Member Benefits
How to Join
En Espanol
It was a packed house for the American Friends of the Parent Circle Families Forum invitational breakfast on July 25. The forum presented a curriculum, “Listening from the Heart,” which develops meaningful exchanges designed to foster reconciliation over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through the personal stories of bereaved families, the forum amplified their voices, using their grief as a foundation for building understanding and peace.
Introduced by AFT President Randi Weingarten—who noted that the AFT believes in a two-state solution, including both Israel’s right to exist and the creation of a Palestinian state—the presenters were Lior Ben-Zvi, development and communications manager for American Friends of the Parents Circle Families Forum, and Mohamed Abu Jafar, a member of the Parents Circle Families Forum. Their discussion explored how intense listening can equip educators and community leaders to navigate complex conversations about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Abu Jafar, a Palestinian, spoke of losing his 16-year-old brother in 2002 in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said he’d never met an Israeli until 2016. He shared that he’d never seen an Israeli as a full human being, only as the hard shell of a uniform like the storm troopers in Star Wars. He stressed the difficulty of and the need for developing empathy toward people on the other side of a conflict.
Ben-Zvi, who has been working in Israeli and Palestinian education for nearly a decade, discussed how to listen to the voices of families. She too lost a family member in the conflict. Ben-Zvi began her work with the forum simply by teaching people on both sides how to talk with each other. She stressed the importance of learning at a young age how to have difficult conversations. From an anonymous survey, she learned that not a single person on either side felt equipped to facilitate a dialogue between sides. More than 90 percent of survey participants felt tense or discouraged from talking about the conflict at all.
The result was a curriculum, “Listening from the Heart,” which includes video conversations, a facilitation guide and a dozen activities. Her goal is to cultivate understanding, challenge binary thinking and encourage discussion.
Asked how to deal with an extremely one-sided person, Abu Jafar suggested trying to uncover the humanity of someone who has lost a family member or friend to conflict. It’s important that there be no right or wrong positions, he said. Students can speak out on what they feel and want, he added, advising teachers to show empathy. Even if students disagree, it’s not a debate—it’s a dialogue. Ultimately, the conversation is about feelings.
Weingarten said that engaging in dialogue and peace-building, no matter how fraught, is critically important—that it’s possible for people who had been literal combatants, hating each other, to engage in community.
She noted that the discussion is hard but that AFT leaders have unanimously passed resolutions based on fighting hate, making sure classrooms are safe and welcoming, and ensuring that students from kindergarten through higher education have the right to freedom of speech. “We’re moving forward together,” she said.
Educators who took part in the session learned how to access the “Listening from the Heart” curriculum, which is available on demand and free for public high school teachers from info@parentscirclefriends.org and at parentscirclefriends.org/listening.
[Annette Licitra]