The School for Peace

The Binational Educators’ Forum at the School for Peace took a hard look at the separate Jewish and Arab educational systems in Israel and investigated how this split system has contributed to the current conflict in the mixed cities, to prejudices and preconceived notions about the opposite group. This vital event included the Primary School teachers alongside educators from across the country and was an outgrowth of both the HOTAM teacher training and the Mixed Cities course offered by the SFP. This is precisely the kind of active change-making through collaborative work that the SFP wants to further encourage by strengthening alumni networks.

Rebuilding the physical facilities of the SFP continues, and the completion of the new buildings will do more than just provide ample space for the encounter programs and training for which the SFP is world-renowned. The new facilities will also create a physical center for the established and growing alumni networks which allow graduates of the SFP to put what they’ve learned into practice in their local communities and cities. The SFP recently put out a call for alumni grant proposals to improve Jewish-Arab relations and will mentor and support selected projects. Your support allows the SFP to continue to offer expanded training, build alumni networks, and make a concrete change that improves lives far beyond the Village’s borders.

For the first time, the School for Peace ran a change agents program for performing artists. We see the performing arts as an avenue to reach out to a larger diverse population through political theater and cinema. The graduates of the program organized an arts festival with video art, theater, and plastic arts, in the unrecognized village of Al-Araqib, which was attended by hundreds of participants.

As a result of the SFP program for leaders in mixed cities, with our support a group of Jewish and Palestinian educators have come together to begin developing a Bi-National Educators Forum. The forum has begun identifying specific issues in the Jewish and Arab educational system and how this has led to increased conflict between the two groups. The forum will create a platform for sharing bi-national issues of teachers, researchers, and teaching staff from a variety of backgrounds and professions. The goal is to begin developing content that will contribute to educator's ability to help their students understand the other. https://sfpeace.org/al-araqib/