Breaking Down Borders: Youth Self Discovery

Special Projects at The Pluralistic Spiritual Community Center

Masa – Massar

This program for Palestinian and Israeli youth changed direction this year towards seeking to build an ongoing cadre of young people that would meet throughout the year. The project is conducted jointly with the Open House, Ramle. We have begun organizing a group of youth from two high schools: Ramle and Kibbutz Givat Brener, who will meet and work together throughout the coming school year. It will include an intensive two-day seminar and one educational trip. In addition the PSCC will carry out a three day workshop with Arab and Jewish youth in cooperation with the Sulha Peace Project.

Empowering Students in Reidman College of Alternative Medicine

In the coming school year the PSCC will run a project of student empowerment including two courses in the Arab town of Sachnin and in Jerusalem, for improving communication between students. The tools we will work with will include mindfulness, compassionate listening and practicing skills that develop integrity, awareness of language, empathy and listening to the other.

One of the PSCC’s goals this year was to become more focused on activities for the local and international spiritual activist community that seeks peace, awareness and healing. This year our doors were opened to many groups and drew hundreds of people from around the country and the world. Joint activities included the Sulha Peace Project, JITLI, an encounter workshop for single mothers, a seminar on Bible and Qur'an.

Sulha Peace Project

The Sulha Peace Project brings together Jews and Palestinian youth in a personal encounter with themselves and others. Participants come from both Israel and the Palestinian territories. Five meetings took place in the PSCC during the past years. The meetings took place in the spirit of the three religions, with music, art and workshops and in ‘listening circles’. Each meeting ran for five hour and had 100 to 200 participants. The Sulha meetings have been taking place with great success over the last 14 year. These activities cross all borders and allow close communication between people from different worlds.

JITLI

JITLI is a youth leadership program that brings together Jewish and Arab youth, Druze, Bedouins and Ethiopians. In April, the program counselors came for three days of Bustan workshops. The group consisted of Jewish youth from San Diego, USA, Jewish Israeli youth from Sha’ar Hanegev, with Druzes, Muslims and Bedouins from Segev Shalom, Lakiya and northern Israel. The PSCC is working with JITLI in developing an additional 3-day Bustan program in August, for approximately 100 youth from Israel and America

Since 2009, Massa-Massar: A Journey of Discovery has affected the lives — and enlarged the perspectives — of many Israeli and Palestinian teens.

With its focus on leadership, the Massa-Massar program equips its young participants with tools, and provides them with experiences, that enable them to move beyond conflict and toward mutual understanding.

Over the past five years, there have been many workshops, field trips, facilitated dialogues, and role-playing activities. The results are best described by the participants themselves:

Wahiba, a 16-year-old from Ramla, plans to study to become a diplomat when she finishes school. “When I think about everything that has happened,” she said, “I just want to cry. But there’s no point. We need to put it behind us and move forward.”

Perri, a 16-year-old from Jerusalem, felt that the weekend gave him a genuine experience of hanging out with “the other side,” having fun and being young together. He, like many of the other participants, expressed how he never receives the opportunity to meet with young people who are from “the other side.”

Yam, age 16 from Beit Hashmonai: “I’ve always celebrated Israel Independence Day without considering how Arabs feel.” An exercise in which all the participants shared their personal stories “really opened my eyes to another perspective.”

During one of the Massa-Massar tours around Jerusalem, Nicole, a 14 year old Arab teenager from Lod, described her excitement at visiting the Western Wall for the first time. She felt how special it was for the Jewish people. Nicole admitted she didn’t want to come to the workshop when she first heard about it. “I’ve had bad experiences” with people who “made me feel bad because I was Arab. I decided to come [to Massa-Massar] and it has given me a new perspective that not all Jewish people are like that. I feel much better about being Arab.”

Supporters from around the globe have made these outcomes possible. Massa-Massar will continue to change lives, to move us all closer to peace — but only with the support of friends like you.