Religions for Peace

Art seminar 

Religions for Peace, in partnership with the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI), received a significant grant from The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to support Kedem, a highly successful ongoing inter-religious reconciliation program in Israel.

Kedem - initiated in 2003 and now entering its fourth year of operation - brings together local leaders of Israel’s Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities over an extended period of time to foster dialogue and collaboration around joint action projects. Through the dialogues, study days, seminars, and action projects, participants develop strong personal relationships, build trust, and learn about each other’s religions in meaningful ways with an ultimate goal of empowering religious leaders to develop new ways to become voices for peace and reconciliation on the local level. For the past three years, Kedem has been funded primarily by grants from a special fund of the German government, which has financed conflict resolution programs within Israel.

Currently, twenty Kedem members - a group of Israeli Jewish, Muslim, and Christian local grass-roots religious leaders - are working together to address the core issues of the conflict and plan local action projects designed to have a tangible impact on their own communities.

The partnership between Religions for Peace and ICCI represents a unique arrangement designed to bring together the strong conflict transformation experience of Religions for Peace and the local experience and insight of ICCI.

In 2001, ICCI initiated an innovative program aimed at increasing the unique role for women in resolving the crisis in relations between Muslim and Christian Palestinians and Jewish Israelis. In June 2005, as a culmination of three years of active dialogue, the group published a book, Women of the Book: A Jerusalem Collage, which includes honest reflections by the participants about their dialogue experiences and about some of the dilemmas raised by living in ongoing conflict. The work is a fascinating mosaic about the interwoven lives and identities of a group of "everyday" Jerusalem women, committed to sharing their present and their future and creating a better world for the next generation.

Women of the Book has already proven itself to be a powerful tool for helping other people move beyond their fear and distrust. Building on the experiences of this first women’s dialogue group, ICCI is now implementing further programming in order to capitalize on the momentum already created and to form a continuum of wider impact. While the first program described briefly above serves as a complete program in and of itself, the primary focus of our new dialogue group lies with the future of Jerusalem—the very heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Starting in May 2006 the program has brought together a new group of leading women to discuss the future of Jerusalem both on a personal and a political level and create and publish a shared "vision" to serve as the platform for an alternative to the current limited political thinking. By raising their voices, the women will create legitimate space in the public sphere in both societies. Based on this joint vision, the women will work together to create grassroots change in their respective Jerusalem communities.