Training 80 Youth Encounter Leaders

Bar Ilan University's Interfaith Encounter group operates as a course that grants credit points to its participants. Upon completion of the course, the students are invited to continue meeting as part of a follow-up group.

The group met to conclude the semester and the entire course and held a round where the students shared their impressions of the course. Here are several points that came up in the conversation:

- This is an extraordinary opportunity to get to know others and myself.

- Never before have I had the opportunity to have a real conversation with a Muslim/Jew/Christian.

- The need to explain my religion and culture to others made me delve deeper into them.

- In political science, the conflict is always emphasized and here was a special opportunity to get to know a more complex picture.

- It is very difficult to talk about the conflict immediately when you meet for the first time. I liked the approach here that starts with building good communication.

- In secular approaches, religion is often thought to be the source of problems and is ignored. But then the depth of everyone's identity is not touched.

- I'm not religious and I was afraid of the process but I really enjoyed it, precisely because we didn't learn in a scholarly way but through personal conversation.

- The mutual respect allowed for a relaxed conversation, without the need to defend my religion and culture.

The encounter, and the course, ended with a shared Iftar and registration for the follow-up group.

Links:

• IEA website
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