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April 10, 2014 / 10 Nissan 5774/ 10 Jumada al-Thania 1435
Dear Friends,

This month's newsletter is dedicated to our Palestinian and Jewish young adult alumni community for peaceful coexistence, who just completed a conference entitled "From Dialogue to Activism" at Neve Shalom/Wahat El Salaam in mid-March.

We at ICCI believe that young people have a critical role to play in shaping a better future for all of God's children in Israel and Palestine. Many of them still believe, as we do, that peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Jews is possible, and that we have to do all that we can in educational, social, and spiritual to change the hearts and minds of the people to recognize the potential benefits of peace for everyone.

We congratulate our alumni -as well as newcomers to this community-on their enthusiasm and their initiatives, and we express our gratitude to Hamutal Blanc and to Hoda Barakat, for their effective leadership as coordinators of this program this year. In addition, we wish to thank the organizations and institutions which have helped this program to come to fruition this year: Auburn Theological Seminary of New York, Religions for Peace, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, the Embassy of the U.S.A. in Israel and the Consulate of the USA in Jerusalem.   


The ICCI team

You Can Call Them H&H - Interview by Chagit Lyssy, intern
Hoda Barakat and Hamutal Blanc or H&H, as they have been dubbed affectionately, are the coordinators of the "Face to Face/Faith to Faith" Alumni Community for Palestinian and Jewish Young Adults for Peaceful Coexistence since late 2013. Thanks to them, many new projects have begun to take shape within the Alumni Community. So I sat down with them for a conversation on recent developments and future projects of the alumni community.

 

Q: How did you get to ICCI?

Hamutal: "I moved to Jerusalem mainly because I wanted to work in the field of dialogue and conflict resolution. When I moved to Jerusalem, I searched for an organization that represented the character and uniqueness of Jerusalem, a city that brings all religions together. I found that place in ICCI, which works to bring together people from the different religions."

Hoda: "As a coordinator at another peace organization, Hands of Peace, I already saw how rewarding dialogue work is with teenagers. At ICCI, I have the ability to work on conflict resolution with a more mature age group, that's what made ICCI interesting to me."

Q: Did you have any experience as participants in dialogue programs when you were younger?

Hamutal: "I've been involved in these types of programs since the age of 14. I went to programs with Seeds of Peace and the YMCA. Afterwards, I lived and worked in a commune in the Galilee, where Jews and Arabs lived together as part of my national civil service, after which I continued to volunteer in both Jewish and Arab communities.

Hoda: "I didn't go through dialogue programs when I was younger, but I'm doing it now."

 

Q: What are your goals as Alumni Community coordinators?

Hoda: "We coordinate projects that help people, who have already been through dialogue programs, take their experience to the next level. Most organizations focus only on dialogue, which is a good tool and brought us up to this point, but ICCI is one of the first organizations I know that tries to get people to really be active and turn what they have learned into something productive. That's a very brave move. I see us as the people who facilitate this important process."

 

Q: What projects are happening at the moment?

Hoda: "The most exciting project at the moment is the "Multiple Narrative Project". It's taking dialogue one step further. It does include dialogue, but it also entails studying different narratives, understanding what it means to be part of a national collective with a certain narrative and be able to tell personal stories. This will help the Palestinians understand the Israeli narrative, and the Israelis understand the Palestinian narrative. It will help the participants to understand the other side's motivations and give them the ability to be more active."

Hamutal: "One more project that is on the agenda now aims to show the many faces of Jerusalem through tours within the city. So far there has been one very successful tour in the Armenian quarter of the Old City.We also recently had a very successful conference in which we brought 22 alumni together to plan for the future .The two-day conference was titled "from dialogue to activism". Our goal was for the alumni community to come up with new projects. During the 1st day, we had social activities to build personal trust among the participants. We had inspirational talks by activists, one Israeli and one Palestinian, both women, as well as ICCI associate director Uri Ayalon, who gave interesting insight into their lives as activists. We also had a performance by Moriel Rothman, an artist of the spoken word who talks about his experiences with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in poetry.  The next day, we divided the participants in four groups, each representing a type of activism: social, educational, political and religious. In these groups, people came up with project ideas. There were a lot of good ideas. Now, we will review these ideas in order to find out which projects can actually be implemented."  

"We Meet Again, We Plan Ahead" by Daniel Schmil  
"It was a rainy day when we convened at the Oasis of Peace for a very interesting and productive conference on "From Dialogue to Action". And as always, I was happy to get to know new faces, and meet some old friends, in an atmosphere which emanated progress towards fruitful initiatives meant to promote peace. This filled us with confidence and gave us inspiration to continue our volunteer work for peace. I hope to see the fruits of this and a lot more activities like this one in the future. I maybe be a bit greedy, since I hope I had a bit more time to get to know the interesting people who attended the conference, I hope we had more time to do more activities. The interesting discussions and workshops is just the beginning. I'm sure we will meet again and plan ahead." 
"The Much Awaited Phone-call"  by Haya Abdeen 
"When I first received the phone-call inviting me to participate at the conference "From Dialogue to Activism" I felt very happy; I've always found such conferences to be important opportunities for the promotion of peace and therefore always did my best to participate in them. I'm glad I attended this conference, it gave me the opportunity to meet  old friends, whom I met in previous programs but also get to know new faces from many different places. Working together and planning new projects filled me with determination and ambition to achieve our goals. I hope we will continue our work, not just to achieve the objectives we've set out to work for, but until our greater mission is achieved, and that is to create meaningful change within our societies, and leave a mark in the world, despite the obstacles."
On the Blog
Members of the Alumni Community have in recent years represented a large share in the overall interreligious and inter-cultural educational encounters of ICCI. Some of our alumni have shared their meaningful experiences in dialogue and some of their present endeavors on the ICCI blog in different languages. And most recently some of their personal stories have been highlighted in our Stories of Inspiration series. Bushra Abdelrachman and Daniel Schmil, two   of our Alumni Community members who have become aware of the importance of their role as educators, have reached the conclusion that a blog dedicated to stories, thoughts and inspirational reflections written by young people in their native languages of Hebrew and Arabic, should be offered as a new platform to keep the dialogue going. We look forward, as you our readers do, to reading these blog posts in the weeks and months ahead.
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Multiple Narratives Course  

A project initiated and run by a committee of 3 members of our alumni community: Miki Joelson, Tareq Samman, and Avital Djemal. The project offers a unique course on the Israeli and Palestinian narrative and what lies in between. The course is currently being offered to young adults between the ages of 21-35 who have previously participated in dialogue programs at ICCI and other organizations, who are interested in deepening their knowledge and understanding of the multiple narratives which exist today about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This will be achieved by the use of academic research and educational materials written about the multiple narratives. The course, which includes 6 bi-lingual facilitated sessions to a group of participants of Palestinian and Jewish began meeting on April 2

H&H way to go!
Tours of Jerusalem   
A courageous project embarked on by a committee of 3 friends and partners who are ICCI alumni members: Hamutal Raber, Haneen Majadlah and Ariel Hanoch. The group had a mission they wanted to introduce Jerusalem from an angle never seen before, they wanted you to know that the same buildings you've passed by many times again are yet to be discovered. And thus they launched their project with a tour of the Armenian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem in December 2013. Furthermore, they promise to continue showing you places you thought you knew, but in fact you have no idea about! The next tour is planned for the 25th of April at 9:00.  Facebook Event 
Photography Contest    
A special program to get youth and young adults to interact differently with their surrounding by understanding its complexity and richness through photography was initiated by ICCI communications coordinator Rawan Suleimann a few months ago, A small prized was award by Religions for Peace to enable this to happen. The "Many Faces of Jerusalem" Photography Contest was a big hit! During the month of February, about 50 photographs were sent to ICCI. The 25  best photos were chosen to the receive awards, which will be presented to them on May 15th at a special cultural evening at the First Station in Jerusalem (details to follow) The three winners of the contest will be given the opportunity to represent ICCI at peace camps and interfaith institutes this summer.
Check out our top 25 photos 
Film Club
A creative idea was introduced by one of the members of the alumni community, which suggests that the use of filmography can be a means to discuss societal and political in a creative and meaningful fashion. The idea is clear Israeli and Palestinian films serve as windows into our realities. Therefore, the film club is not only limited to screenings but also to discussing what they mean in a bi-national context. The first movie which launched the film club was "Ajami" (2009), a movie about the socio-economic situation in Jaffa, annexed to Tel Aviv and home to the Palestinian minority living in Israel. The next movie will be "Budrus" (2009) which will be screened at ICCI on a date to be announced.
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