Community Building for 1000 Jews & Muslims 2023-25

1.3.2023

We successfully held the first encounter of the renewed group at Haifa University. The encounter takes place in English. I explained to them what the purpose of these encounters is and who is the organization responsible. The participants are very interested in this type of encounters and want to continue and I asked them to invite more members to the group.

We talked about ourselves and our lives, and then discussed some issues with religious context, such as marriage in all religions and the clothing that obligates every religion. Jegors said something very interesting because anyone who meets the Pope puts on a black scarf but only the Queen of Spain would meet him with a white scarf.

We also talked about the religious composition of the countries from which the participants came to the group: Israel, Lithuania, India and the United States. There are groups of people who don’t believe at all. In India, the largest percentage is Hindus.

We also talked about civil marriage in their country and how to ask a bride for marriage. For example, in India, there is a lot of social pressure on girls to get married early and they also pay a lot of money for dowry, so they hate it when they have a daughter because she will make her family lose a lot of money.

The participants also shared a lot about themselves and their families. I felt comfortable when they talked about such things and they told me at the end of the encounter thank you for this encounter and when the next encounter will be and at what place. At the next encounter, they offered to talk about food and wanted to try the Zaatar pita bread. I told them I would bring a light breakfast, with cucumber and tomatoes, and they liked it.

8.3.23

Today I brought a light breakfast of Zaatar pita bread, cucumber and tomatoes. The participants loved the food and afterwards we talked about all kinds of food in Israel and around the world, eating habits of cooking and kosher, and not kosher according to the three religions.

I explained to them about how many kinds of food we cook and how to cook them and what we need in order to make such food as Makaluba, Mansaf, grape leaves and zucchini, and all kinds of salads like the Tabuleh and Fatush. Everyone agreed that it was good food and healthy, and the Middle East food was the healthiest food in the world.

In India, many spices are used, many of them are hot, and they also eat six course meals, with three regular courses and three light ones.

We talked about what was kosher and what was not, asked a lot of questions and answered each other about what was allowed to eat and what was not and was it was very interesting. I have invited more students and hope they will join us next time.

Links:

• IEA website
• Activity & annual reports
• Get invovled