he envisaged as his principal lifelong creative project. Following the scheme of the novel, it was to be divided into four sub-cycles: Water (The Arrival), Fire (The Descent), Earth (The Expectancy) and Air (The Return). Most of Barraqué's creative efforts went into the works which were to take their place in Fire (The Descent), which – to give an idea of the projected scope of the whole design – was to have consisted of thirteen works. Before his death he completed two of the projected parts: Chant aprés chant (1966), and Le Temps restitué (1957/68). Fragments of some of the other parts exist.

Barraqué also wrote ... Au delà du hasard (1958–59) for three female voices and ensemble, and a Concerto for clarinet, vibraphone and ensemble in 1962–68, which are related to The Death of Virgil, but not actually part of that cycle. (... Au delà du hasard is described as a commentary on Affranchi du hasard, which was to have been the eleventh piece of Fire (The Descent) but was not actually composed.) The only other extant piece by Barraqué is Séquence (1955–56), a setting of Nietzsche for soprano and ensemble which is partly a re-working of three songs for soprano and piano from the early fifties.

Barraqué's use of tone rows in his work is quite distinctive. Rather than using a single tone row for an entire piece, as Anton Webern did, or using a number of related rows in one work, as Alban Berg or Arnold Schoenberg sometimes did, Barraqué starts by using one row, and then subtly alters it to get a second. This second row is then used for a while before being slightly altered again to make a third. This process continues throughout the work. He called this technique "proliferating series".

Harry Halbreich has written that "Barraqué's whole work is marked by terrible despair, lightened by no religious or ideological faith, and entirely dominated by the great shadow of Death". In 1998 the record company CPO issued his entire output on CD, in performances by the Austrian ensemble Klangforum Wien.

The major reference work on his music in English is a biography entitled The Sea on Fire by the British music critic Paul Griffiths (2003). In German, Heribert Henrich's book of 1997 is its complement. His music is now published by the German firm of Bärenreiter.

Writings
Barraqué wrote many articles on other composers (including Alban Berg, Monteverdi, Mozart and Messiaen) and on theoretical aspects of contemporary music. His major prose work is his book on Claude Debussy (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1962). He also made numerous analyses of works in the standard repertoire from J. S. Bach to Honegger, some of which he used in his teaching. His few pupils included the British composer Bill Hopkins.

Completed works

 * Sonata for solo violin (1949)
 * Trois Mélodies for soprano and piano (1950) (texts from The Song of Solomon, Baudelaire and Rimbaud)
 * Séquence for voice, percussion and chamber ensemble (1950–55) (text by Nietzsche; incorporates material from the Trois Mélodies)
 * Piano Sonata (1950–52)
 * Etude for three-track tape (1952–53)
 * Le Temps restitué for soprano, chorus and orchestra (1956–68) (text from Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil, in French translation by Albert Kohn)
 * ... Au delà du hasard (premier Commentaire de 'Affranchi du hasard' et du 'Temps Restitué') for four instrumental groups and one vocal group (1958–59) (text by Barraqué 'around a quotation of Hermann Broch')
 * Concerto for six instrumental groups and two solo instruments (vibraphone and clarinet) (1962–68)
 * Chant après chant for six percussionists, voice and piano (1966) (text by Barraqué and Hermann Broch)

Unfinished works

 * Sonorité jaune (1957 sketch based on Wassily Kandinsky, Der gelbe Klang)
 * Musique de scène for 4 clarinets (bass clarinet), 3 saxophones (alto, tenor, baritone), 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, percussion (3 players), xylophone, vibraphone, celesta, glockenspiel and piano. It also includes two reciters, "L'aventurier" (The Adventurer) and "Le pauvre homme" (The Poor Man). 1958–59. Premiere sirene Operntheater, Austria, 2017.
 * Discours (c. 1961): sketch for a work for voices and orchestra, text from Hermann Broch, The Death of Virgil, in French translation by Albert Kohn)
 * Lysanias (c. 1966–69; 1972–73): sketch for three solo voices and orchestra (text by Barraqué and Hermann Broch)
 * Portiques du Feu (c. 1968; 1972–73): sketch for 18 solo voices (text by Barraqué and Hermann Broch)
 * Hymnes à Plotia for string quartet (1972–73)

title: Jean Barraqué


text: User:Axeloide

title: User:Axeloide


text:
Vestal Virgin

In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals (Vestālēs, singular Vestālis ) were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame.

The Vestals were unlike any other public priesthood. They were chosen before puberty from a number of suitable candidates, freed from any legal ties and obligations to their birth family, and enrolled in Vesta's priestly college of six priestesses. They were supervised by a senior vestal but chosen and governed by Rome's leading male priest, the Pontifex maximus; in the Imperial era, this meant the emperor.

Vesta's acolytes vowed to serve her for at least thirty years, to study and practise her rites in service of the Roman State, and to maintain their chastity throughout. As well as their obligations on behalf of Rome, Vestals had extraordinary rights and privileges, some of which were granted to no others, male or female.

The Vestals took it in turns to supervise Vesta's sacred hearth so that at least one Vestal was stationed there at all times. Vestals who allowed the sacred fire to go out were punished with whipping. Vestals who lost their chastity were guilty of incestum, and were sentenced to living burial, a bloodless death that must seem voluntary. Their sexual partners, if known, were publicly beaten to death. These were very rare events; most vestals retired with a generous pension and universal respect. They were then free to marry, though few of them did. Some appear to have renewed their vows.

In 382 AD, the Christian emperor Gratian confiscated the public revenues assigned to the cult of Vesta in Rome. The Vestals vanished from the historical record soon after.

History
Priesthoods with similar functions to the Vestals of Rome had an ancient and deeply embedded religious role in various surrounding Latin communities. According to Livy, the Vestals had pre-Roman origins at Alba Longa, where a virgin daughter of the king, forced by her usurper uncle to become a Vestal, miraculously gave birth to twin boys, Romulus and Remus. The twins were fathered by Mars; they survived their uncle's attempts to kill them through exposure or drowning, and Romulus went on to found Rome. In the most widely accepted versions of Rome's beginnings the city's legendary second king, Numa Pompilius, built its first Temple of Vesta, appointed its first pair of Vestals and subsidised them as a collegiate priesthood. He then added a second pair. Rome's 6th King Servius Tullius, who was also said to have been miraculously fathered by the fire-god Vulcan or the household Lar on a captive Vestal, increased the number of Vestals to six; in the Imperial era, as attested by Plutarch, the college had six vestals at any given time. Claims by Ambrose and others that the college comprised seven vestals in the late 4th century rest on "very unsatisfactory evidence".

The Vestals were a powerful and influential priesthood. Towards the end of the Republican era, when Sulla included the young Julius Caesar in his proscriptions, the Vestals interceded on Caesar's behalf and gained him pardon. Caesar's adopted heir, Augustus, promoted the Vestals' moral reputation and presence at public functions, and restored several of their customary privileges that had fallen into abeyance. They were held in awe, and attributed certain mysterious and supernatural powers and abilities. Pliny the Elder tacitly accepted these powers as fact:

"At the present day, too, it is a general belief, that our Vestal virgins have the power, by uttering a certain prayer, to arrest the flight of runaway slaves, and to rivet them to the spot, provided they have not gone beyond the precincts of the City. If then these opinions be once received as truth, and if it be admitted that the gods do listen to certain prayers, or are influenced by set forms of words, we are bound to conclude in the affirmative upon the whole question."

The 4th-century AD urban prefect Symmachus, who sought to maintain traditional Roman religion during the rise of Christianity, wrote:

"The laws of our ancestors provided for the Vestal virgins and the ministers of the gods a moderate maintenance and just privileges. This gift was preserved inviolate till the time of the degenerate moneychangers, who diverted the maintenance of sacred chastity into a fund for the payment of base porters. A public famine ensued on this act, and a bad harvest disappointed the hopes of all the provinces[...] it was sacrilege which rendered the year barren, for it was necessary that all should lose that which they had denied to religion."

Dissolution of the Vestal College would have followed soon after the emperor Gratian confiscated its revenues in 382 AD. The last epigraphically attested Vestal is Coelia Concordia, a Virgo Vestalis Maxima who in 385 AD erected a statue to the deceased pontiff Vettius Agorius Praetextatus. Zosimos claims that when Theodosius I visited Rome in 394 AD, his niece Serena insulted an aged Vestal, said to be the last of her kind. It is not clear from Zosimos's narrative whether Vesta's cult was still functioning, maintained by that single Vestal, or moribund. Cameron is sceptical of the entire tale, noting that Theodosius did not visit Rome in 394.

Terms of service
The Vestals were committed to the priesthood before puberty (when 6–10 years old) and sworn to celibacy for a minimum period of 30 years. A thirty-year commitment was divided into three decade-long periods during which Vestals were respectively students, servants, and teachers.

Vestals typically retired with a state pension, in their late 30s to early 40s, and thereafter were free to marry. The pontifex maximus, acting as the father of the bride, might arrange a marriage with a suitable Roman nobleman on behalf of the retired Vestal, but no literary accounts of such marriages have survived; Plutarch repeats a claim that "few have welcomed the indulgence, and that those who did so were not happy, but were a prey to repentance and dejection for the rest of their lives, thereby inspiring the rest with superstitious fears, so that until old age and death they remained steadfast in their virginity". Some Vestals preferred to renew their vows. Occia was vestal for 57 years between 38 BC and 19 AD.

Selection
To obtain entry into the order, a girl had to be free of physical, moral and mental defects, have two living parents and be a daughter of a free-born resident of Rome. From at least the mid-Republican era, the pontifex maximus chose Vestals by lot from a group of twenty high-born candidates at a gathering of their families and other Roman citizens.

Under the Papian Law of the 3rd century BCE, candidates for Vestal priesthoods had to be of patrician birth. Membership was opened to plebeians as it became difficult to find patricians willing to commit their daughters to 30 years as a Vestal, and then ultimately even from the daughters of freedmen for the same reason.

The choosing ceremony was known as a captio (capture). Once a girl was chosen to be a Vestal, the pontifex pointed to her and led her away from her parents with the words, "I take you, amata (beloved), to be a Vestal priestess, who will carry out sacred rites which it is the law for a Vestal priestess to perform on behalf of the Roman people, on the same terms as her who was a Vestal 'on the best terms (thus, with all the entitlements of a Vestal). As soon as she entered the atrium of Vesta's temple, she was under the goddess's service and protection.

If a Vestal died before her contracted term ended, potential replacements would be presented in the quarters of the chief Vestal, for the selection of the most virtuous. Unlike normal inductees, these candidates did not have to be prepubescent, nor even virgins; they could be young widows or even divorcees, though that was frowned upon and thought unlucky. Tacitus recounts how Gaius Fonteius Agrippa and Domitius Pollio offered their daughters as Vestal candidates in 19 AD to fill such a vacant position. Equally matched, Pollio's daughter was chosen only because Agrippa had been recently divorced. The pontifex maximus (Tiberius) "consoled" the failed candidate with a dowry of 1 million sesterces.

Vestalis Maxima
The chief Vestal (Virgo Vestalis Maxima or Vestalium Maxima, "greatest of the Vestals") oversaw the work and morals of the Vestals, and was a member of the College of Pontiffs. The chief Vestal was probably the most influential and independent of Rome's high priestesses, having the commitment to the maintenance of several different cults, maintaining personal connections to her birth family and cultivating the society of her equals among the Roman elite. The Vestalis Maxima Occia presided over the Vestals for 57 years, according to Tacitus. The Flaminica Dialis and the regina sacrorum also held unique responsibility for certain religious rites, but each held office by virtue of their standing as the spouse of a male priest.

Duties and festivals
Vestal tasks included the maintenance of their chastity, tending Vesta's sacred fire, guarding her sacred penus (store-room) and its contents; collecting ritually pure water from a sacred spring; preparing substances used in public rites, presiding at the Vestalia and attending other festivals. Vesta's temple was essentially the temple of all Rome and its citizens; it was open all day, by night it was closed but only to men. The Vestals regularly swept and cleansed Vesta's shrine, functioning as surrogate housekeepers, in a religious sense, for all of Rome, and maintaining and controlling the connections between Rome's public and private religion. So long as their bodies remained unpenetrated, the walls of Rome would remain intact. Their flesh belonged to Rome, and when they died, whatever the cause of their death, their bodies remained within the city's boundary.

The Vestals acknowledged one of their number as senior authority, the Vestalis Maxima, but all were ultimately under the authority of the pontifex maximus, head of his priestly college. His influence and status grew during the Republican era, and the religious post became an important, lifetime adjunct to the political power of the annually elected consulship. When Augustus became pontifex maximus, and thus supervisor of all religion, he donated his house to the Vestals. Their sacred fire became his household fire, and his domestic gods (Lares and Penates) became their responsibility. This arrangement between Vestals and Emperor persisted throughout the Imperial era.

The Vestals guarded various sacred objects kept in Vesta's penus, including the Palladium – a statue of Pallas Athene which had supposedly been brought from Troy – and a large, presumably wooden phallus, used in fertility rites and at least one triumphal procession, perhaps slung beneath the triumphal general's chariot.

Festivals
Vesta's chief festival was the Vestalia, held in her temple from June 7 to June 15, and attended by matrons and bakers. Servius claims that during the Vestalia, the Lupercalia and on September 13, the three youngest Vestals reaped unripened far (spelt wheat, or possibly emmer wheat). The three senior Vestals parched the grain to make it edible, and mixed it with salt, to make the mola salsa used by priests and priestesses to consecrate (dedicate to the gods) the animal victims offered in public sacrifices. The Vestals' activities thus provided a shared link to various public, and possibly some private cults.

The Fordicidia was a characteristically rustic, agricultural festival, in which a pregnant cow was sacrificed to the Earth-goddess Tellus, and its unborn calf was reduced to ashes by the senior Vestal. The ashes were mixed with various substances, most notably the dried blood of the previous year's October horse, sacrificed to Mars. The mixture was called suffimen. During the Parilia festival, April 21, it was sprinkled on bonfires to purify shepherds and their flocks, and probably to ensure human and animal fertility in the Roman community. On May 1, Vestals officiated at Bona Dea's public-private, women-only rites at her Aventine temple. They were also present, in some capacity, at the Bona Dea's overnight, women-only December festival, hosted by the wife of Rome's senior magistrate; the magistrate himself was supposed to stay elsewhere for the occasion. On May 15, Vestals and pontiffs collected ritual straw figures called Argei from stations along Rome's city boundary and cast them into the Tiber, to purify the city.

Privileges

Vestals were lawfully personae sui iuris – "sovereign over themselves", answerable only to the pontifex maximus. Unlike any other Roman women, they could make a will of their own volition, and dispose of their property without the sanction of a male guardian. They could give their property to women, something forbidden even to men, under Roman law. As they embodied the Roman state, Vestals could give evidence in trials without first taking the customary oath to the State. They had custody of important wills and state documents, which were presumably locked away in the penus. Their person was sacrosanct; anyone who assaulted a Vestal was, in effect, assaulting an embodiment of Rome and its gods, and could be killed with impunity. As no magistrate held power over the Vestals, the lictors of magistrates who encountered a Vestal had to lower their fasces in deference.

The Vestals had unique, exclusive rights to use a carpentum, an enclosed, two-wheeled, horse-drawn carriage; some Roman sources remark on its likeness to the chariots used by Roman generals in triumphs. Otherwise, the Vestals seem to have travelled in a one-seat, curtained litter, or possibly on foot. In every case, they were preceded by a lictor, who was empowered to enforce the Vestal's right-of-way; anyone who passed beneath the litter, or otherwise interfered with its passage, could be lawfully killed on the spot.

Vestals could also free or pardon condemned persons en route to execution by touching them, or merely being seen by them, as long as the encounter had not been pre-arranged.

Vestals were permitted to see things forbidden to all other upper-class Roman women; from the time of Augustus on, they had reserved ring-side seating at public games, including gladiator contests, and stage-side seats at theatrical performances.

Prosecutions and punishments
If Vesta's fire went out, Rome was no longer protected. Spontaneous extinction of the sacred flame for no apparent reason might be understood as a prodigy, a warning that the pax deorum ("peace of the gods") was disrupted by some undetected impropriety, unnatural phenomenon or religious offence. Romans had a duty to report any suspected prodigies to the Senate, who in turn consulted the pontifex maximus, the pontifices and the haruspices to determine whether the matter must be tried or dismissed. Expiation of prodigies usually involved a special sacrifice (piaculum) and the destruction of the "unnatural" object that had caused divine offence.

Extinction of Vesta's sacred fire through Vestal negligence could be expiated by the scourging or beating of the offender, carried out "in the dark and through a curtain to preserve their modesty". The sacred fire could then be relit, using the correct rituals and the purest materials. Loss of chastity, however, represented a broken oath. It was permanent, irreversible; no piaculum or expiation could restore it or compensate for its loss.

A Vestal who committed incestum breached Rome's contract with the gods; she was a contradiction, a visible religious embarrassment. By ancient tradition, she must die, but she must seem to do so willingly, and her blood could not be spilled. The city could not seem responsible for her death, and burial of the dead was anyway forbidden within the city's ritual boundary, so she was immured alive in an underground chamber within the city's ritual boundary (pomerium) in the Campus Sceleratus ("Evil Field") near the Colline Gate. That Vesta did not intervene to save her former protege was taken as further divine confirmation of guilt.

"When condemned by the college of pontifices, [the Vestal] was stripped of her vittae and other badges of office, was scourged, was attired like a corpse, placed in a close litter, and borne through the forum attended by her weeping kindred, with all the ceremonies of a real funeral, to a rising ground called the Campus Sceleratus just within the city walls, close to the Colline gate. There a small vault underground had been previously prepared, containing a couch, a lamp, and a table with a little food. The pontifex maximus, having lifted up his hands to heaven and uttered a secret prayer, opened the litter, led forth the culprit, and placing her on the steps of the ladder which gave access to the subterranean cell, delivered her over to the common executioner and his assistants, who conducted her down, drew up the ladder, and having filled the pit with earth until the surface was level with the surrounding ground, left her to perish deprived of all the tributes of respect usually paid to the spirits of the departed." If discovered, the paramour of a guilty Vestal was publicly beaten to death by the pontifex maximus, in the Forum Boarium or on the Comitium.

Trials for Vestal incestum are "extremely rare"; most took place during military or religious crisis. Some Vestals were probably used as scapegoats; their political alliances and alleged failure to observe oaths and duties were held to account for civil disturbances, wars, famines, plagues and other signs of divine displeasure. The end of the Roman monarchy and the beginnings of the Republic involved extreme social tensions between Rome and her neighbours, and competition for power and influence between Rome's aristocrats and the commoner majority. In 483 BC, during a period of social conflict between patricians and plebeians, the Vestal Oppia, perhaps the earliest of several historic Vestals of plebeian family, was executed for incestum merely on the basis of various portents, and allegations that she neglected her Vestal duties. In 337 BC, Minucia, another possible first plebeian Vestal, was tried, found guilty of unchastity and buried alive on the strength of her excessive and inappropriate love of dress, and the evidence of a slave.

In 123 BC the gift of an altar, shrine and couch to the Bona Dea's Aventine temple by the Vestal Licinia "without the people's approval" was refused by the Roman Senate. In 114 Licinia and two of her colleagues, Vestals Aemilia and Marcia, were accused of multiple acts of incestum. The final accusations were justified by the death, in 114 BC, of Helvia, a virgin girl of equestrian family, killed by lightning while on horseback. The manner of her death was interpreted as a prodigy, proof of inchastity by the three accused. Aemilia, who had supposedly incited the two others to follow her example, was condemned outright and put to death. Marcia, who was accused of only one offence, and Licinia, who was accused of many, were at first acquitted by the pontifices, but were retried by Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla (consul 127), and condemned to death in 113. The prosecution offered two Sibylline prophecies in support of the final verdicts. Of the three Vestals executed for incestum between the first Punic War (216) and the end of the Republic (113–111), each was followed by a nameless, bloodless form of human sacrifice seemingly reserved for times of extreme crisis, supposedly at the recommendation of the Sibylline Books; the living burial or immurement in the Forum Boarium of a Greek man and woman, and a Gaulish man and woman, possibly to avert divine outrage at the ritual killing of the Vestal priestesses involved. According to Erdkamp, this may have also been intended to restore divine support for Rome's success on the battlefield, evidenced by later successful auguries. The initial charges against the Vestals concerned were almost certainly trumped up, and may have been politically motivated. Pliny the Younger believed that Cornelia, a Virgo Maxima buried alive on the orders of emperor Domitian, may have been an innocent victim. He describes how she sought to keep her dignity intact when she descended into the chamber:

"As they were leading her to the place of execution, she called upon Vesta, and the rest of the gods, to attest her innocence; and, amongst other exclamations, frequently cried out, 'Is it possible that Cæsar can think me polluted, under the influence of whose sacred functions he has conquered and triumphed?' Whether she said this in flattery or derision; whether it proceeded from a consciousness of her innocence or contempt of the emperor, is uncertain; but she continued exclaiming in this manner, til she came to the place of execution, to which she was led, whether innocent or guilty I cannot say, at all events with every appearance and demonstration of innocence. As she was being lowered down into the subterranean vault, her robe happening to catch upon something in the descent, she turned round and disengaged it, when, the executioner offering his assistance, she drew herself back with horror, refusing to be so much as touched by him, as though it were a defilement to her pure and unspotted chastity: still preserving the appearance of sanctity up to the last moment; and, among all the other instances of her modesty, 'She took great care to fall with decency.' [The quotation is from Euripides, Hecuba.]"

Dionysius of Halicarnassus claims that long before Rome's foundation, Vestals at ancient Alba Longa were whipped and "put to death" for breaking their vows of celibacy, and that their offspring were to be thrown into the river. According to Livy, Rhea Silvia, mother of Romulus and Remus, had been forced to become a Vestal Virgin, and was chained and imprisoned when she gave birth. Dionysius also writes that the Roman king Tarquinius Priscus instituted live burial as a punishment for Vestal unchastity, and inflicted it on the Vestal Pinaria; and that whipping with rods sometimes preceded the immuration, and that this was done to Urbinia in 471 BCE, in a time of pestilence and plebeian unrest.

Postumia, though innocent according to Livy, was suspected and tried for unchastity on grounds of her immodest attire and over-familiar manner. Some Vestals were acquitted. Some cleared themselves through ordeals or miraculous deeds; in a celebrated case during the mid-Republic, the Vestal Tuccia, accused of unchastity, carried water in a sieve to prove her innocence; Livy's epitomator (Per. 20) claims that she was condemned nevertheless but in all other sources she was acquitted.

House of the Vestals
The House of the Vestals was the residence of the vestal priestesses in Rome. Located behind the Temple of Vesta (which housed the sacred fire), the Atrium Vestiae was a three-storey building at the foot of the Palatine Hill, "very large and exceptionally magnificent both in decoration and material".

Attire
Vestal costume had elements in common with high-status Roman bridal dress, and with the formal dress of high-status Roman matrons (married citizen-women). Vestals and matrons wore a long linen palla over a white woollen stola, a rectangular female citizen's wrap, equivalent to the male citizen's semi-circular toga. A Vestal's hair was bound into a white, priestly infula (head-covering or fillet) with red and white ribbons, usually tied together behind the head and hanging loosely over the shoulders.

The red ribbons of the Vestal infula were said to represent Vesta's fire; and the white, virginity, or sexual purity. The stola is associated with Roman citizen-matrons and Vestals, not with brides. This covering of the body by way of the gown and veils "signals the prohibitions that governed [the Vestals] sexuality". The stola communicates the message of "hands off" and asserts their virginity. The prescribed everyday hairstyle for Vestals, and for brides only on their wedding day, comprised six or seven braids; this was thought to date back to the most ancient of times. In 2013 Janet Stephens recreated the hairstyle of the vestals on a modern person.

High-status brides were veiled in the same saffron-yellow flammeum as the Flamenica Dialis, priestess of Jupiter and wife to his high priest. Vestals wore a white, purple-bordered suffibulum (veil) when travelling outdoors, performing public rites or offering sacrifices. Respectable matrons were also expected to wear veils in public. One who appeared in public without her veil could be thought to have repudiated her marriage, making herself "available".

Named Vestals
From the institution of the Vestal priesthood to its abolition, an unknown number of Vestals held office. Some are named in Roman myth and history and some are of unknown date. The 1st-century BC author Varro, names the first four, probably legendary Vestals as Gegania, Veneneia, Canuleia,and Tarpeia. Varro and others also portray Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius in the Sabine-Roman war, as a treasonous Vestal Virgin. Most Vestals named in Roman historical accounts are presented as examples of wrongdoing, threats to the well-being of the state, and punishment. While Tarpeia's status as a virgin is common to most accounts, her status as a vestal was likely the mythographer's invention, to cast her lust, greed and treason in the worst possible light.

Dionysius of Halicarnasus names Orbinia, a Vestal put to death in 471. Livy names a Vestal Postumia, tried for inchastity in 420, but acquitted with a warning to take her position more seriously: Minucia was put to death for inchastity in 337: and Sextilia, put to death for adultery in 273. Some Vestals are said to have committed suicide when accused; Caparronia did so in 266: essential trial details are often lacking. Livy states that two Vestals, Floronia and Opimia, were convicted of unchastity in 216. One committed suicide, the other was buried alive - he does not say which.

Vestals could exploit their familial and social connections, as well as their unique, untouchable status and privileges, taking the role of patron and protector. Cicero describes how the Vestal Claudia, daughter of Appius Claudius Pulcher, walked beside her father in his triumphal procession, to repulse a tribune of the plebs, who wanted to veto the triumph. Cicero also records a Vestal Fonteia, present during the trial of her brother in 69. Fabia, admitted to the order in 80 and made chief Vestal around 50, was half-sister of Terentia (Cicero's first wife), and full sister of Fabia the wife of Dolabella who later married her niece Tullia; she was probably mother of the later consul of that name. In 73 she was acquitted of incestum with Lucius Sergius Catilina. The case was prosecuted by Cicero.

The 1st century Vestal Licinia was supposedly courted by her kinsman, the so-called "triumvir" Marcus Licinius Crassus – who in fact wanted her property. This relationship gave rise to rumours. Plutarch says: "And yet when he was further on in years, he was accused of criminal intimacy with Licinia, one of the Vestal virgins and Licinia was formally prosecuted by a certain Plotius. Now Licinia was the owner of a pleasant villa in the suburbs which Crassus wished to get at a low price, and it was for this reason that he was forever hovering about the woman and paying his court to her until he fell under the abominable suspicion. And in a way, it was his avarice that absolved him from the charge of corrupting the Vestal, and he was acquitted by the judges. But he did not let Licinia go until he had acquired her property." Licinia became a Vestal in 85 and remained a Vestal until 61. The Vestals Arruntia, Perpennia M. f., and Popillia attended the inauguration of Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Niger as Flamen Martialis in 69. Licinia, Crassus' relative, was also present.

Imperial Vestals

 * Junia Torquata (1st century), vestal under Tiberius, sister of Gaius Junius Silanus.
 * Rubria (1st century), said by Suetonius to have been raped by Nero.
 * Aquilia Severa (3rd century), whom Emperor Elagabalus married amid considerable scandal.
 * Clodia Laeta (3rd century).
 * Flavia Publicia (mid-3rd century).
 * Coelia Concordia (4th century), the last head of the order.

Outside Rome
Inscriptions record the existence of Vestals in other locations than the centre of Rome.
 * Manlia Severa, virgo Albana maxima, a chief Alban Vestal at Bovillae whose brother was probably the L. Manlius Severus named as a rex sacrorum in a funerary inscription. Mommsen thought he was rex sacrorum of Rome, but this is not considered likely.
 * Flavia (or Valeria) Vera, a virgo vestalis maxima arcis Albanae, chief Vestal Virgin of the Alban arx (citadel).
 * Caecilia Philete, a senior virgin (virgo maior) of Laurentum-Lavinium, as commemorated by her father, Q. Caecilius Papion. The title maior means at Lavinium the Vestals were only two.
 * Saufeia Alexandria, Virgo Vestalis Tiburtium.
 * Cossinia L(ucii) f(iliae), a Virgo Vestalis of Tibur (Tivoli).
 * Primigenia, Alban vestal of Bovillae who had forsaken her vows of celibacy, mentioned by Symmachus in two of his letters.

In Western art
The Vestals were used as models of female virtue in allegorizing portraiture of the later West. Elizabeth I of England was portrayed holding a sieve to evoke Tuccia, the Vestal who proved her virtue by carrying water in a sieve. Tuccia herself had been a subject for artists such as Jacopo del Sellaio (d. 1493) and Joannes Stradanus, and women who were arts patrons started having themselves painted as Vestals. In the libertine environment of 18th century France, portraits of women as Vestals seem intended as fantasies of virtue infused with ironic eroticism. Later, Vestals became an image of republican virtue, as in Jacques-Louis David's The Vestal Virgin.

Excavations in Rome and Pompeii, as well as translation of Latin sources, made Vestals a popular subject for artists in the 18th century and the 19th century. The French painter Hector Leroux, who lived and worked in Italy for seventeen years, became famous for meticulously researched images of Vestals in all aspects of their daily life and worship, making some thirty paintings of Vestals between 1863 and 1899.

Procol Harum's famous hit "A Whiter Shade of Pale" (1967) contains the lyrics "One of sixteen vestal virgins/ Who were leaving for the coast".

title: Vestal Virgin