GNRC Israel
Background
Israel is a complex many-faceted society that throws many challenges in the path of its young people. Among the most significant of these are:
- An ongoing conflict between the country and its Palestinian neighbours. The conflict is not over religion, but the hardest and most uncompromising positions of each side are those of the religious factions.
- A state established on ethnic lines which tries at the same time to maintain itself as a democratic country, in terms of its treatment of a large Palestinian minority.
- A population that feels the weight of history. On the Jewish side, the recent memory of the holocaust in which the majority of the Jewish population of Europe were exterminated, and on the Palestinian side, memories of a disastrous war that resulted in the exile of most of the Palestinian population.
- The fact of Israel as a half-modern, half-ancient country that expresses the meeting between western and oriental peoples, and the meeting of the rich north and the poor south.
- A country with a growing socio-economic gap, in which a quarter of the population are beneath the poverty line, and in which this gap is partly based on racial divisions.
- A country that is torn between secular and religious values, where religion is often despised by secular people due to its influence over their affairs.
- A country whose past is deeply tied to the origins of the three large monotheistic religions.
- A highly polarized society, not only between Jews and Palestinians, but also between various subgroups such as western and eastern Jews, Muslim, Druze and Christian Arabs, and secular and religious divisions that are particularly marked in some of these societies.
- Majority - minority phenomena and related fears that manifest on many levels: the Arabs are a minority in Israel; the Jews are a minority in the Middle East; Christians are a minority within Arab society, but Muslims feel denigrated within the Christian world.
With the complexity of these issues in mind GNRC Israel is planning to create an opportunity for meeting between Jewish, Muslim and Christian young people in Israel. With the opportunity for a dialogue and discussion through many issues they will attempt to find a common ground and shared values.
The material expressed in the Resource Kit for Interfaith and Ethics Education of the GNRC expresses very well what we would like to achieve in our own work with the young people.
This educational work with young people is made more urgent due to the global rise in antagonism between the "western" and Muslim worlds. In the Middle East there has been a rise in religious extremism on all sides that has added fuel to the conflict in a variety of ways.
Israel is a complex many-faceted society that throws many challenges in the path of its young people. Among the most significant of these are:
- An ongoing conflict between the country and its Palestinian neighbours. The conflict is not over religion, but the hardest and most uncompromising positions of each side are those of the religious factions.
- A state established on ethnic lines which tries at the same time to maintain itself as a democratic country, in terms of its treatment of a large Palestinian minority.
- A population that feels the weight of history. On the Jewish side, the recent memory of the holocaust in which the majority of the Jewish population of Europe were exterminated, and on the Palestinian side, memories of a disastrous war that resulted in the exile of most of the Palestinian population.
- The fact of Israel as a half-modern, half-ancient country that expresses the meeting between western and oriental peoples, and the meeting of the rich north and the poor south.
- A country with a growing socio-economic gap, in which a quarter of the population are beneath the poverty line, and in which this gap is partly based on racial divisions.
- A country that is torn between secular and religious values, where religion is often despised by secular people due to its influence over their affairs.
- A country whose past is deeply tied to the origins of the three large monotheistic religions.
- A highly polarized society, not only between Jews and Palestinians, but also between various subgroups such as western and eastern Jews, Muslim, Druze and Christian Arabs, and secular and religious divisions that are particularly marked in some of these societies.
- Majority - minority phenomena and related fears that manifest on many levels: the Arabs are a minority in Israel; the Jews are a minority in the Middle East; Christians are a minority within Arab society, but Muslims feel denigrated within the Christian world.
With the complexity of these issues in mind GNRC Israel is planning to create an opportunity for meeting between Jewish, Muslim and Christian young people in Israel. With the opportunity for a dialogue and discussion through many issues they will attempt to find a common ground and shared values.
The material expressed in the Resource Kit for Interfaith and Ethics Education of the GNRC expresses very well what we would like to achieve in our own work with the young people.
This educational work with young people is made more urgent due to the global rise in antagonism between the "western" and Muslim worlds. In the Middle East there has been a rise in religious extremism on all sides that has added fuel to the conflict in a variety of ways.