Tag: writing

Writers Matter Students Visit Philadelphia and NYC

April 30, 2026

Five students from the Writers Matter program visited Philadelphia and NYC for a six day reading and speaking tour. Mahdi (from the Agricultural High School in Rameh), Yuval (Ort Givat Ram in Jerusalem), Rula (Terra Santa school in Akko), Meeran (Wainar school in Yarka) and Bina (Yachad Modi’in) presented their writing and discussed their experiences in the program for approximately 350 people, including a series of dinners hosted in their honor in Philadelphia, and in meetings held at the Temple University Hillel, Temple Beth Hillel, Coop City Islamic community, Kehillat Hadar-Sha’are Tzedek and Smol Emuni. 

This was the first Writers Matter trip to the US since April 2024, with two books already published in the interim: The Write Path and The Write Path II, and the growth of the program to include collaborations with students from other countries, as well as a Gazan writing program (in Arabic). The trip also marked the 20th anniversary of Writers Matter in the US. 

In addition to reading some of the pieces that the students had written individually and collaboratively over the last two years, there were also some exclusive pieces written just for the speaking tour. The group also held Q & A sessions for audiences curious about how their choice to write with peers from other religious and ethnic backgrounds was seen by their family and peers, which languages they thought in, and other questions. The group also visited the Weizman Museum of American Jewish History, UPenn, NYU and Columbia University campuses, and the Jewish Center synagogue on the Upper West Side, among other sites of interest. 

The group also visited the Weizman Museum of American Jewish History, UPenn, NYU and Columbia University campuses, and the Jewish Center synagogue on the Upper West Side, among other sites of interest. 

For more information about the Writers Matter project, see: https://www.writersmatter.org/ and https://www.bobvogel.org/writers-matter  The next online writing course for students will begin on Sunday at 7:00 pm Jerusalem time/ 12:00 pm US Eastern time. Students can join here.

As the project continues to grow, plans include involving new students and teachers, as well as adding additional communities in Israel and the West Bank. These students are future leaders who represent shared community and peaceful initiatives between all Israelis and Palestinians.

Debate for Peace thanks Tony and Pam Schneider, Larry and Dotty Brown and Mickey and Barbara Black for hosting the group in Philadelphia, and the Bermont family, the Gal family, and David Brotsky for hosting the group in NYC.

I Wonder- Does the Moon Know It’s Loved?

December 9, 2024

Over the last two months, a dozen students from three continents have been meeting to write and reflect as part of the Writers Matter program. The following piece is part of the “I Wonder” collection, and comes from N. Ostenfeld in Malmo, Sweden.

I wonder, does the moon know it’s loved?

Does the moon know it lives with purpose, does the moon know the love and adoration it has received, the countless pieces of art written and created in its beauty? 

A single rock, floating in solitude amidst a vast darkness—shining so brightly when nothing else does. A borrowed light, a reflection, nothing of its own. I wonder, how many of us are like the moon? Lonely, silent, yet dazzling only in the emptiness of night. Do we burn so others might see, only to fade when their world fills with light?

The moon, in actuality, is nothing extraordinary, just a simple rock, made of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron and so on. Earthly materials. Uninteresting materials. Plain materials. Just stone and dust, the remnants of a violent past. A scar in the sky. Yet it draws poets, painters, dreamers, and lovers to its cold surface, offering them nothing but a reflection. The moon is our muse, just as you have now become my muse, an unfeeling witness to the longings we pour out, as if hoping its pale glow might soothe our restlessness.

Perhaps that is the moon’s cruelest beauty. It gives us nothing of itself, and yet we give it everything. Our words, our songs, our stories. Perhaps it mocks us in its silence, knowing we will always return to it, hungry for inspiration, searching for meaning in its emptiness.

The moon is loyal to the Earth, bound in quiet devotion, circling endlessly—not out of love, but because even in its loneliness, it has nowhere else to go. Your name meant loyalty and fidelity. You were my moon.

Perhaps, it is as the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote; “Maybe the moon is beautiful only because it is far.” Maybe its beauty would vanish if we touched it, if we truly understood it.

 Maybe we love it because we can’t have it. Because it will never love us back.

I wonder, if the moon ever looks at us—at the chaos, the greed, the fragile hopes we scatter across the earth—and feels grateful it is so far away.

I wish I was your moon.

Delegation to Philadelphia and DC with Writers Matter and Heart of a Nation Brings Message of Hope and Empathy

April 18, 2024

In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Debate for Peace partnered with Professor Bob Vogel to run a 9 week writing course to help students and teachers process the emotions that they were facing. The writing, which covered themes ranging from fear and pain caused by the war, identity, questions about the future, and more, turned out to be very powerful and moving. 

Over the last week, with the help of Professor Vogel’s Writers Matter, and Jonathan Kessler’s Heart of A Nation, a delegation of six students and two teachers traveled to the US to read their work and speak about their experiences. These meetings highlighted the difficulties that Jewish Israeli and Palestinian teenagers have faced in the last six months, as well as their dedication to forge a new, peaceful future together.

The group met with public and private middle school and high school audiences, visited four college campuses, several synagogues and a church, met young professional groups, and spoke at the World Affairs Council in Philadelphia and the Israel Policy Forum in DC. In Philadelphia they also had a chance to interact with local participants of the Writers Matter program, and to lead a peer writing session. 

In total, the delegation met with about 500 people during the course of the delegation. The reactions were overwhelmingly positive, with many audience members and participants mentioning how inspired they felt, encouraging the students to keep writing together, and even asking how they could get involved.

Debate for Peace is grateful to the US Embassy for its support, to Professor Bob Vogel for his selfless dedication to giving students a voice, to the generous donors who enabled the delegation, to Mr. Jonathan Kessler and Heart of a Nation for hosting and facilitating the delegation’s visit to DC, and to all of the groups who invited the delegation to present.