How we work
Our work is centered around hosting seminars that bring together individuals from Palestine, Israel and Germany for 7 to 10 days in either Palestine/Israel or Germany. During these meetings, we aim to facilitate profound personal encounters, learning experiences and invitations to transformation. To achieve this, we employ a variety of approaches which we have learned, developed and reflected over years. The aim is to encourage participants to share their experiences, listen to one another with an open heart and being challenged by the humanity which we all carry within us.
Participants bring their backgrounds: contested spaces and contradicting narratives, experiencing violence through suffering, surviving, justifying or employing it – directly or indirectly through their society or their ancestors.
This bundle of often suppressed biographical and transgenerational luggage including old and ongoing trauma is part of the people in the room, normally kept outside, projected into “the other” or acted out in justifications. Thus it cuts into each ones liveliness and potential. But unseen behind this wall of trauma and narratives there is another part – our common humanness. We share the same feelings, aspirations, longingness, need for safety, acceptance and love. We can open up for seeing and feeling it, when we slowly – snail-like – experience trust in an environment of safety, respect, authenticity and support.
Our skilled teams of facilitators and supporters are in ongoing reflective and accompanied processes to be able to hold these spaces.
Guidlines for our Seminars
Representation
In order for praticipants to find trust in the facilitation each of the three national identities are represented in our facilitation and support team. We pay attention to bring facilitators of differnt backgrounds and gender.
Process Orientation
Each group, each situation is unique. Our seminars are not following a repeating syllabus but work with what occurs and finds relevance in the process. The facilitators stay sensitive to what is needed in the group and directs the program to be coherent with it.
Fostering Unsettling Empathy
“unsettling empathy”, as descibed by Björn Krondorfer (Arizona University) is a profound form of empathy that not only evokes compassion for the suffering of others, but also triggers a disturbing emotional confrontation with one’s own feelings and the complex social dynamics that characterize human interaction.
Balancing Needs
For challenging processes to develop in a nourishing manner, it is essential to address participants’ human needs at all levels in a balanced way. This involves harmonizing intensity with relaxation, fostering both dialogue and inner reflection that engage the mind, emotions, and body. It also requires a blend of formal and informal settings, invitations for seriousness alongside humor, and to focus on both personal experiences as well as collective narratives and identity.
Past Seminars
Steps through Fire 2024
Due to the particularly tense situation, only participants who already have experience in dialog with “the other” were invited to this 10-day seminar a view months after the 7th of October.
“This experience changed my life. It was powerful, authentic, empowering. There was a true feeling that we can understand each other, see the common ground and be empathetic. The facilitators and the supporters team was sensitive, and helped us to build trust and open our heart in a safe environment. Even though there were many moments I felt that it’s too painful, I felt always understood. I took a lot from this seminar to my daily life, reflecting how I can enhance the mutual understanding between the three groups.”
Face to Face 2022 – Next Level
Beit Jala, Palestine
Follow Up Semiar for participants from former seminars.
Face to Face 2022
House Emsen close to Hamburg, Germany
Face to Face
2019
Rotenberg Germany
“To make it short – we should never come to conclusions without meeting the truth, Face to Face!” (Israeli participant)
Step Into Fire
2018
Beit Jala, Palestine
Facilitation Training for FAB by Björn Krondorfer
This unique facilitation experience allowed the group to feel in intimate ways the reality of the conflicts while being asked at the same time to be responsible for moving the process forward.
DIALOG – In conflict
situations
2017
Beit Jala, Palestine
Risk the Encounter 2016
Beit Jala, Palestine
This year’s seminar was about feeling the own and collective borders which hinder us to be open for other concepts, to approach other people, and to reach out hands for peace.
“The word occupation shocked me. We connect it with conquering land. But in the seminar I realized and understood that it is not only about occupying land but occupying freedom. I think all Israeli society should know that.”
(Israeli participant)“For the first time I was with Israelis and felt safe.”
(Palestinian participant)“I realize that I want to stand up against neo-Nazism and racism.”
(German participant)
Right NOW – Touching Borders 2015
Beit Jala, Palestine
This year’s seminar was about feeling the own and collective borders which hinder us to be open for other concepts, to approach other people, and to reach out hands for peace.
Between Trauma and Politics 2015
Beit Jala, Palestine
In the midst of the Gaza ground war, FAB convened an intergenerational seminar in Talitha Kumi in Palestine – one of very few meetings which brought together Israeli Jews and Palestinians (and, in our case, Germans) without a specific political protest agenda and for several days.
Between Trauma and Politics 2014
Freiburg, Germany
How can we facilitate international and intercultural encounters that move between memory work and management of current conflicts? During the workshop-seminar, the participants will learn how the multifaceted interrelations between traumatic memory and political conflicts can be addressed and transformed within intercultural group work.
German article about our work
Badische Zeitung: “Der Holocaust steht wie ein Elefant im Zimmer” Mi, 19. march 2014
An interview with our long-standing member Julia Chaitin from Kibbutz Urim, Israel (German)
Spiegel: “Mein Brieffreund, der Todfeind” 17. July 2014
German article about our work
STUTTGARTER ZEITUNG: “Insel der Menschlichkeit”
1 8 . A u g u s t 2 0 14
Between Trauma and Politics 2013
We dealt with the interrelations between traumatic memory and political conflicts addressed and transformed within intercultural group work. With the help of interactive and creative approaches, which pay particular attention to personal awareness and group-specific dynamics, we became aware of the narrative, psychological, and political patterns that disrupt and prevent interpersonal and communal empathy.
The Art of Building a Vision for FAB
2012
Greece
This seminar was also attended by some new members and former students and started with critical reflections about our previous work in FAB. Special attention was given to the clarification of group dynamics against the background of political tensions in the Middle East, and to ways for continuing FAB’s work if the political situation should escalate further.
International Student Seminar
2012
Final meeting Peace-Carrier Training – IV
and FAB planning seminar
Jerusalem, Israel
For the attending students this was the last international meeting. This meeting was expanded from the original final student meeting into a reflection and planning session on the future work of FAB.
Supervison
2011
Beit Jala, Palestine
Development and strengthening of relations between the national groups and individual FAB members; reflections about individual and national loyalities. Exploration of diverging commitment among participants and Mentors within the course work produced deepened insights into and a better understanding of the different social conditions in the daily lives of Palestinians, Israelis, and Germans, as well as of cultural differences between them and their influence on our joint work in FAB.
Forgetting can be helpful but Remembering is necessary
2011
Bad Honnef, Germany
Meeting about the German-Jewish past
Empathy without Borders – (German) Desires and the Jewish Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
2011
Workshop of the 5th International Conference Würzburg “Conflict Transformation and Mysticism”
Appreciation versus Degradation
2011
International Student Seminar / Peace-Carrier Training – III
Frankfurt, Germany
The aim of this seminar was to familiarize participants with the nature of traumatic experiences, its effect on the individual and at the collective level, and ways to heal them. Gina Ross, a psychotherapist and founder of the International Trauma-Healing Institute, USA, and the Israeli Trauma Center in Jerusalem, lectured on the characteristics, classification and stages of traumatic experiences.
Israeli Independence vs. Palestinian Catastrophe Al Nakba 2011
International Student Seminar / Peace-Carrier Training – II
East-Jerusalem, Palestine
In this second seminar, participants explored the Israeli-Palestinian and Jewish-German past. Together they visited Yad Vashem and the villages Lifta, Sataf, Al Qastal and Al Malhah, which were destroyed during the „Nakba“. Together, the students listened to memories from the past and learned how the land of the former villages is used today.
Regaining Hope through Self-Awareness
2010
1st International Student Seminar / Peace-Carrier Training – I
Beit Jala, Palestine
The main aims of the seminar were to listen to the views and to understand the perceptions of the other sides in this trialogue; to gain a deeper understanding of conflict dynamics, to remain in contact and stay in dialogue with the others despite painful memories, prejudice and traumata, preserving their own capacity to empathize with others; and to explore together viable paths to oppose violence and contain its effects in violent surroundings.
„Peace is a tree and grows slowly“
2009
Wasmuthhausen, Germany
Meeting of German members with the intention to clarify their own personal, cultural and national background and their position within the trilateral framework of FAB’s Palestinian-Israeli-German peace work. Starting by exploring their own cultural roots and family upbringings, the perspective was then broadened to the tri-partite approach of FAB by introducing standpoints from the other groups.
“Dialogue”-Seminar
2009
Wasmuthhausen, Germany
Meeting of German members with the intention to clarify their own personal, cultural and national background and their position within the trilateral framework of FAB’s Palestinian-Israeli-German peace work. Starting by exploring their own cultural roots and family upbringings, the perspective was then broadened to the tri-partite approach of FAB by introducing standpoints from the other groups.
Meeting of the Facilitators
2008
Beit Jala, Palestine
Discussion, definition and agreement on the internal and external structure of FAB. First outline of the international training program.
Pilot project for mentors „Let me see through your eyes“
2007
Reimlingen, Germany
The purpose of this seminar was to introduce the Mentors, who had not met before, to come to know each other through intense personal encounters. Thus, they were able to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of conflict in the Middle East, to connect with each other and work together as a group, and to familiarize themselves with their tasks as supporters of the students in the Peace-Carrier-Program.
Configuration of Friendship Across Borders e.V
2004 – 2007 numerous meetings in Israel, Palestinian territories and Germany with Jewish Israelis, Palestinians and Germans
Basic work to organise and establish an Israeli, Palestinian and German group. Exchange and development of common targets concerning the future work of FAB.
Preparation and planning of the pilot project “Let me see through your eyes“.
