Professional Advice

In my professional meeting with Avital Moshe, the director of youth and young adult programs at the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, I started thinking a lot about what are the ultimate goals of getting different types of peoples together. When we are raised from such a young age to believe certain things about a particular type of person, is it actually meaningful to have an encounter program? What impact will it really have? Or is the goal, like Avital put it for the ICCI, for Jews and Arabs to see that they are capable of working together to create something? While I think this goal is the most practical and optimistic, I would really like to see someday what, if any, impact their efforts have. How closely do they stay in touch with their participants following the program? It doesn't seem like they really do. While there is so much working against the ICCI and other groups like it, it's admirable that they try so hard.

This issue made me think about the program I'd like to create. My initial "social action" issue was really the low state of Jewish literacy among American Jews. I initially thought about doing an interfaith program because I thought Jews (and Muslims probably too) would be attracted to such an environment out of curiosity and they would be more likely to absorb more information because they are looking at Judaism and Islam in contexts of each other and zooming in on certain issues within the faiths. Less useful I think is a goal that these Muslim and Jewish teenagers in America see that they can work together. While that is important in any context (and they will co-teach at the end of the program), cooperation and coexistence are much more applicable in Israel where it's literally a life or death situation if Arabs and Jews don't figure out how to live together.

Avital recommended I really think about and get plenty of advice on how to handle text study with Muslims and Jews. From her experience--they do some text study with young adult groups at the ICCI--Muslims and Jews approach their texts in very different ways. While Jews, she says, are comfortable with the chevrutah model and with debating and questioning what they are reading, Muslims are less familiar with this style. Believing Muslims hold steadfastly to the idea that the Qur'an is the direct word from G-d to the angel Gabriel as told to and transcribed by the Prophet Muhammad. The Qur'an is unchanging throughout history. This philosophy is in contrast to the way many Jews approach Torah. While some Jews believe the Torah is unchanging, divine word, many believe it to be divinely inspired or written by human beings over different periods of time who have edited the text.

For this very crucial point, it is essential that the Muslim co-facilitator and Jewish co-facilitator take the program and make sure text study is done in a comfortable or at least non-offensive way for both Muslims and Jews.

Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel

I had a terrific meeting recently with Avital, the director of youth and young adult programs at the ICCI. I want to share a few aspects of that meeting.

She is currently running a dialogue group for young adult Jerusalemites--Christian Arabs, Jewish Israelis, Muslim Arabs, Arab Palestinians and Arab Israelis. Pretty clear how complex these groups can get. While the program I'm creating is simply about bringing two different religious groups together, Avital told me in Israel people simply cannot separate their religious identities from their national identities. These identities are wrapped up in one another here.

I wonder how complex our identities are in comparison. For myself, I am aware of my identities as a Jew, as an American and as a Zionist, and while these come with their own intricacies, it seems enormously different from the identity struggles of Jerusalemites. In a city that has changed hands so many times and is so religiously and politically polarized, in a city in which not all of the citizens feel at home or at all identified (or identified as anti), it's very different from political/social/religious identities in American cities.

The Jerusalem dialogue group takes tours in Jerusalem of problematic areas like East Jerusalem, the group talks about troubling political and religious issues they face in their communities, and designs a program together as a group to do for their communities. For example, groups in the past have run film festivals or cultural events that incorporate common themes of Jerusalem or bring to light all of their identities. Avital says it's important for the group to see most of all that by working together they can accomplish something. Initially this sounded pretty cheesy to me. But then I remembered where I was. This isn't Palo Alto, CA. It is actually extraordinarily difficult to get groups to work together in Jerusalem. Participants walk away with new understandings of the other groups in Jerusalem and might even continue some of their new friendships. The ICCI selects people to participate in the group who plan to work in dialogue, peace, religion, politics or social work. The experience of really facing the city in which they live is an important step on their way to whatever professional goals they have. It surprised me, but Avital said that for many of the group's participants, when they take tours of Jerusalem, it's the first time visiting many of the sites. It just really shows how segregated the city is.

I love the idea of participant voice and choice, and especially in the context of this dialogue group. These young adults need to be empowered or nothing will ever change here.

Something that has challenged me this year in this class is...

Easily, the physical distance from the JSL class has presented some challenges. What comes to mind is a Martin Buber text from Between Man and Man that Jenni sent me back in March: "We are to converse with one another and not at or past one another...There are no gifted and ungifted here, only those who give themselves and those who withhold themselves."

I haven't been able to physically face my colleagues and converse with them the last several months. It has not felt like the "I-thou" relationships I feel like I formed in the fall. That is, last semester I learned from my colleagues and I felt as though they also were learning from me. I developed tremendous respect for them, their views and the work they do in the Jewish community. It was not a utilitarian relationship. I got to know them as people also, not just for their resource potential. This semester I haven't had much contact with my fellow students. I miss the class time and discussions from the fall. I know I lost a lot of what is great about being part of a JSL cohort because I was not in the Bay Area. Still, being in touch with Jenni and Mara has made this experience a valuable one. I have continued to learn and make progress in this class because of their feedback, resources and reflection prompts.

I feel like I gave of myself this semester, but probably not to the extent that I could have had I physically been present in the class. The opportunities to give of myself are just different. I give of myself independently of others, whereas last semester I gave my thoughts and work to those around me. By writing on this blog, I hoped to give something of myself to others. I wonder if anyone has read this?

I know my fellow students have not withheld themselves, but I'm a little saddened that I have not seen or really heard anything concrete they have done this semester. Certainly via Jenny's emails I have been kept up-to-date on what topics are being discussed. I should have reached out to my fellow students, but I wasn't quite sure how best to do this. I would have loved to know more about their capstone projects, the session discussions, the teaching they have done this semester, ideas that came up, just generally their contributions and progress in the class. I know it will never be as if I were there, but I wonder how I could have been more in touch. I missed the connections we formed as a group last semester.

Everyone in this class is gifted. I guess the distance factor presented new challenges that I hope future distance learners can work to improve for themselves and for reaching their colleagues.