Confronted as we are by divisive national politics and serious generational and policy divisions around Israel, along with an array of religious and cultural differences among us, this is the moment for serious and managed conversations that Jewish Americans, among others, have been craving. 

Writing in eJewishPhilanthropy (“Difficult conversations can be learning conversations,” Oct. 27, 2020), Or Mars observed the following:

“Avoiding all difficult conversations will prevent the most important kind of learning, that is, knowing what is in the hearts and minds of the people we live and work with so that we can move forward with compassion and mutual understanding.” 

One of the significant new operational realities in the Jewish community is the array of initiatives designed to foster and promote such dialogue and civil discourse. They can be categorized into two groups: the first group seeks to create Jewish spaces for essential conversations in an environment of separation and division, and the second is designed to bring prospective leaders and future decision-makers together — Jews and non-Jews alike — to share insights and possibly build consensus. The former is important to the health and viability of building community, while the latter is committed to leadership formation.

Groups equipping us with communal dialogue and conflict-navigation skills

Many key national Jewish institutions — including the Jewish federation system, the Anti-Defamation League, and some foundations — have developed their own toolkits for training and managing difficult discussions, the product of a century of institutional engagement in and promotion of interfaith dialogue. The techniques introduced in those spaces are being artfully and appropriately applied today to intra-communal discourse. 

A number of organizations, including Jewish federations, employ resources such as the ADL’s guidelines for engaging in difficult conversations, but today there are also several Jewish organizations specifically focused on promoting conversations across differences. Resetting the Table, for example, was founded with a commitment to “transforming the public conversation” by building a culture of dialogue. Its program model employs five operating principles — directness, multiplicity, stabilization, expressiveness and ownership — and their offerings extend to campuses, congregations and clergy, agencies and community leaders. SRE Network helps organizations create “safe, respectful and equitable” work environments where discussions around difficult issues are being more directly managed. For the Sake of Argument offers “tools and techniques to help you engage in healthy arguments in your home, school, campus, workplace or community,” with Israel education as its core focus area; and Atra, an organization that serves as a resource center for rabbinic innovation, launched a three-part workshop series for rabbis in dealing with challenging religious and communal concerns.

Across the board, we are seeing increased attention to creating safe spaces in different spheres of communal and religious life to facilitate essential discussions.

Groups facilitating conversation with others 

In addition to groups with an internal focus, efforts have emerged to create encounters and connections designed to promote intergroup exchange. 

In a May 2024 TED Talk, businessman and philanthropist Daniel Lubetzky laid out his formula for self-reflective conversations built around “curiosity, compassion, creativity and courage.” He is the founder of Builders, a global initiative that seeks to replace us vs. them thinking with collaborative problem-solving. But even prior to Builders, Lubetzky established the OneVoice Movement, a grassroots movement of Israelis and Palestinians aiming to unlock the status quo and expand efforts committed to conflict resolution and peacebuilding. It is important to note that this type of engagement is not based on a traditional Israel advocacy model; rather, it is designed to uncover alternative approaches to political solutions and human relationships. 

PeaceWorks on Campus, a new initiative of PeaceWorks Foundation with support from Heart of a Nation, is similarly focused on facilitating dialogue versus pursuing traditional advocacy. Their primary objective involves identifying future “influencers” — individuals, Jewish or otherwise, who will likely be key leaders in civic and public settings — and creating the types of experiences and conversations that allow these folks to hear one another when discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the wider Middle East. This organizing approach not only exposes undergraduate and graduate students to the complexities of the Israeli-Arab conflict, but also gives them experience engaging with people with different viewpoints and forging connections that could lead to collaboration in the future.

Reflections

For decades, the Jewish community has been actively engaged in dialogue facilitation with various religious and ethnic communities. Moving forward, intra-communal discussions remain critical if our organizations are to be able to bring warring constituencies into the same room. The range of issues that today divide our community is significant and deep, involving disagreements over Israel, differences in our connection with Judaism and Jewish practice, and divisions related to American and Israeli politics. 

In this moment, Jews are not only anxious to be in community with those with whom they agree but also relish the opportunity to better understand the “Other” among us — folks in the Jewish world who hold differing beliefs and perspectives. Programming such as communication seminars and structured dialogue opportunities will continue to be essential. 

We need to acknowledge the history and value of interfaith dialogue and utilize those tools and procedures for building internal and external bridge-buidling. The contemporary application of these now well-tested resources will have an added value as we manage today’s new and evolving conversations.

Steven Windmueller is a professor emeritus of Jewish communal studies at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.