Israeli Students Visit Baltimore to Promote Dialogue and Coexistence

Gazing around the hall at a roomful of about 80 energetic high school students last Wednesday night at Liberty Grace Church, Dr. Harriett Wimms offered thoughts of praise.

“I’m looking at the future — literally,” said Wimms, founder and executive director of Baltimore’s Jews of Color Mishpacha Project.

That evening, the future included Black, white, Jewish, Arab, Druze, Muslim and Christian youth. The “Unity Supper” at Liberty Grace, in the Ashburton community, was held in the midst of the Oct. 19-26 visit to Baltimore from Israel by 24 participants of the Galilee Dreamers project. The group also visited New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

The three-year program is spearheaded by the Oranim International School near Haifa. Now in its 10th year, the program annually brings together Arab and Jewish high school students from the Galilee region to the United States and other countries to discover common ground and meet peers from around the world.

The program was co-founded by Dr. Desmond M. Kaplan, a South African-born Israeli-American psychiatrist who now lives in Baltimore, and Rabbi Paul D. Schneider, former head of school at Pikesville’s Krieger Schechter Day School.

With the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza, Rabbi Schneider said the need to create discourse and trust among youth in the region is more urgent than ever.

“There’s a lot of despair, yes, and I think it’s growing,” he said. “It is important to bring together Jewish and Arab students and start a dialogue with the goal of promoting shared society.”

While in Baltimore, the Galilee Dreamers also met with students at Krieger Schechter, the Park School of Baltimore, Friends School of Baltimore, St. Timothy’s School and Har Sinai-Oheb Shalom Congregation.

In addition, they visited the American Visionary Art Museum and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, as well as attended the “Harvest Music Festival” at Reisterstown’s Pearlstone Retreat Center and Campus.

At the “Unity Supper” at Liberty Grace, local attendees included approximately 60 members of the Elijah Cummings Youth Project, Baltimore Jewish Council Social Justice Fellows, and Art with a Heart.

Liberty Grace, offered by Pastor Dr. Terris A. King and his family, was an ideal venue for the gathering, given the history of the church in Baltimore’s Jewish and Black neighbor community relations. 

Among the speakers was Christine Gallagher, head of program and program director for teachers and schools at the Baltimore-based Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies, who offered a lesson on the differences between dialogue and debate. 

Dazia Wallerson, event organizer and senior project lead at the Leap Forward organization, said the objective of the “Unity Supper” was for attendees to “share their lives, their experiences, and also talk about how we can live in a shared society.”

If the conversation volume in the church hall was any indication, the organizers certainly succeeded in their mission. Students sat at tables sharing pizza, pasta, salad, art projects and lots of questions. Religious beliefs and practices, culture and favorite foods were among the most popular topics.

“We were curious about what languages were being spoken,” said Tannea, 16, an ECYP participant.

Jordan, 17, who also is a member of ECYP, wanted to ask the Galilee Dreamers, “What are the stereotypes you deal with?”

Among the Galilee Dreamers was Sarah H., who lives in Yarka, a Druze village near Karmiel in northern Israel’s Galilee region. She said she was struck by how people were surprised to learn how Arabs and Jews live together in Israel.

“They really want to understand how we live together, how we respect each other,” she said.

On a different note, Yotam, 16, who lives in Kibbutz Kadarim, also in the north, said he was disappointed by “the lack of salads [in the U.S.]. In Israel, salads are a must in every meal. But [here] you rarely have salads — real salads, not like a bunch of vegetables cut up in a bowl.”

Earlier that day, the Galilee Dreamers stopped by Beth Am Synagogue in Reservoir Hill and met with Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg and Rabbi Tyler Dratch. They learned about the history of the onetime German-Jewish neighborhood and how it evolved to include African-American, Afghan and “new” Jewish families.

They also heard about the weekly Byron McKenney-Powell Free Community Market hosted at Beth Am from Gregory Johnson, the market’s manager and a Reservoir Hill resident.

In addition, the Galilee Dreamers got a chance to kibbitz with Beth Am’s Jewish Discovery Lab students, ages 9 to 12, who peppered them with questions about their lives, especially about the Druze faith. 

“Druze religion is very unique,” explained Sarah H., who was delighted that so many people were curious her beliefs and values. “We believe in one God, and we have three main principles that we need to protect at all costs. The first one is we need to protect our land. The second one is we need to protect our religion. It’s like a secret religion. And the third one is we need to protect the woman’s honor. It needs to be safe.”

When recruiting students for the program, Dr. Rachel Revsin-Ravid, director of Galilee Dreamers, said she looks for those who are “willing to have the courage to act differently, to act not according to what is expected but to try and think of what they want to change.”

Ultimately, Galilee Dreamers is about self-growth and transformation.

“I want to change my perspective of not being judgmental,” said Sarah H. “I want to go back to Israel and look [at] people [with] perspective and understanding, not the judgmental way.”

Said Yana, who also lives in Yarka: “It doesn’t matter where you come from, what’s your culture, what’s your background. The most important thing is to be respectful toward each other.”

Galilee Dreamer William G., who lives on Moshav Amrim in the northern Galilee, agreed. The son of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, he said programs like Galilee Dreamers are crucial in breaking down barriers “because no country can survive when there’s so much chaos inside of it, and with the amount of wars Israel is facing, it is bound to collapse if it’s not united inside.” 

For information, visit galileedreamers.com.