(1) New useful Dialogue guidelines online
(2) Jewish, Palestinian youth keep meeting

May 8, 2006

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New useful Dialogue guidelines online

CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
A Guide for Convening and Facilitating Dialogue in Jewish Communities in the US

     These 202-pages are designed to help begin, facilitate and sustain Jewish-Jewish Dialogue.
     Principles can be applied to help other intra-group exchanges worldwide.
     Order the bound publication, or download it at no cost at:
http://jewishdialogue.org


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Youth are meeting

Jews, Palestinians, everyone -- listen.
     It has to be the end:
The end of believing we can survive alone.  We cannot.  We're eternal neighbors, family.
The end of punishing our neighbors.  It abuses ourselves, wrecking our own future and souls.
The end of hollow words -- "disengagement" and "convergence" -- pretending they don't mean distancing, excluding, dehumanizing, and abandoning our neighbors, our cousins -- perpetuating our fear and their fear.
The end of demands to be treated humanely, yet consenting to violence and running away from the one place where equal humanity is found -- together, face-to-face, listening, building relationships and trust.

It is impossible to create a healthy culture if we refuse to meet, and if we refuse to listen.

But if we meet, and when we listen, we reweave the world into wholeness. And holiness.

-- Margaret Wheatly

Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, San Francisco, 2002

http://turningtooneanother.net/

Wheatly says more:

     "I am hopeful that we can change the world if we start listening to one another again.         
Simple, honest, human conversation.
     Not mediation, negotiation, problem-solving, debate, or public meetings.
     Simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard, and we each listen well.
     Conversation is the natural way we humans think together.
     We may have forgotten this, or no longer have time for each other, but it is how good thinking grows into actions that create real change.
     Many large-scale change efforts -- some of which have won the Nobel Peace Prize -- began with the simple but courageous act of friends talking to one another about their fears and dreams.
     In reviewing a number of these efforts, I always found a phrase, 'Some friends and I started talking.'
     What would it feel like (for Palestinians and Jews) to be listening to each other again about what disturbs and troubles us?
     About what gives us energy and hope?
About our yearnings, our fears, our prayers, our children?"

Now go to the Web  -- http://traubman.igc.org/youthmeet.htm
     See faces of Palestinian and Jewish youth meeting.
Waiting for no government.
     Crossing borders.
To communicate.
To imagine.
To build.

- L&L