SUMMARY REPORT

An Assimilation Weekend:

North American Camps for the Middle East public peace process

The Fetzer Institute – Kalamazoo, Michigan

Friday to Monday, January 28-31, 2005

Prepared by Alexandra J. Wall

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS 2

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

INSIGHTS ABOUT CAMP PROGRAMS 5

Camp purposes and goals 5

Why Youth 5

Process of change: Face-to-face listening, stories, bridging, teaching 6

Pre-camp preparation 7

Staff preparation and role 8

Choice of languages 8

Inspiration, motivation, faith, religion 9

Exercises and activities 10

Returning home – life outside camp 10

Sustaining camper relationships 11

Future cooperation among the camps 11

Community outreach and funding 12

News media relationships 13

PROPOSAL FOR A CONFERENCE 15

Overview 15

Background 16

Goals and Objectives 17

Seasons retreat environment 18

Expected outcomes 18

Fetzer Institute involvement 19

THE PARTICIPANTS 20

THE PROCESS: Interview of a camper 29

THE KALAMAZOO WEEKEND: A running narrative 34

Beginning with ceremony and our stories 34

Exploring Inspiration and Motivation: The role of faith 35

Telling the camp story through the news media and other publicity 37

Recruiting campers: Building trust, and new language 39

Demonstrating possibility with inspiring films 42

Getting creative with ideas and priorities 43

Acknowledging the power of the youth 46

Exploring a variety of shared ideas for funding, curricula, more 46

Admitting issues of religion: inclusion and exclusion in the room 49

Establishing our group’s priorities for the coming year 50

Presenting descriptions of our camps 50

Closing with ceremony and news media presence 54

EXAMPLE CAMP OUTCOME: Joint Statement 56

THE PROCESS: Interview of a facilitator 57

PHOTOGRAPHS 66

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

During four days in January 2005, twenty six summer camp conveners and facilitators, women and men, ages teens to sixties, met by invitation at The Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. They represented the dozen known North American camps that support the Middle East public peace process of citizen face-to-face relationship building among Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians – Muslims, Christians, and Jews. They traveled from Israel, the West Bank, Canada, and the United States.

Perhaps the most significant finding was participant confirmation that this was needed initiative to finally meet each other and form expanded, ongoing, creative relationships.

While maintaining the individual nature of the camps, it was agreed that a loose federation or network of camps would be helpful. The programs want to remain distinct in what they do; some are faith-based, some are only for girls, one is for families, they are for different ages.

Post-camp follow-up “back home” is crucial – a universal imperative – perhaps the most important piece of this process. Sometime back in their hometowns participants know no others who have been through the same experiences and changes. They feel isolated, alone, misunderstood. If provided with a list of participants from various other programs, they would have a better chance of knowing someone supportive near them with similar camp experiences. And while campers often meet periodically “back home” with others from their own programs, a meeting of all participants from all the camps collectively could be beneficial. They would see that they are part of a much greater movement of youth and elders together.

One proposal was for participants to attend another, different program as they grow older, and eventually bring their families into the process by encouraging them to attend a family camp.

Establishing a network would also be especially beneficial to present the camps to the outside world as a model for change. Creation of a short film with clips from all of the camps could show that each one is not alone, and that each program is part of a greater movement.

It was also agreed that the camps could pool some resources like curricula and lists of “best practices,” and even purchase supplies cooperatively. In seeking hard-won, competitive foundation and private funding, we wish to maximize a spirit of mutual affirmation and shared purpose among programs, while minimizing claims of better-than or different-than.

To maintain regular contact with each camp program, a part-time staff person might be helpful. A grant and salary would be needed. That person could also write a newsletter and put up a Web site with all of the camps linked to it. Setting up a listserv, too, would allow camp organizers to ask each other’s advice and share programming and other ideas.

Toward the end of the gathering, a priority-setting exercise identified our six choices for follow-up initiatives. We chose the first three to act on during the year..

1) An annual meeting

2) Regular internal communication between the camps

3) Resource sharing

4) A Web site

5) External communication

6) Next steps

This first-of-its-kind meeting provided a windfall of concrete methods and inspiration to help make these and other camps and relationship-building programs the best they can be.

READING THIS DOCUMENT: The next section, “INSIGHTS ABOUT CAMP PROGRAMS,” is the 10-page essence of weekend findings. Following portions reveal a more detailed running narrative over time of the weekend from its inception, enriched and humanized with two in-depth personal interviews.

This document, with other written and visual information about this landmark weekend, will remain on the Web linked from http://traubman.igc.org/campconf.htm.

With thanks to The Fetzer Institute, we offer this information to the world for the good of all, without exceptions.

Libby Traubman Len Traubman

Co-facilitator Co-facilitator

Eric Nelson Alexandra J. Wall

Program Officer, The Fetzer Institute Documentarian

Contact information:

Libby and Len Traubman

Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group

1448 Cedarwood Drive, San Mateo, CA 94403 USA

Tel: 650-574-8303 – LTraubman@igc.org

www.traubman.igc.org/dg-prog.htm

Eric Nelson, Program Officer

Seasons Retreat Center, The Fetzer Institute

Kalamazoo, MI USA 49004-9398

Tel: 269-375-2000 – ENelson@fetzer.org

www.fetzer.org

INSIGHTS ABOUT CAMP PROGRAMS

Camp purposes and goals

In a safe place near nature, youth from the Middle East – and those with ties to them – experience the power in coming together face to face to create community out of opposing views and conflicting narratives.

Most camps are for both genders, while some are for teen women only. One is a family camp that crosses three generations.

Programs combine structured workshops with living, eating, creating, and having fun together, all with the main goal of getting to know each other as individuals and equal human beings.

Eye to eye, the young women and men discover a new quality of listening and attention, and additional needed patience if through an interpreter.

These programs train both women and men to be effective and pro-active leaders in relationship building, and strong in creating more democratic states, more humane societies.

This is the first stage of a public peace process that allows finally discovering the humanity of the other. Thus, camps avoid the common pressure from the outside and potential participants for preconditions and promises of political stands and statements.

Increasingly, families of the youth are asked to become active in emotionally supporting their campers back home during the year between program sessions.

Before returning home from a program, ideally each camper would look in the mirror with new self-esteem and confidence and be proud of the person she or he has grown to be.

Why youth

The youth are interested, ready to travel, eager to make friends and transcend inherited agendas. They want to maintain their idealism and enact their dreams. They “get it” and feel it, and are competent in transforming “enemies” into partners. This is where the hope is.

Peacemaking comes much more naturally for children. Their hearts seem more open, their minds more accessible and seeking. With some exceptions, adults are not as attracted to this life but can be supportive of the youth.

The young participants are diverse. Some arrive already inclined toward relationship building, while others come with a negative attitude and thus experience the greatest transformation.

Some come from families who can afford to send them abroad. But more are economically in need and are helped by the camps to participate equally.

Beginning at a young age, these youth continue to become more communicative and fluent with language. They begin life with fewer stereotypes and prejudices. They return home with a stronger sense of personal and national identity, but with expanded identification as well. They learn at any early age to appreciate their similarities and differences.

These young ambassadors for peace often have more power to attract attention and be heard, because they are non-threatening and “only kids.” Yet they are sometimes the real “adults” among us.

Process of change: Face-to-face listening, stories, bridging, teaching

Transformation and changes of heart and mind come from discovering shared pains, fears, interests, joys, hopes – shared and equal humanity.

From the beginning, great emphasis is placed on communication, especially on a new quality of stillness and compassionate listening without “yes, but.” One participant said: “Talking to someone who listens to me helps me to analyze my own story and to understand my story more deeply. Great listening helps me listen to myself.”

This process of change from the inside out starts at the heart, often with shared personal stories. “An enemy is one whose story we have not heard.” Story is one of the most powerful, transforming, confidence building experiences in life. Participants are surprised to learn what they have in common with someone from the other side.

The process is about knowing people, so we know what has meaning for them and how to cooperate with them. “Just knowing them made such a difference,” said one camper.

A counselor said: “Since I was a child. I was into politics until I got repelled, and then I found that getting to know people was much more powerful.” At the same time, the camps intend to help youth relate about the political matters in an intelligent and professional way – first discovering what meaning the issues have for one another.

Trust must be developed before the big issues can be considered successfully. “Everyone has different feelings, and we have to know each other’s stories, and where emotions and reactions come from to shape people’s lives and worldviews.”

The arts – film, theatre, written and photo portraits, music, painting – can help us ease into understanding people and issues, even if we do not yet trust ourselves to enter directly into relationship and dialogue.

One camp summed up principles it uses to begin their process:

• Listening is the beginning of peace.
• We are more similar than different, but understanding our differences is how we make peace.
• There is no more room for one-sidedness. We’re redefining the language of the conflict. If you’re pro-Israeli, you’re pro-Palestinian, and vice versa.

The principles are transferable to other programs and conflicts.

In activities that call for participants to partner up, they select their partners themselves, while insisting that they pair up with someone who is an “other.”

In the beginning the work is on identity politics . . . . understanding why identity plays such an important role.

Much of the learning really takes place outside of formal groups, when they’re on the trails, eating, or relaxing. There may be sessions all day, but that may not be where the true breakthroughs happen.

Camps report that big collective breakthroughs commonly happen, but at a different point every camp session. The shift can happen the night before participants are to go home, or it may happen within five or six days of arriving. Affecting that dynamic among the youth are often identifiable opinion leaders whom the others tend to follow.

Those campers who transform do not all have the experience at camp. The inner change may take months to take root, or the young adult may change years later.

For those who are inspired, a natural next-step is to invite them to return to camp to teach what they’ve learned, and to become part of leadership. Since this is about growing leaders, they are hired as staff.

Pre-camp preparation

Traditionally, participants have traveled directly from home to camp. New thought includes first letting the youth stay in homes for a few days, to fully rest and adjust to the new environment. This also begins to challenge the preconceptions and stereotypes of Americans with which most campers arrive.

One early orientation exercise asks campers to identify their fears, personal challenges, and what responsibility they will take to learn as much as they can.

Camp counselors talk to the youth about stretching themselves, feeling comfortable and being uncomfortable. Campers are asked to stretch more than they’re comfortable with, while deciding for themselves how far they want to go.

Staff preparation and role

Preparing staff in dialogue and facilitation skills is vitally important. It greatly helps if they have had personal experience in sustained dialogues.

Practitioners must continue to educate themselves on the conflict and stay neutral – for both peoples – and not take sides.. One camp leader said: “I have to center myself. My job is to listen to the stories of both sides and bring them together.”

Like campers, staff members can feel frustrated and alone. The staff needs a place and time to share their own insights and concerns, and to express their emotions. Then, as with the campers themselves, they begin to work harder and have more fun. Then they start noticing a shift in the campers, too.

Choice of languages

English is the shared camp language, to be inclusive and not force conflicted individuals to learn the language of the other. Communication in English also creates a common language bond between the campers.

At the same time, everyone stays mindful that people open up more easily in their own language. When a person speaks in her or his own tongue, everyone can feel the heart, not just the words and intellect.

So in difficult situations, interpreters are needed to allow the participants to fully express themselves. When the youth interpret for each other, they are forced to get in another’s shoes – a valuable exercise.

When campers are released to speak in their own language, Israelis and Palestinians both tend to stick together only among their own clans instead of intermingling with one another.

Especially when mistrust is high, participants are then likely to believe that they are being talked about in the language they don’t understand. So they are encouraged to speak their own languages only when they are intentionally off by themselves. As relationships grow closer, they become less suspicious.

There are concerns about insistence on English fluency. A Palestinian in a refugee camp is less likely to have good English skills. And Palestinian teens fluent in English are more likely to be Christian, thus prejudicing balanced representation at camp.

Insisting on English too rigidly could be perceived as a usual story of a superpower imposing itself on others. So a balance is continually being learned, about freeing participants to talk in their own language at times.

Important messages, especially safety warnings, might be given in all three languages. This is when everyone must understand everything, never assuming that everyone can grasp all of the English language.

Another language consideration is words themselves. Some camps emphasize discovery of a new vocabulary for a new time in history. They try to avoid old thinking and obsolete slogans and boxes to put people into and thus include or dismiss them.

Inspiration, motivation, faith, religion

Camp leaders and participants have a variety of motives that get them to camp and sustain them.

For the youth campers, in the beginning seeking and protecting national identity – for oneself and one’s people – is a strong motivator.

Some staff and participants are moved by principles of their religions, while others reject institutional faiths but are strongly faithful to principles of high universal standards of human rights equality, and the ongoingness of life.

Some have faith in the potential goodness of each human, who possesses a soul that remembers union and longs for reunion.

The idea of faith repels some people away from a work, while it could be a draw for others. One Muslim leader said that we must distinguish between what faith teachings prescribe and what individuals and institutions make of them for their own purposes.

Some Jews express being inspired primarily by the concept of “tikkun olam” – healing the world – or their principle prayer, the Shema – meaning to deeply listen and hear. Many Christians are moved by Jesus’ instructions to love indiscriminately. And people of these two faiths share a deep love of Jerusalem and the Holy Land with Muslims, who cleave to many high principles of inclusiveness and treating people well.

The Palestinian-Israeli relationship and conflict clearly affects people of each of these faiths. Yet sometimes the Jews and Muslims unconsciously forget to include Christians equally in their thoughts, feelings, and deliberations. Christians express being more hurt by this than most people realize.

Camp staff and youth who are not averse to spiritual practices express an interest in partaking in each others’ faith rituals, while at the same time creating new, shared ceremony.

Exercises and activities

New, effective camp activities are constantly being invented to help young women and men transcend that which separates them. These successful innovations deserve a separate document. A few will be mentioned.

The first exercise is always the compelling, courageous decision to leave home and traditional teachers. As in the universal Hero’s Journey, these youth innovators and early adopters choose to confront life’s ordeals – cultural taboos, peer pressure, national and personal borders, fear, doubt and hurt – in a search for more, some kind of boon for them and their people.

Once at camp, certain successful activities are universal to the diverse programs. Eating together, and sharing nature, recreation, and the arts are strongly unifying and humanizing. Listening is one of the most powerful things a person can do, as is the sharing of personal narratives – Story.

One camp helps Israelis and Palestinians begin talking to one another by having each group make a timeline of its own history. The can start wherever they want historically, and go to wherever they wish. This helps them get a visual sense of the history of the other side. Interestingly, the girls often don’t know their own histories so well.

An experience about power proves to be dramatic because the Palestinians come in with the mindset that if they were in the position of power, they wouldn’t oppress others as they experience oppression. Yet, given the opportunity, some of them take to that role very easily.

The Israeli and Palestinian youth probably have never physically touched each other. They may arrive with images of the other as inhuman, even aliens or monsters. In one program, they are asked to find someone they don’t know well in the group, someone they consider “other.” It may be someone they were afraid of, or still are afraid of.

They are told to look at one another. And then, they are told to ask permission, and then find the pulse on one another’s wrist. Then they do the same with the artery in their necks. Then they place their hands on the other’s breastbone to feel their hearts, while they continue to look at each other. “This can be very powerful, because they’ve never touched their enemy, and they realize that ‘she feels like me,’” says the program director.

Returning home – life outside camp

At the end of camp, it is important to ask participants what they will need when they go home. They commonly begin talking about what life will be like after camp.

There are many obstacles once a participant is back home. Most neighbors and others cannot understand the camper’s experiences and changes, and do not want to hear about them.

“When I tried telling my classmates, many of them thought I was some kind of traitor or spy,” said one. “It didn’t make sense to them because it was so different from their experience.”

Sometimes, the outside pressure to return to old modes of thinking can be overwhelming. This why sustaining relationships with one’s new camp community is supremely important.

The summer is for getting to know each other, building relationships, and forming group identity. And returning home to their countries as better leaders hopefully will find them applying relationship-building tools and newly found spirit within their own communities and culture.

Both those who live in the Middle East and those who live outside it each have important roles to play. Sustaining and building on camp experience depends on ever-new perceptions, creativity, cooperation, shared resources, and emotional support back and forth.

Because this activity can be a strong sense of mission for both campers and staff, it is important to balance one’s time with family and leisure.

Sustaining camper relationships

Follow-up programming once the youth return home is required to avoid losing all that they gain during the summer. Sustainability is the key that unlocks continued growth of the trust, confidence, deepening and maturity for campers to continue as leaders in their circles of activity away from camp.

Ways to do that are continuing to be discovered. They include cell and home phones, e-mail, and visits even at risk across difficult borders and distances. Campers who make deep connections with the principles and one another often refuse to be denied their relationships.

Future cooperation among the camps

Each program has thrived while remaining independent and true to its unique qualities and personality. As the newly-acquainted camps are becoming aware and appreciative of one another, there is an interest among staffs to visit one another and share knowledge and “best practices.” This sharing of tools can conserve energy and avoid having to reinvent the wheel. Collective purchasing might reduce camp operation costs.

Similarly, while appreciating the energy and creativity in their small systems, there is also a need to show the world the camps are many and a growing family of programs. While remaining grassroots and basically not institutionalized at the core, there is a power in cooperation and communicating the collective story of how our shared future will look.

Leaders of the camps realize a need – even longing – for at least annual collective meetings in depth. They want a safe space to talk about the difficulties one comes up against in running these programs.

Ideas include forming a steering committee then writing a grant to fund a small umbrella organization for all the camps. With so much to pass on to others, they foresee educating and deepening one another, then facilitating and training yet others interested in launching camps elsewhere. Creating a newsletter and a video of all the programs could help this growing camp community.

Also considered are the benefits of defining for the public the similarities and differences of the diverse programs. Most believe that a potentially competitive spirit can be avoided, and energy best used, by rather affirming the universal value of each program using versatile ways to accomplish same goals – transforming human relationships and spirit.

The 2005 Kalamazoo meeting of camp facilitators identified six most desirable follow-up possibilities, and finally the preferred top three to act on during the year:

● An annual meeting

● Regular internal communication between the camps

● Resource sharing

● A Web site

● External communication

● Next steps

Community outreach and funding

Having built authentic, sustained relationships, the last step of the public peace process is to cooperate for social outcomes – reach out into the community, include others, expanding the circle.

Leaders of this new family of programs realize there is now a much bigger “camp story” to tell. There are people to attract and new camps to birth, youth to inspire and communities to build.

Including more Arabs and Muslims – their input, ideas, presence – on camp boards and staffs are needed. They add a more whole view and authenticity. Their shared financial contributions would make this work more credible. At the same time, it is appreciated that not all Muslims and Arabs wish to be connected to the Israeli-Palestinian challenge.

The Christian community needs to be informed and included equally, and to put a face on the suffering and aspirations of both peoples. The root of their faith is in Jerusalem, and they have great heart, spirituality, intelligence, and resources to contribute.

Funding camp programs is a requirement and a big challenge. The power of camps and importance of the public peace process are not easy to demonstrate to donors, in cultures that are dependent on government professionals, authorities, and institutional power.

The first question asked is: “What’s the sustainability of this?” Supporters look for evidence of enduring camp success and growth, and ongoing camper relationships and influence on their own communities.

Showing the “transformational moments” that young people experience can be a key to opening the public’s minds to the effectiveness of these programs. Personal talks, published articles and film can help.

Individual financial giving is often based on personal relationships and trust over time. Most camps began through these gifts. Institutional funding is competitive and can be difficult to get. Yet, the public peace process is becoming more visible and validated. As it creates more measurable social results, funding will become more available.

Increasingly, mainstream citizens and institutions are financing camps and camp-like relationship building among youth. And the U.S. Congress allocates some money each year to global conflict resolution. Camp leaders are considering how to establish relationships to get access to that funding.

The Jewish Federations General Assembly and the Jewish Funders Network are but two examples of communities where interested funders might wish to be informed about camp programs and the youth leaders they create.

Only part of outreach is educating the public and gaining support. The mission includes influencing individuals and institutions in the Middle East to participate in these camps or begin their own camp-like programs.

Palestinians and Israelis now become aware of the camps by word of mouth, e-mail and Web sites, and news media. For Palestinians and others with limited access to computers, flyers for schools and public posters about the camp would help.

A trip by camp leaders to Israel-Palestine could send a strong message to the people there, and show that we are serious, have tools that work, and are here for them.

News media relationships

News media is a powerful tool to spread a hopeful message, and to help outreach and fundraising. As with the camp process, relationships with reporters must be cultivated and kept up. Elie Wiesel said: “People become the stories they hear and the stories they tell.”

The media is eager for stories of “enemies” talking and Sustained Dialogue successes. Reporters respond to it as true news when it is authentic and ongoing. The news is that we’re together. They usually treat camp stories with great respect.

To be effective, camp spokespeople must learn to tell their “camp story” of courage, learning and change – results – with an economy of words. Short news reports will select “sound bites” that strike to the core and essence of human experience and insight. It is important to speak from one’s humanity, yet being aware to communicate experiences, principles, and facts that really matter.

While news media could be our helpful, needed voice to the world, caution is also prescribed. In a search for excitement (and viewer ratings), occasional producers will seek to build in artificial conflict and tension.

In public and for interviews, endeavor to have spokespersons for both peoples side by side. This is the most accurate and powerful representation of the camps.

If reporters visit camp, be aware of how the presence of outsiders might disrupt the sacredness of the relationship-building process. Interestingly, in some circles participants are hardly aware of cameras or journalists. The challenge will be to maintain intimacy and balance while allowing the public exposure and publicity that will pass on the camp story for the good of all.

PROPOSAL FOR A CONFERENCE

by Eric Nelson

Program Officer, The Fetzer Institute

OVERVIEW
This probe will focus on convening a dialogue between the facilitators of 12 different summer youth camp programs located in North America. The camps bring together Israelis and Palestinians, from both the Middle East and North America, in settings where “enemies” can meet on safe and neutral ground. 
The intent of these summer camps is to support conditions that nurture trust, compassion, forgiveness, and ultimately, love and leadership. The camps have been very successful in healing divisive relationships, with many participants reporting a transformation of suspicion into friendship, antagonism into understanding, conflict into cooperation and hatred into compassion. A variety of methods are used to support this transformation including: yoga, silence, journaling, music, walking in nature, storytelling. Basic to each program are compassionate listening and dialogue, as well as a variety of creative, even playful social activities.
The benefit of bringing 12 youth camps facilitators together, for the first time, includes learning about new transformational practices, defining an emerging field of social healing, identifying a common agenda, building a network, and setting directions for the future. Fetzer would learn about the art and practice of convening individuals who hold conflicting perspectives in a setting that enables healing, forgiveness, and love. This learning would serve as a living example of the power of the human heart to heal long-standing hatred and violence even in the direst circumstances. 
To maximize our learning and widely share the story, of these camps, we will invite a journalist who is knowledgeable and sensitive to Middle East issues to attend the meeting and compile a report. The report will chronicle, for the first time, what is being learned about the healing power of the camp experiences and provide insight into the role of forgiveness and love in transforming fear and hatred of the “other.” 
Specifically the report will capture stories, practices, and processes. It will conduct follow-up interviews of retreat attendees, and assess the challenges and opportunities for growing this work. 
Finally, the probe will provide an opportunity to study the power of the camp processes to transform deeply embedded cultural hatred through the cultivation of trust, forgiveness and ultimately love. This is especially critical given the current state of relations among Palestinians, other Arabs, and the state of Israel. Some peace experts state that if the Palestinian-Israeli relationship can be healed it will serve as a beacon of hope to all in the Middle East and could mark a tuning point in how all the communities relate to one another. Contributing, even in a small way, to this vision of hope will support healing of future leaders of these cultures, bringing greater peace and love into the hearts of a battle-weary population. 
BACKGROUND
In May 1991, Libby Traubman, a retired clinical social worker and Len Traubman, a San Francisco pediatric dentist, helped bring a small team of Palestinian and Israeli citizen-leaders from the Middle East to a weeklong conference in the California redwoods. These women and men forged and signed a historic document, FRAMEWORK FOR A PUBLIC PEACE PROCESS, proposing political solutions and equally calling for concerned citizens of both communities to join in Dialogue. It prescribed an invigorated peace process that supports – and is accelerated by – sustained relationships and cooperation by citizens, a population the government peace process had excluded. This historic framework empowered common citizens who would benefit the most from healing the wounds of violence. 
In July 1992, to bring this public peace process to life, Len and Libby Traubman recruited a small group of Jews and Palestinians in the Bay Area to come together in their living room to share personal stories and begin building bridges of understanding. The first meeting revealed peoples' genuine pain, struggles, and fears. Subsequent gatherings began to reveal a sense of shared hope and even community. Over many meetings, compassionate listening helped to transform suspicion into friendship, antagonism into understanding, conflict into cooperation and hatred into compassion. In September 2004, after 12 years and 150 meetings, there are now ten similar Dialogues in the Bay Area, and the idea has moved into many dozens of new towns and campuses coast to coast. The original Dialogue has served as an attractor and hub of communication for similar endeavors around the U.S., Middle East, and worldwide.
As a hub of communication for other Jewish and Palestinian initiatives, focused on healing the hateful relationship, the Traubmans have identified many promising programs, especially youth programs that bring together Israelis, Palestinians, and North Americans. The first such youth Dialogue began in 1979 in Virginia with the Legacy Summer Programs, now Global Youth Village. The next generation was birthed in Summer, 1993 when Seeds of Peace first modeled its globally recognized International Camp in Maine, dedicated to empowering young leaders from regions of conflict with the capacities that would set the stage for fostering reconciliation and coexistence with the “other.” The following year, Building Bridges for Peace brought young women aged 16-19 from Israel, Palestine and the United States to participate in its intensive summer program in the Colorado Rockies. They began to learn compassionate communication practices, developed leadership skills, engaged in activities that cultivated inner and outer peace, and learned about the unique role of women as healers. 
Now there are over a dozen known North American camps or camp-like settings that work with Arab and Jewish youth, from both the Middle East and North America. These camps build on the legacy of the public peace process and provide authentic hope for liberating the human spirit in the Middle East and around the world. Existing initiatives include: 
· Building Bridges for Peace 
· Face-to-Face/Faith-to-Faith 
· The Children of Abraham Project
· Creativity for Peace
· Jacobs International Teen Leadership Institute 
· Kids4Peace (3 camps)
· Middle East Peace Camp for Children
· Oseh Shalom – Sanea al-Salam: Palestinian-Jewish Family Peacemakers Camp
· Peace Camp Canada
· Peace It Together
· Seeds of Peace
 
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
Learning more about the motive, methods, and outcomes of the 12 Palestinian-Israeli youth camps in North America would provide a valuable and untapped source of wisdom on healing and transforming mistrust, hatred and revenge into understanding, trust, forgiveness and ultimately love and compassion. While there is growing awareness of these similar but unique endeavors, the conveners of these camp experiences are largely:
· Unacquainted with one another 
· Unaware of what others are learning and the practices they use
· Unaware of how others are creatively building friendships within extremely volatile circumstances 
The camps operate from a deep spiritual base and inspire the parents (enemies in the conflict) to entrust their children to this peace process, which often results in parents being transformed by their children’s camp experience. Given the continued divide between Palestinians and Jews, and the impact of this conflict on Arab views worldwide, it seems important to listen to what is being learned though the camp experiences and for the camp leaders to learn from one another. 
 
 
SEASONS RETREAT ENVIRONMENT
To accomplish this end, we suggest convening a retreat at Seasons conference center by inviting one to two facilitators from each of the 12 North American youth camps. The group would spend three days together, January 28-31, 2005.
In advance of their arrival, participants will be asked to reflect on and write about:
1) the inner and outer qualities, values, beliefs that enabled healing with the “other.”
2) the obstacles that block healing with the other.
3) contexts and settings that support healing with the other. 
The Seasons meeting would open with a brief history of the public peace process, the camps, and the Sustained Dialogue process. The gathering would next move into the sharing of personal stories to reveal what led each participant to this work, what sustains them, and what challenges them. Based on stories that are shared the group will self-determine what would be most beneficial to explore, as well as discussing the areas listed in the Outcomes section below. 
We anticipate the Dialogue will reveal many learnings, both successes and failures, and even deeper, practical questions of motive, method, and future direction. Some time will be used for reflective writing and inspirational moments such as music, videos, readings, walks, stillness, as well as lighter social interaction will be woven throughout the retreat to support the connection of each person’s inner resources and wisdom to the Dialogue. 
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
The collective wisdom of this creative group of youth camp facilitators will surely reveal a new body of knowledge about identifying, gathering, and supporting the transformation of hatred and violence through the power of understanding, love and forgiveness. Discovered will be what motivates and doesn’t motivate, what are the mechanics and sequences of relationship-building activities, and what sustains this transformation. Specifically we anticipate learning more about: 
· The role of understanding, love and forgiveness in healing relationships with the “other.” 
· The settings, practices, and processes that enable the healing of fear and hatred. 
· The capacities needed to sustain the camp experience, once the campers return to their home environment. 
· The impact of the camp experience on the youth, parents, and peer groups.
· The best methods for telling and publicizing camp stories that build interest within the community and education settings.
· The value of developing a learning network among the camps. 
· The best directions for continuing this work.
 

FETZER INSTITUTE INVOLVEMENT

This is an opportunity to learn from people who are doing on-the-ground peace-building work with youth in very challenging conflict areas. Within that setting, we are hoping to discover how better understanding, respect and friendship and ultimately love, might spring forth from a setting where there is extreme animosity and hatred. This is primarily an opportunity to learn about the processes and practices these camps are using that support healing across the differences of nationality, culture and religion.

Middle East peace is not an area the Fetzer Institute has had much experience with, but it fits in with the institute’s mission of building bridges between people of different cultures.

This is what we are calling a learning probe, to find where love and forgiveness is happening in the world, and to learn how it is actually happening, then assessing whether it is an area that fits in with our mission.

THE PARTICIPANTS

The following biographies of the participants were provided by the individuals, and therefore are, with a few editing exceptions, in their own words.

The conference facilitators are Libby and Len Traubman, who co-founded the 12-year-old Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group on the San Francisco Peninsula. These 30 women and men – Holocaust refugees and 20th generation Palestinians – after 152 meetings, continue learning how to change strangers into friends, “enemies” into partners. With face-to-face listening and relationship building, they initiate concrete projects that help people and invigorate the public peace process, here and overseas. Now there are nine similar Dialogues in the Bay Area, and many dozens more in cities and campuses across North America and beyond. Their community outreach includes modeling a new quality of compassionate listening and relationship-building skills in local schools, religious institutions, and even for the military. Participants are often interviewed in print and broadcast media.

Elizabeth “Libby” Traubman is a retired clinical social worker. In 1982, in response to the threat of global nuclear war, Libby was a founding member of the Beyond War Movement, now Foundation for Global Community, for which she is a trustee. In 1992, she co-founded the first Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo, based on her earlier experience organizing the Beyond War conference for Israeli and Palestinian citizen-leaders, which resulted in a historic signed document, “Framework for a Public Peace Process.” Libby continues to administer and co-facilitate four of the nine dialogues now in the Bay Area. This winter she helped compile the publishing-first cookbook – “Palestinian and Jewish Recipes for Peace” – recipes for the table and for relationship-building. Libby is on the Board of San Mateo County 2000, and in 1994 was inducted into the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame.

Lionel “Len” Traubman retired after 36 years from his practice of dentistry for children in San Francisco. He was regional alumni President of Alpha Omega Jewish dental fraternity, and received the 1998 Distinguished Alumnus Award of the University of California School of Dentistry where he taught. In the 1980s, Len oversaw relations with 57 San Francisco consulates for the Beyond War Movement, while on the American editing team for the historic Soviet-American co-publication – “Breakthrough: Emerging New Thinking.” He is a networker, overseeing a communication circle of more than 2,000 citizens deeply interested in the Middle East public peace process, to initiate and nurture sustained dialogue groups across America and beyond. For 20 years, Len has published on war and peace from personal experience with Russians and Americans, Armenians and Azerbaijanis, and Jews and Palestinians.

Representing BUILDING BRIDGES FOR PEACE were Melodye Feldman, Inas Radwan Said and Lama Tarayrah.

Melodye Feldman was born in Queens, New York, descended from Jews who fled Spain in the 1400s, then pogroms of Czarist Russia. In America, her ancestors strongly supported the Zionist movement, wishing to finally make a safe place for Jews. Melodye was brought up in a liberal Jewish home working for civil and human rights. “But,” she says, “When it came to the Arabs, they were our ‘enemies.’” She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Education and Human Services, at Northeastern University, Boston, then her Master’s of Social Work at the University of Denver. For over 25 years Melodye has worked primarily with women and children. She began traveling to Israel in the 1960s. In 1987 Melodye witnessed the beginning of the first Palestinian Intifada. While well-versed in the Israeli~Jewish perspective, she began to equally explore Palestinian narratives while traveling through Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Today, Melodye is the Executive Director of Seeking Common Ground, which she co-founded in 1993 when the historic Oslo peace agreement made the environment ripe for bringing Palestinian and Israeli teen girls together in her Building Bridges for Peace program. Today, she also helps shepherd the newly-created Face-to-Face/Faith-to-Faith program that brings together Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu teenagers from around the world: Northern Ireland, the Middle East, South Africa, and the U.S., to develop a new generation of leaders. In 11 summers, over 500 young women have participated in Building Bridges, who have then returned to their communities to pass on a new spirit and practice to hundreds of other young women leaders. Melodye has spent extensive time in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza meeting with government officials from both sides as well as meeting and interviewing many private Palestinian and Israeli families, peace activists, and human rights organizations

Inas Radwan Said is a student in the Arab American university, majoring in hospital management. She lives in Jenin and studies there as well. She started with Seeking Common Ground in 2002 and she is now on staff and a home leader. She says: “I love this work. It gives me the spirit to go on and keep living. I hope, one day, not being so alone in this work here in the Jenin area. At least, I do not know anyone interested in this work, and hope that one day we live in peace and I hope that my kids will have a better condition in life and have a life that’s full of hope. My dream is that one day all the kids of my country will not care about their religion or color, and live together in the same place without hate and blood.”

Lama Tarayrah was born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother, in a family of five other siblings, on the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. She has lived through the Palestinian- Israeli conflict, she says, “with all its horrible perspectives. I have lost my only uncle, two of my cousins and saw my father for the first time when I was four years old, after four years he spent in Israeli prisons! I did well enough in school to get a full scholarship to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where I'll be studying for the coming four years of my life. I joined Building Bridges as a participant in the summer of 2003 and since then, my life has never been the same!”

FACE-TO-FACE/FAITH-TO-FATH was represented by Melodye Feldman and Brie Loskota, who joined the University of Southern California Center for Religion and Civic Culture in 2004 as senior project manager. Prior to CRCC, she was a special projects consultant for small businesses and nonprofits. She has been involved in interreligious dialogue over the last several years, including directing the Face to Face/Faith to Faith summer camp in New York. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Religion and History from the University of Southern California and is completing her Master’s Degree in Jewish Studies at Hebrew Union College.

Representing KIDS4PEACE were its founder Henry Carse, and its three regional directors Nancy Brockway, Laura Castle, Richard Newland and Ethel Wright. Also representing Kids4Peace was Maha Husseini, a Jerusalem advisor.

Originally from Vermont, Henry Carse has lived in the Middle East for over thirty years. He is Special Programs Director at St. George’s College Jerusalem, and founder of Kids4Peace. “As a practical theologian and educator, I have been consistently involved in interfaith dialogue and faith-based response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and dream of the day when Jerusalem will become – as it must – a model of interfaith and inter-cultural dialogue and community,” he says.

Nancy Brockway says: “During a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and St. George’s College, I was moved by how the violence that was spinning out of control in the region had impacted so many innocent people, especially children. I felt compelled to try to find a way to do something that might bring a ray of hope in a situation that seemed so hopeless. Following much correspondence with Henry Carse, founder of Kids4Peace, and a face-to-face meeting in Boston with Henry and Ethel Wright, it was decided we would bring Kids4Peace to the Diocese of Atlanta. The experience has been beyond our wildest dreams, as we have seen the impact it has had on the lives of the children, their families and the adult advisors in both Jerusalem and Atlanta. My hope for this weekend is to learn from others about their programs and about what has worked and not worked as their programs have matured. In my professional life, I serve as the Chief Program Officer for the Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Laura Castle is Kids4Peace session Director in Houston. She is also married to a banker and the mother of three at the University of Texas, Laura is in her fifth year directing the summer camping program at Camp Allen. With 28 years experience in many forms of youth ministry, Laura has been involved in Juvenile Probation, 5 years teaching both gifted and at risk children in the public schools, and years as both a volunteer and paid youth minister in the Diocese’s smallest and largest congregations. She also serves on the Diocese of Texas Youth Ministry Steering Committee as well as the Bishop’s Advisory Committee for Christian Formation.

Richard Newland is a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, the Diocese of Toronto. He is a trained counselor and therapist as well. His involvement with Kids4Peace began in 2003 through a parish connection and since then, he has assisted as the Christian Advisor for the camp experience in Canada. His vision for the program is “to enable children to recognize that they are all children of God and to learn that they have a common faith-ancestor in Abraham. Working forward from this common ancestry, he hopes that someday, a child involved in the program will lead his people into peace.”

Ethel Wright is an elementary school teacher in a multi-cultural school in a suburb of Atlanta, teaching the academically gifted students in a pullout program. She says, “Following a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 2001, I was struck by the impact of the violence on the lives of the children. There was such a need for them to have a safe place where they could play and get to know one another across the bounds of religious and political divides. On hearing of similar programs with older children, I was struck by how children of the pre-teen years are so open to new experiences. When Henry Carse took 12 kids to Houston in 2002, I was moved to share the “Camp Mikell magic” and include Peace Pals from Atlanta as buddies. I think that this has been a wonderful experience for the kids on both sides of the pond; they have learned that their similarities as kids and Children of Abraham can bridge their differences and give them hope for peace. My hope for the weekend is to learn about other programs and what has worked for them.

Maha Nubani Husseini is from Jerusalem. She has a bachelor’s of science degree in Nursing, and a Master’s Degree in Public Health. She works part-time at Hadassah Medical Organization as a staff nurse in Cardio-thoracic surgery, and lectures at Al-Quds University in the School<