The Movement for Reform Judaism

An update from OneVoice, a grassroots movement which has taken a bold approach to engaging Palestinians and Israelis in greater civic involvement.

There's news on a new campaign for teenagers, youth leadership programmes, efforts to engage civil society in Gaza and events that have taken place here in the UK.

The Imagine 2018 Campaign

The Imagine 2018 Campaign was launched at the beginning of March to engage 13-18 year olds across Israel and Palestine in visualizing what the region would look like in 10 years if a peace agreement were to be signed in 2008. The objective is to challenge people to give perspective on the barriers to conflict resolution and step outside the debilitating and misleading assumptions that the conflict is intractable.  Our teams in the Middle East are currently working with the Ministry of Education in Palestine and Israel to reach as many schools and encourage as many submissions as possible. To date we have had 2,000 submissions from across the West Bank and we expect the same number in Israel after the end of the Passover holiday.

Youth Leadership

OneVoice has been building since the start of the year and since being awarded the Skoll Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship, we are making a real investment with our youth leaders - giving them the skills to be real ambassadors of change within their own communities.  There are now 5 different Israeli OneVoice chapters at Tel Aviv University, IDC Herzliya, Ben Gurion University, Haifa University, and Hebrew University. Hitham Kayali spoke this month with our youth leaders at IDC Herzliya and Ben Gurion University - for many he was the first Palestinian they had met, and Hitham commented “it is crucially important for me as a Palestinian to see there are Israelis working to support a viable resolution and crucially important for them to see a representative of the Palestinian majority who support peace through a two state solution”.

As part of bridging the gap between the grassroots and the political elite our youth leaders have been meeting with Knesset and PA members to stress the fact that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians support a comprehensive peace agreement through negotiations. OneVoice will also be showcased at this year's World Economic Forum on the Middle East in Sharm El Sheikh on the 19th May. Four winners from the Imagine 2018 Campaign - 2 Israeli students and 2 Palestinian students - will help lead an interactive "workspace" on the conflict, describing for the group their visions of life in Israel and Palestine after 10 years of peace. 

From Gaza

Meanwhile in Gaza our team have been building consistent momentum around their efforts to engage civil society in the urgency of negotiations this year succeeding. They have held six town hall meetings now in the past two months, reaching over 200 Gazans. The OneVoice Gaza office was started with the support of UK donors in 2006 and it is great that sufficient networks have been built to allow it to work at a public level with this support and strength.

Here in the UK OneVoice Europe has held three events in the past week, two in Coventry and one in Glasgow. In a community centre on the outskirts of Coventry, 50 people attended a public meeting to hear about OneVoice’s work in the Middle East and ways to support Israelis and Palestinians working towards peace. We also held a smaller workshop with schoolchildren aged 13-16, asking them to submit their vision for 2018: what would the UK news report if there was a peace deal reached in the Middle East this year? In Glasgow meanwhile, heads of various student bodies – including the Muslim and Jewish societies are currently negotiating the launch of a new OneVoice chapter there.

What You Can Do

If you are interested in hosting an event in your community – either a public meeting or a leadership training session to become an International OneVoice Youth Leader, please contact Hitham Kayali. To donate to OneVoice, please click here. This year we are asking all of our supporters who visit Israel or Palestine to find the time to meet with some of our youth leaders there – it’s a massive boost for them to feel the international support and can give you a great insight into our work so whether you are there on holiday, business or an organised trip, please do be in touch with Sayyeda Salam.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed