Between Mecca and Jerusalem - Children of Abraham project initiated by Ari

[Guest guest]

"Sunthar Visuvalingam" <suntharv> wrote:

Ari Alexander, an American Jew, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the

University

of Pennsylvania with a degree in American History and recently

completed two

Master's degrees in the United Kingdom as a 2001 Marshall Scholar: an

MA in

Comparative Ethnic Conflict from the Queen's University of Belfast, with a

thesis comparing the educational systems in post-war Beirut and

contemporary

Belfast; and a MPhil in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the

University of

Oxford, where his research focused on Iraqi Jews living in the period

between World War I and World War II. During his graduate studies,

Alexander

lived and studied in Beirut, Damascus, and Jerusalem. He currently is the

Co-director of Children of Abraham, a web-based dialogue project that

works

with Muslim and Jewish teenagers around the world. He has previously

served

as a counselor and facilitator at two conflict resolution camps, Seeds of

Peace International Camp and Face to Face/Faith to Faith, in addition to

working with Jewish teenagers in United Synagogue Youth and at the Lauder

Camp in Szarvas, Hungary.

 

Ari <http://www.svabhinava.org/JerusalemBenares/AriAlexander/default.htm>

Alexander, Between

<http://www.svabhinava.org/JerusalemBenares/default.htm>

Jerusalem and Benares, svAbhinava Friends

 

The research suggests that there is no significant correlation between

level

of mixing in school and tolerance. Students in mixed schools did not

exhibit a higher degree of tolerance and open-mindedness than their

peers in

segregated schools. Students in Belfast exhibited more sectarian hatred

towards one another than their peers in Beirut. There was also more

resistance to the idea of mixed schools in Belfast than in Beirut. A

culture of avoidance was found to operate in both societies. All

schools in

this study, segregated and integrated, choose not to confront the divisive

issues of their societies within the school walls. This common

practice of

avoidance seemed to be more important than the differential levels of

social

mixing in determining how students responded to the questions.

[Abstract] I

come from an observant Jewish family in America. I grew up in a religious

Zionist home. I lived in Israel for my first year of college and attended

the University of Pennsylvania where I focused on race relations in modern

American history. In college, I was exposed to the latest thinking in

conflict resolution and workshop facilitation as I established and

organized

dialogues between students from many different racial backgrounds and

between Arabs and Jews. I worked at Seeds of Peace International Camp

where

I first got to know high school students from the Gaza Strip and the West

Bank, as well as Israelis, Egyptians, Jordanians and many others. I

eventually plan to spend my professional life working in one way or

another

with the Palestinian and Jewish communities in Israel/Palestine. My

time in

Belfast was intended to provide me with a comparative perspective on

another

conflict. I had no previous emotional connections to either side, and

hoped

I could learn more about the dynamics of entrenched identity conflict from

as many of the protagonists as possible. In Belfast, I was accepted

equally

as a Jew in both the Protestant and Catholic communities.

[introduction] In

the most significant finding of this study, a culture of avoidance was

identified in the mixed schools in both Belfast and Beirut. Contentious

issues that sustain the deep divisions in society are ignored or

consciously

avoided with a focus instead on the maintenance of peace and stability in

school. Students in these schools reflected a wide range of opinions on

the value and/or danger in this approach. Approximately half of mixed

school students have internalized the argument that it is best to leave

divisive political and religious issues outside of the school walls,

while a

minority voiced the need for active engagement with the conflict. Mixed

school interviewees painted a collective picture of school life in which

every one is treated equally, religion is not discussed and controversy is

avoided. The very fact that there are schools that educate students from

opposing sides of violent conflicts in the hearts of Beirut and Belfast is

deserving of praise. But these schools are vulnerable to criticism for

failing to confront the most important issues in their divided societies.

The final section of the paper was about the students' perceptions of the

relative influence of their schools and families on their attitudes. The

vast majority of interviewees believed schools to be of less

importance than

values from home in the formation of their perspectives. The two students

who mentioned breaking from the sectarianism of their parents during their

high school years both attend religiously segregated schools. According to

this study, students in segregated schools in divided societies are

just as

likely to be tolerant and open-minded as their peers in mixed schools.

Despite the higher level of social mixing across confessional lines in

mixed

schools, students are not receiving any more training in cross-cultural

awareness or conflict resolution than their peers at segregated schools.

This suggests that in the current environment, serious programs aimed at

building deeper levels of tolerance among students in segregated schools

could be even more effective at reducing levels of violent conflict

than the

current service provided by most mixed schools. The author of this study

hypothesizes that the ideal combination for conflict reduction and

management in the education systems of deeply divided societies is

religiously mixed schools infused with conflict resolution and

trust-building activities. [Conclusion]

 

 

 

Ari Alexander, Beirut

<http://www.svabhinava.org/JerusalemBenares/AriAlexander/AriMAThesis-frame.h

tml> and Belfast: Two Deeply Divided Cities, their Schools and Post-War

Integration (MA thesis, Sep 2002)

 

 

 

 

 

Maria Ali-Adib, a Syrian currently residing in London, grew up moving

between the UK and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Living within the Arab

worker-immigrant community then prevalent in the UAE, she learned to

distinguish between the sense of identity rooted in first-generation UAE

immigrants and the relative cultural fluidity that came to define their

children. This initiated her deep interest in the adaptability of young

people. After graduating with a BA in Economics from the University of

London, she co-founded an organization based in the UAE aimed at

student-centered educational reform, with a particular focus on the

educational needs of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. She then

returned to the UK to develop this research in a Master's degree

program in

Development Projects at the University of Manchester, where her graduate

research was endorsed by the Centre for British Research in the Levant. In

this program she also examined the educational opportunities available to

Palestinian refugees residing in Lebanon. Her work in Palestinian camps

reinforced her interest in Israeli-Palestinian relations, leading her to

liaise with Jewish community groups to promote better understanding of the

conflict and a search for common ground. She currently sits on the

Board of

Trustees for Windows for Peace, a Tel Aviv-based organization that engages

Palestinian and Israeli children in joint projects, and is the Co-director

of Children of Abraham, an interfaith project that works with young

Muslims

and Jews from around the world through photography and dialogue.

 

Maria <http://www.svabhinava.org/MeccaBenares/MariaAliAdib/default.htm>

Ali-Adib, Between Mecca

<http://www.svabhinava.org/MeccaBenares/default.htm> and Benares,

svAbhinava

Friends

 

The project, called Children of Abraham, seeks to break down distrust

between Muslims and Jews by having young people engage in Internet

conversations and contribute to a photography display about the two

religions. Unlike other interfaith efforts that stress only the

similarities, Children of Abraham allowed the participants to engage in

frank, provocative discussions that confronted such subjects as suicide

bombings by Palestinians and Israel's military occupation of the West Bank

and Gaza. The project was started during the summer by a Jewish man and a

Muslim woman who decided their respective communities had become too

insular. The name, Children of Abraham, reflects the notion that Jews and

Muslims share a common spiritual ancestor, the Biblical patriarch Abraham.

'My feeling was that the established organizations are doing next to

nothing

in promoting interfaith relations or even the most basic way of stopping

hate,' said Ari Alexander, a Manhattan resident. "Muslims and Jews tend to

be suspicious of one another - largely as a result of the way the

Arab-Israeli conflict has played out in the media." Alexander and

co-director Maria Ali-Adib of London created a Web site,

children-of-abraham.org, and recruited 60 students from 23 countries for

two-month internships. The interns were required to submit 50 photographs

showing similarities between Judaism and Islam, and to file three to five

postings per week on the Web site's chat rooms."

 

<http://www.children-of-abraham.org/news/index.php> John Chadwick, Bergen

Record, 26 Nov. 2004

 

Friends,

 

Ari and Maria are desperately looking - before the impending applications

deadline of 10th March - for Jewish and Muslim students (teenagers) from

around the world to participate in the next Children of Abraham project.

They are especially keen, this time around, to include anglophone French

students. Though one of the most important places in the world for their

work, no one from France is in their network of young people yet. They are

looking especially for Muslim and Jewish youth who are leaders in their

religious communities / schools / youth groups.

 

They also hope to host a conference this summer on "best practices in

interfaith youth work around the globe" and would love your

recommendations/contacts, particularly regarding any organizations that

bring Muslim and Hindu youth together in conflict resolution/coexistence -

either in Kashmir or elsewhere. Please feel free to write Ari directly (or

otherwise respond to me for forwarding).

 

Your help in furthering this project would be most appreciated!

 

Sunthar

 

P.S. You can eavesdrop on various threads of this dialogue among the

Children of Abraham at

 

http://www.children-of-abraham.org/boards/viewforum.php?f=13

 

[Rest of this thread at Sunthar V. (Feb 23, 2005)

 

"FW: <Abhinavagupta/message/2992>

Jewish-Muslim Dialogue - 120 Children of Abraham needed for adoption :-)"]

 

 

 

 

--- End forwarded message ---