Recent Accomplishments and Upcoming Projects
Summer 2007
Over the past year, the Jewish Dialogue Group has grown in very exciting ways. We have:
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Deepened our work with intensive multi-part dialogues: In the fall of 2006, our Jewish Dialogue Fellowship Program brought together thirty-five Jewish students at five schools for semester-long dialogue series. At each school, students met seven times to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and learn communication skills. Bryn Mawr College, Columbia University, Haverford College, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania all hosted dialogue series. Look for a detailed report about this program in September.
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Expanded geographically: We recently held our first ever facilitation training in New York City, and we have begun offering many more dialogues in New York and Washington, D.C. Volunteer facilitators also led dialogues in Atlanta, Boston, Portland, Palo Alto, Toronto, Vancouver, and other cities.
We are planning dialogues in several cities around North America, and we are very excited that two JDG facilitators will lead dialogues in Jerusalem this summer.
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Brought our approach to key Jewish institutions and community leaders: We facilitated dialogues at the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. We also led dialogues that involved members of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s young leadership group and leaders from Philly Israelim, an Israeli-American community organization. In Washington D.C., we brought together leaders from institutions like Hillel, the Israel on Campus Coalition, the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, the Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center, and the National Havurah Committee.
In the next year, we will build on this initial work with more intensive dialogues and training workshops. We are honored that the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College has invited us to teach a two-day mini-course, for credit, in January 2008.
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Tackled new issues: We have experimented with dialogue about several new issues. These include the war in Iraq, ordination of gay and lesbian rabbis in the Conservative movement, and the role that synagogues should play in promoting social justice. (Click on the links to read testimonials about these programs.)
Our main focus continues to be the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but we plan to continue leading dialogues about these and other issues as well.