Originally posted on August 8, 2012, for the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Read the original post in full here.

In the twenty-first century, internet and social media have brought globalization to a new level. Information technology and other advances bring people together and offer hope for a brighter future.
In our world, this presents a dual challenge—respecting the ‘other’ with whom we are brought into contact in an increasingly frequent and salient fashion, and protecting our own cultural, ethnic, national, and religious identities in light of constant exposure to diversity. An additional challenge, which many of us may experience in some form, is that of self-identity—am I a Jew, an Italian, an Israeli, an American?

These questions can lead to unfortunate outcomes on the micro and macro levels. I believe that Olympic values in 2012 may offer the optimal answer. Through the Olympics, the world’s nations compete to bring medals home. It is the ultimate honor to wear one’s national colors while competing against others representing their own heritages. Yet at the same time, there is a great source of respect upheld. Ironically, Olympians competing individually rarely get into personal conflicts while professional athletes competing in team sports are wont to. This speaks to integrity, honor, and respect. Athletes standing alone at the Olympics bear the weight of their nations. Through the respect shown to one another, they transmit a message of mutual respect for the various nations.

For those of us viewing Olympic Games, it is impossible to ignore our similarities—as well as our differences. Certain nations will win many awards; others will win fewer. Some long for the winter Olympics; yet others shine in the summer Olympics. I will root for the American team as an American, the Israeli team as a Jew who has lived in Israel, and for team Italia in tribute to my Italian heritage. But I will also be happy when the Egyptian, Japanese, Swiss, or Thai team wins a medal. This is out of respect for the cultures and nations which they embody, amplified by the fact that I have friends from each of these countries. A few decades ago this would have been unusual; today it is the norm.

This is the powerful key that Olympic values offer. Through respect for diversity we can maintain our own unique qualities while learning from the successes of others. We can be multicultural while still maintaining multiple cultures. As technology brings us closer we must balance cultural differences with integration of different cultures—all the while maintaining our personal identities. The Olympics, with its origins in ancient Greece, can teach us all how to build a better future, so that in another two millennia, regardless of what globalization may bring, we can still see the torch lit and the flags raised as each country and nation hopes to bring home a medal.

Originally posted on August 8, 2012, for the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Read the original post in full here.

Originally posted on the TOI blog on March 8, 2012. To read the full post, click here.

50 Jewish and Muslim Arab high school students crowd into an auditorium to debate the issue of Palestinian statehood. A Jewish student rises to speak on behalf of Palestine, his Arab partner at his side. An Arab girl representing Israel argues passionately against unilateral statehood; her kippa-clad partner waiting for his turn to speak. After two hours of intense debating, the committee votes on the motion to create a Palestinian state and by a two-thirds majority, the vote passes. The auditorium erupts in applause.

This is not a joke, or a dream, but a synopsis of what transpired on this past Monday evening (March 5^th) in Petah Tiqva. During this event, students from AlQassemi college in Baqa, Qschool in Tira, and the Young Ambassadors school in Petah Tiqva, joined together for what is surely one of the most ambitious, exciting, and promising events in a region with a history of unsuccessful conflict resolution and failed mediation attempts.

The name chosen for the debate, TIKVAMUN, symbolizes its significance. Tikva means hope in Hebrew. These students, most 14-16 years of age, are indeed a source of great hope for creating a better future. Coming from different communities and religions from within Israel, each brought his or her own opinion and perspective to the auditorium in Petah Tiqva. Yet asked to take their assigned country’s position, each complied willingly and performed admirably. Placed with a teammate whom they had only just met, and with a very different point of view, they meshed immediately, and worked together as a team to do their best to represent their assigned point of view.

The project had numerous goals: we wanted to train the students, young leaders and top students from their respective communities, to learn how to argue from different perspectives, as well as giving them a chance to strengthen their ability and confidence to speak in public and debate in English, their second, third or fourth language.

In addition, bringing students together from such different worlds, living so close to one another, was of utmost importance to me personally. Israel faces many different challenges, internal and external. Even were the two various issues completely divorced from one another, the domestic issues facing Israel would still be of paramount importance, as they affect each and every member of Israeli society, if not directly then indirectly. In this I see a great need for further integration of the Jewish and Arab societies. Within ‘mixed cities’ this is somewhat less problematic, although far from perfect. However for an Arab student from Tira, or a Jewish student from Petah Tiqva, the exposure to peers from the other community is usually limited and impersonal. Yet if we are raising our children to be future leaders, in addition to learning of the various challenges which face Israel from without, they must be well in-tune with the various social issues to be dealt with internally, and well-acquainted with all of the sectors of Israeli society. Whether as a leader in Baqa, Tira, or Petah Tiqva, regardless of the students’ personal aspirations, the friendship of those from other communities as well as the ability to see things from opposing perspectives, may prove just as valuable as the abilities to debate, to speak in front of a crowd, or to converse freely in English.

For all of these reasons, I find the name TIKVAMUN to perfectly apt to describe the situation. Israeli and Palestinian leadership has been ineffective at agreeing on the necessary details to create a legally-recognized, politically sovereign Palestinian state. By most accounts an agreement could be achieved fairly easily; most issues could be resolved speedily and in fact many important concessions and compromises have already been offered. In recent years there is a perceived lack of will on both sides. The respective governments seem more bent on pandering to an American and international audience than working together to create a better future for themselves. Neither sides’ leadership seems to have bothered to see things from one another’s perspective. That such inability would lead to a failure in negotiations seems obvious.

Having a young core of leaders who can and will be dedicated to mutual respect, understanding and friendship is essential. They need not like one another, though it is certainly preferable. They need not agree with one another; to expect that would doom our efforts from the outset. They must simply recognize that each is an important member of society, representing a unique and valuable viewpoint, every one of which should be heard and considered. Mutual respect can lead to agreements, compromises and partnerships in which ultimately everyone (sans political extremists) stands to gain.

The part which I enjoyed the most of all began in the very beginning of the debate. When we called our first speaker to the podium, I expected one of the teammates to rise up and come to the front of the room. This is how it is generally done in more experienced MUNs in any case; where multiple delegates are present, whoever speaks will come to the podium. However in this case as soon as the speaker left his seat, his partner rose to join him as well. This sequence was the repeated by just about every group we had. Country after country, delegate after delegate, the students stood together on the stage, one who had chosen to speak accompanied by his or her partner. This level of spontaneous support, really summarizes the success of the evening to me. The natural feeling of loyalty towards one another, and empathy to the difficulty of standing alone at a podium in front of dozens of people, brought each speaker’s partner to join them in a silent gesture of support.

Coordinating, participating in, and witnessing this event has given me much hope in our future. These young leaders have exhibited characteristics and abilities which, had many of our leaders been endowed with, I can only believe would have changed the past  and present considerably. While every one of these students is truly special, it is safe to assume that most students, given such opportunities, would stand to benefit from such an experience, and I hope that each of our participants will share what they have acquired with their friends, and that this can be the first of many such endeavors. Our future is bright, and hopeful, when we can look forward to prospective leadership from the kind of leaders as we saw in Petah Tiqva on Monday night.

Originally posted on the TOI blog on March 8, 2012. To read the full post, click here.

Originally posted on the TOI blog on February 26, 2012. To read the full post, click here.

One of the things which I have found most challenging while teaching high school students about topics like a UN vote on Palestinian statehood, has been getting the students to see other viewpoints. Thus I was very excited when told that a group of my Jewish students from Petah Tiqva would be representing Saudi Arabia at the TIMEMUN in Even Yehuda. This was the perfect opportunity to put what we had discussed in the classroom into practice.

Certainly, this was true. While we did not win any awards, my students worked hard to understand what their country’s position would be on issues ranging from renewable energy to reforming the UN member state application process to dealing with Iran on the issue of nuclear weapons, to freedom of religious expression. I am proud of their efforts to truly represent their assigned country’s interests.

However where I was most proud of my students, and most pleased with their performance, was with some of the discussions that they had back at our hotel. Shortly after dinner the first night, we moved to the lobby to begin preparing for the next day’s events. As I worked on my own papers and helped a few students prepare, I witnessed some of our delegation beginning a conversation with members of an Arab school from Haifa. Before long the conversation had turned political; an intense conversation ensued which from the snippets I caught seemed to span from British Mandate Palestine to contemporary Israel. Initially I was slightly concerned that the conversation matter might be too difficult for this forum. In the end the teacher of the other group and I had to drag the students away from one another—because they would have happily continued their conversations with one another all night and no one would have gotten any sleep. The next two days saw students from our two groups sitting next to one another on the buses, and during mealtimes. Their impassioned views had only brought them together, not pushed them apart.

It is hard for the most experienced of debaters to argue about the topics most sensitive to them. In an otherwise excellent debate on the Palestinian statehood vote which I have sent to all of my students to watch, there are inevitably points during the debate when different members, accomplished diplomats with a long list of credentials, lose their decorum and begin trying to yell out, cut one another off, and generally do all of the things which I discourage my students from doing. Suffice it to say that I do not believe they all left the room the best of friends. Yet my students and their peers have shown me that it is indeed possible to have such a debate while maintaining respect, and love, for those who hold differing viewpoints.

What I have seen from my students in the classroom, and in Even Yehuda, is extremely heartening. It is why I believe strongly in a grass-roots solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. High level officials and leaders have shown their inability to listen, to hear one another, and an overall failure to understand the other’s viewpoint which will inevitably doom negotiations. Whether you agree with the perspective of the other side or not, you cannot negotiate or debate without at least listening to, and trying to understand the other side. This is something which I have been trying to teach my students, and I am happy to see that they seem to get it much more than your average government leader.

Originally posted on the TOI blog on February 26, 2012. To read the full post, click here.

Originally posted on the TOI blog on February 12, 2012. To read the full post, click here.

For more than a month now my fellow MUN teammates and I have been working with two groups of high school students, teaching about international diplomacy, debate skills, and how to express themselves and represent countries. One group is comprised of Jewish students who wish to represent Israel abroad. The second is an Israeli Arab group of students who come after school to improve their English.

Understandably, the two groups of students have shown to have very different perspectives, and with both groups we experienced challenges initially when trying to see other perspectives on such emotionally and politically divisive issues as a UN vote to create a Palestinian state. Yet one very important lesson that I have learned from my students is that the ability to understand other perspectives, even those we may ultimately disagree with, is something that any young student can tap into, simply by making the effort. Both groups of students showed me that they were very capable within a matter of minutes of being put to the challenge.

To me that is the ultimate benefit of Model UN conferences, and the ultimate challenge of international diplomacy and conflict resolution. The first step must be the understanding that there is always another side to the story; there will always be different perspectives, including and perhaps especially those with which we may disagree. This is a lesson that I have learned from my students, and it is something that would have been lost from the conference if not for the wonderful ability for virtual communication that social media offers. I believe that the skill to see other views is in fact an ability that everyone is capable of inherently, and that social media amongst other aspects of globalization offers a huge opportunity in this regard.

Ultimately freedom of speech and expression are important rights—we should protect these rights, but we should also utilize them to learn from others.

To read the full post, including reflections from an MUN trip in Dubai, click here.