Training 80 Youth Encounter Leaders

September 9th, 2019

In our last encounter in Gush Etzion Junction, 6 Palestinians and 8 Jews met together in to talk about peace and future.We have known each other for more than a year now, and we meet twice a month, building a great bridge between us. Today we talk about the Yeshiva student Dvir, who was killed around a month ago next to Efrat southern entrance. As young men, we agreed that we are against violence and we want both of us to live as any other people in this world . We raised a lot of questions that we will continue to discuss in the next encounters.

28.7.19

 In this encounter for the Jewish and Palestinian youth, we had an interesting discussion.

The predefined topic of Judaism and Zionism found an interesting twist after Mousa asked a question about the use of "Judea and Samaria" vs "West Bank". And so a discussion about identity and the names we give to places in the Holy Land started... How names define our connection but may seem to deny the others. How does one solve this? Are there ways of "being sensitive" without giving up on the language and names which are our stories. Thanks to Mousa and Andye who both raised important questions and challenges and showed that, as Andye noted when he introduced himself, we have a good basis of personal relationship that will allow us to deal with the issues of identity.

Links:

• IEA website
• IEA activity & annual reports
• Get involved

After a long break, the group resumed its activity with new Jewish participants. At the set time, Yaki came with Yakov to the encounter place, finding Jihad, Ahmed and Ismail already waiting. By the time Yehuda came we were already immersed in acquaintance conversation – in Arabic.

We talked about the encounters and agreed to aim for an encounter every 1-1.5 month, with a theme selected before. In the long-run we will include also women and children but for the time we start with men and on Fridays.

An interesting point that came during the conversation was the disagreement in the Muslim world about the date of the Holiday. I shared about a similar disagreement in Judaism when Raban Gamliel ordered Rabbi Yehoshua to visit him with his stick and bag on the date that according to his calculation is the Day of Atonement. With heavy heart Rabbi Yehoshua accepted, in order for the authority of the religious ruling to remain accepted by all.

A small step with big hope.

Links:

• IEA website
• IEA activity & annual reports
• Get involved