The Center for a Shared Society at Givat Haviva
A Relational Approach to Dialogue and its Implementation in Fostering Jewish-Arab Partnerships. Facilitated by Dr. Ran Kutner, academic advisor to Givat Haviva and senior lecturer in the University of Haifa’s Peace and Conflict Management program.
The Center for a Shared Society aims to create an accepting and united society, by galvanizing divided communities for collective action. This workshop presented the Relational Approach to dialogue, which originated from psychoanalysis and emphasizes the role of relationships to the human soul). This includes practicing mindfulness, to cultivate awareness of one’s body and the feelings that emerge “here and now.” These methods aim to bring the you-I relationship to the fore (Buber), while recognizing the way in which the self is formed, rather than imposing itself on the shared sphere.
The first part of the workshop was dedicated to learning about the method; the second part surveyed the ways in which two Givat Haviva program utilize this approach:
- Community Partnerships: Fostering partnership between Arab and Jewish regional councils, focused on municipal, community, or educational issues.
- Mantiqatna-HaEzor Shelanu (“our region”): Jewish and Arab students learn to create joint regional living.