Education Israel Project #1520

Training 80 Youth Encounter Leaders

by Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA)

Project Report | Dec 21, 2020
The Hebron Interfaith Encounter group

By Dr. Yehdua Stolov | Executive Director

Less than three days before the start of the lockdown, we met according to the coronavirus restrictions in Ashraf's new and beautiful living room. We were about ten people who were happy to meet old friends after so long (since the previous encounter took place via the internet).

Since the Jewish members were late in arriving and that very evening the signing ceremony of the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates took place, we immersed ourselves in a conversation about the event and its significance. We talked about the historical importance of the signature and also about the equally great historical importance of the encounter of our interfaith group and the building of ties between the communities in Hebron.

Ashraf, who was at the economic conference in Bahrain, spoke about the great economic potential of collaborations. Many ideas came up for joint ventures of Jews and Arabs from Hebron with people from the Gulf.

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Oct 28, 2020
Empathy Storytelling

By Dr. Yehdua Stolov | Executive Director

The goal of this project is to demonstrate that through an empathetic, respectful approach, a topic like Refugees need not be divisive, and can in fact build solidarity and deepen friendships between young Jewish and Palestinian citizens in Israel. These leaders can then inspire and impact others.

The topic of refugees has been considered extremely polarizing, one of the issues left for future discussions at Oslo, and virtually taboo. We turn that on its head by using the topic to foster solidarity and deepen friendship. The educational center at the Anne Frank House in particular was so impressed by the project that we were the first group ever invited to present in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

To the best of knowledge this is the first attempt at having Israelis and Palestinians share one another’s stories of being refugees.

There are 8 students participating:

Luna, 14 years old from Sakhnin, a city in the north of Israel. She is a Muslim Palestinian Arab Citizen of Israel.

Her grandparents were born before the establishment of the state of Israel.

Luna speaks Arabic, Hebrew, and English. She studies at Albshaer Private School, and she is passionate about diplomacy, science, and languages. She is a violinist too.

Snabel is 19 years old and Muslim from Rahat city.

Yoad - 18 year old from a small village in the Municipality of Be’er Tuvia. Yoad graduates from High school in 2020, and will start his military service in December 2020. He speaks English, French and Hebrew. His family has long roots in Europe and North Africa. Yoad comes from a Jewish- Atheist background.

Oren, 17 years old- Oren is Jewish Israeli, he lives in the city of Netanya, and he has Persian roots.

Mihal is a senior from Caracas, Venezuela. She is Jewish and Spanish, and attends a boarding school in Even Yehuda.

Tal is a Jewish Israeli and Zionist student from petah tikva. her family is from Yemen and Poland.

She loves studying diplomacy and international relations. In school she is specializing in medicine and chemistry.

Amir is 15 years old, from Taybie. Amir is Muslim and a Palestinian Israeli citizen

Saed is Palestinian and graduated from high school. Saed lives in Nazareth and is of Christian background

We held several weeks of meetings, and are now in the stage of presenting the stories (via Zoom)

Meeting 1: Empathy circles discussion-- we had a 90 minute discussion among the group using the Empathy circles framework (April 25)

Meeting 2: Discussion with Corey Gil Shuster (Ask an Israeli/Ask a Palestinian youtube channel) on empathy and lack of empathy in the context of the conflict (May 4)

Meeting 3: Transitional Justice with Professor Monroy-Santander (May 13)

Meeting 4: Jacob McCleland (US Embassy): How to be a Journalist? What questions to ask. (May 18)

Meeting 5: Eddie Ashkenazie (Diarna) : exploring heritage; looking for clues. (May 25)

We spent 3 weeks researching stories with partners (Mihal and Luna; Snabel and Tal; Saed and Oren; Yoad and Ameer)

Meeting 6: Storytelling with Rebecca Zafrani (June 24)

July: we held several different meetings to practice the storytelling, first with smaller groups of friends and family, then for teachers.

In August we will keep presenting to larger audiences

September 10-16- travel to Belgium to present there

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Jul 7, 2020
Circle of Light and Hope- 4 encounters

By Dr. Yehuda Stolov | Executive Director

May 6, 2020

The Circle of Light and Hope Interfaith Encounter Group met once more online (due to coronavirus restrictions). This time, it was decided to discuss a topic that relates to our current reality: Can there be spiritual value to sickness and suffering?

Our Muslim speaker presented his perspective on how spirituality can help and be enhanced through suffering. He mentioned the biblical account of Job, and stated that God created suffering and the emotional power to conquer it.

The Jewish speaker also mentioned Job, but affirmed her personal point of view is closer to a saying in Masechet Avot: “we don’t know why righteous people suffer”, but can decide what to do about it. She also related a personal experience and left us with a poignant question: Is God suffering with us?

The group discussed that suffering may sometimes make us better, but we would prefer to live without it. Participants also discussed that when someone is aware of his own mortality, it makes him do things in a different way. Suffering also often makes us realize who we truly are, and who our real friends are.

It was suggested that the topic for the next encounter should be the spiritual value of happiness and health.

April 6, 2020

The Circle of Light and Hope met online through Zoom with 12 participants.

In light of the current coronavirus crisis, instead of sticking to a specific topic, we checked in with everyone and talked about how each of us is dealing with this difficult period. Still, there were some very interesting topics surrounding the corona crisis. We spoke about how to deal with people who refuse to comply with the instructions regarding social distancing in the name of religious practices, such as public prayers. We also discussed how we are all receiving contradictory information, and deliberate misinformation, and how to select our sources.

Unfortunately, many of our Muslim friends could not join, as they do not have access to Zoom. It showed again the imperfections of this means of communication and the inequalities it highlights. Still, we felt it was meaningful to continue to be in touch throughout this troubled period.

February 16 2020

The Circle of Light and Hope interfaith encounter group met again with 12 participants, including some new ones. The topic chosen for this encounters was “Miracles”.

The Jewish coordinator gave a brief presentation of two Jewish approaches to miracles. The first draws on the saying “the world conducts according to its usual habit”. Maimonides teaches that one should believe that God creates nature and its laws, and miracles were “preprogrammed” or “built-in” the laws of nature. A second approach, which actually drinks from Islamic sources, is that there is no such thing as fixed natural law, but rather creation is renewed by God every single second- meaning, if something falls, it is because at that very moment God is creating gravity laws. According to this view, there is no essential difference between the natural and the miraculous, since God “He renews, in Hiskindness, His creation every day anew”. Some of the miracles mentioned in the Torah are Abraham and Sara having a child in their old age, the splitting of the red sea and the resurrection of a child by Elisha.

The Muslim coordinator gave a presentation explaining that the Koran brings the same miracles as the Bible, in addition to Muhammad's miracles, which include: flying to Al Aksa and the splitting of the moon.

After the presentations, some interesting topics were raised and discussed: Are there miracles today? To which a Jewish participant answer: If you believe every story you hear, you’re a fool, and if you believe none of them, you are heretic (a quote by Rabbi Lichtenstein). Another Jew answered she doesn’t believe in miracles at all, and asked if one could be a Muslim without being a believer. The Muslim participants diverged in their answer, and one of them mentioned that a “strong Muslim” had to believe.

The group then debated the topic for the next encounter, which we look forward to.

January 14 2020

The Circle of Light and Hope group met at Gush Etzion with 13 participants: 7 Jews, 1 Christian and 5 Muslims. We decide to have an open session in which people could ask whatever they wanted about the others’ religions, and of course some very interesting topics were raised. A Jewish participant asked if there was a Muslim concept to End of Days or Messiah. Muslim participants answered there is such concept- the Ahmehdi, someone who will make people repent and go through the right path. Muslim participants asked about Jewish customs such as rocking back and forth when praying, and more interestingly, why Jews do not consider Mohammed as one of their prophets. This question led to an extended conversation about particularism vs. universalism and how historical contexts influence the development of religions. Muslim participants also asked the Christian participant regarding different Jesus’ images across the world. Last, we all compared what participants considered the main prayer in their religion and its contents- the Shema Israel for Jews, the Surat Al Fatiha for Muslims, and the Holy Father or Priestly Blessing for Christians.

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