Photo by Shulamit Seidler-Feller

Our Programs

Encounter’s educational programs equip Jewish leaders with a more textured understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Participants return with a renewed commitment to engaging with perspectives entirely different from their own, and a dedication to leading new conversations in their communities. Through our Immersive and Continuing Education programs, Encounter is building the capacity of the Jewish people to confront the complexities of Israeli-Palestinian issues and lead in new ways. For a complete list of our upcoming programs click here.

Photo by Shulamit Seidler-Feller

Immersive Education

Our programs offer Jewish leaders’ an opportunity to augment their understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Encounter’s Immersive Education programs invite Jewish influencers to visit the West Bank and East Jerusalem to meet Palestinian civil society leaders with a diverse cohort of their peers.

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Photo by Shulamit Seidler-Feller

Continuing Education

Encounter convenes open, honest and uncensored discussion on issues at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Our continuing education programming offers Jewish leaders opportunities for ongoing learning through encounters with Palestinians and thought leaders on the conflict. Tailored programming for past participants provides a platform to leverage their membership in Encounter’s wider community, accessing a network of thoughtful peers to serve as thought partners and exchanging best practices with colleagues.

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So important to put faces and images to labels we read about. So important to humanize those often pitted as our enemies. So important to do so with Jews in a context of Ahavat Yisrael. Rabbi David Wolkenfeld Senior Rabbi, Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel

Essential and transformative. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl Senior Rabbi, Central Synagogue

It is a duty to listen to all the stories if you wish to have a properly functioning moral compass. Rabbi Steve Greenberg Executive Director, Eshel

Encounter's value is being one of a kind in creating a thoughtful, safe space [and a] responsible and diverse cohort of inspiring colleagues who can support each other in engaging the conflict in our communities. It offers Jewish leaders access to the voices we want to be talking to and with and about from the other side of the messiest, most personal global conflict we are in some way all a part of. It softens our ears and hearts even while dogmatically resisting specific political solutions or pat answers. Rabbi Steven Exler Senior Rabbi, Hebrew Institute of Riverdale

I have totally opened to a new perspective on the conflict, one that I thought I understood but I now realize that I did not. Rabbi David Schuck Rabbi, Beth El Synagogue Center