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What do young people learn about each other when they grow up amidst violence and conflict? What does it take to move beyond the myth, mistrust, and misinformation that can become part of the cycle of conflict? In a climate of fear is it possible to see the world beyond the stark contrasts of "us against them" and "those that are with us versus those that against us?" And, if you are able to bring young people together for dialogue, how can their experiences be harnessed to create momentum for peace.

Raya Kalisman is the founder and director of the Center for Humanistic Education at the Ghetto Fighters' Museum in Israel. Since the founding of the state of Israel, Israelis have been under the constant threat of violence from their neighbors. At the same time, many Palestinians argue that they have been displaced by the Jewish state and feel that they are not treated as equal citizens. Young people from both groups have little opportunity to get to know each other. For the most part Jews and Arabs (Moslems, Christians, and Druze) live apart from each other. Most Israeli schools are segregated by religion and language. The Center for Humanistic Education hopes to create a space for young people to come together. Founded in 1996, the center aims to promote respect, learning, and understanding among Jews and Arabs.

Here is how Ms. Kalisman describes her program's approach:

We, as an educational center, are committed to the humanistic vision that is comprised of, firstly-a worldview that aspires to fostering human liberty and expanding the latent abilities of the individual, and to a moral code that places human dignity and well being above everything, and that it should not be harmed in the name of religious, nationalist or economic ideologies. Secondly-we believe in the political translation of this point of view into a democratic, tolerant and enlightened society, based on human equality, moral sensitivity and social solidarity.

At the multicultural encounters provided by the Center for Humanistic Education, there are discussions on the ways to expand social equality, to fight against racism, and to safeguard human and minority rights. In a joint activity for Jews and Arabs that fosters interpersonal relationships, the participants learn and discuss the fate of the Jewish and Palestinian people, and past and present events in Arab-Jewish relations in Israel, in order to learn to accept the others' narrative, to identify with their pain, and to work for reconciliation between the two nations. Stepping into somebody else's shoes is definitely one of the techniques we use frequently but carefully. We believe it is a very important skill for our graduates, although we realize it is a very difficult one and not every one is able to use it.

Jewish and Arab staff members jointly teach the multicultural seminars, which are attended by students who make serious commitment to attend each session in addition to academic commitments from school. On April 30, 2002-in the midst of violence and acts of terrorism-young graduates of the program held a reunion and issued a statement. It read:

For you, for me, for us. How are we? (In Hebrew this statement also means, "How is our peace?").

Not mine, or yours, but ours. Is it really our peace? At this point in time can we really turn it into our peace?

Many of us, Jews and Arabs, adhere to the feeling of being a victim, and so automatically justify acts perpetrated by our side, and level accusations at the other side.

We are a group of Arab and Jewish youth who work together in the framework of the Center for Humanistic Education at the Ghetto Fighters' Museum. Together we studied the emotionally charged and painful history of both our nations. Here we learned to listen to the other side, and we discovered that they had problems we knew nothing about. Today we understand that, despite the difficulty, we must let go of our personal pain, fear, and desire for revenge, and not allow the scars of the past to rule our lives. We must continue moving forward, based on the faith that will lead each and every one of us to act: we will continue to meet and talk in order to understand each other.

From our limited experience as teenagers, we understand today that in order to understand you need to look at the person in front of you not as a Jew, not as an Arab, not as a Palestinian, American, Afghani, or Rwandan, but as a human being-as Shachar, Morad, Amira, Sachar, Raja, and Reut. Let us not give in to despair, let us hang on in these difficult moments, in the hope that ordinary people will be able to overcome the threatening extremism and hatred.

In the story of the Tower of Babel, G-d commanded people to speak in different languages so that they would not understand each other. We pray that the day will come when people again speak the same language and begin to rebuild the tower... the tower of peace.

This is not an attempt to change the world, it is an attempt to find a common language, to look people straight in the eye and ask: "Hey brother, how are you?"

Connections
In the midst of violence, what does it take to recognize the humanity of the other?

How do you learn about others with different experiences from your own. Has your education introduced you to the lives and experiences of others? Is it the role of education to "humanize the other"? What obstacles prevent people from getting to know the "other"?

As you read Ms. Kalisman's description of the program, what words stand out? What values does she hope to impart? Why are those values vital to a vibrant democracy?

What does it take to turn positive experiences with "the other" into momentum for peace? How can that momentum be sustained?

David Netzer, a colleague of Ms. Kalisman's at the Center for Humanistic Education writes:

The capacity to hate and destroy is nourished by the mechanism of de-humanization of the "Other". That's what makes that "other" an "enemy". It's true about an ethnically mixed neighborhood as it is about a war between two nations. What we try to do in our Center is bring this mechanism to our students' awareness and understanding, with the goal of diffusing it. I believe that humanizing the other is the basis for coexistential attitude. We try to apply this approach through the intensive interpersonal encounters we conduct. Other means can be literature and art in general; personal testimonies from conflict-sites; exercises in "stepping to the Other's shoes"; studying history through the prism of the Individual as opposed to the Collective; holding internet conversations like this one; etc. There are many ways and means to this main goal: look at the other - and see yourself.

Manar Fawakhry, an Israeli Arab and a Muslim, is a graduate of the Center for Humanistic Education. After graduating from the program she took a job at the center. Despite her enthusiasm for the work, she often finds herself the subject of unwanted scrutiny. She explains

I work, by choice, at the Center for Humanistic Education at the Ghetto Fighters' House. As an Arab woman and a member of the staff at the Center that teaches about the Holocaust ... my situation is not at all a simple one. Here are two examples of incidents, which occurred at the beginning of this academic year. On a visit to two friends, I was asked, half jokingly: "Haven't you been called ‘Dirty Arab' yet, at the Center where you work?" Even though intended as a joke, I understood clearly the thrust of the barb. The same day, shopping in my village for a staff meeting that evening at the Center, I met another friend in the street who asked me directly if I was working at the Ghetto Fighters' House. Answering that I was, she fixed me with a gaze of disappointment.

Consider Ms. Fawakhry's decision to work at the Center for Humanistic Education. What risks and challenges does she face as she tries to make a difference? Reflect on a choice you have made in an effort to create positive change. What was it? What challenges did you face?

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