IRD Activities

• An Open House to Understanding

  The Open House Peace Center in Ramle, Israel has a 20-year history as a beacon of Jewish-Arab reconciliation from its children's daycare to its multidisciplinary summer camp. Each year, Hebrew and Palestinian children and adults come together in a spirit of learning and joy at the centre's programmes. Fetzer is partnering with Open House in a four-pronged effort: professionally evaluating their work after 20 years of operation, enhancing communication through a multilingual website and social networking, initiating four joint programmes for Arabs and Jews in the area of youth leadership, interfaith women's groups, public arts, Arab nursery school mothers' support group, and strengthening their annual summer peace camp

• Camp, Conference Bring Muslim-Buddhist Understanding

  As part of its Buddhist-Muslim Dialogue Series in Indonesia, the Centre of Asian Studies and Fetzer Institute organised a seven-day youth camp for young leaders of both communities as well as a national dialogue conference between prominent leaders of both faiths to promote mutual respect and religious diversity.The camp experience fostered love and forgiveness in participants through several forms of interfaith dialogues and political reconciliation. These included opportunities for Buddhist and Muslim youth to develop friendships through shared tasks and exchanges of differing viewpoints, fostering harmonious life between Buddhists and Muslims in Java and Indonesia nationwide, providing the data for local and national leaders in making decisions - particularly on the issue of religious pluralism, fostering, and strengthening constructive relationships between Buddhist and Muslim youth leaders, as future leaders of the nation

• Guiding Future Leaders to Abraham's Path

  The Fetzer Institute partnered with Abraham's Path Initiative to conduct a workshop in Turkey aimed at educating and inspiring future leaders. In large part, exposure to the path and enough space to experience it are keys to growing love and forgiveness, organisers say. The 29 participants came from countries including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, the USA, and, the UK. The conference activities included experiences of walking in Urfa and Harran, homestay in a village called Yuvacali, visits to heritage sites, and, time to discuss the story of Abraham through folklore, films, scriptures, essays and photographs contributed by the participants

• Islam and Forgiveness

  Supported by the Fetzer Institute and the Simpson Center for the Humanities, this symposium invited reflection on the meanings, processes, and effects of forgiveness in multi-layered, complex, and interdependent Muslim Societies. This project contributed to a growing literature on human rights, restorative justice, and reconciliation, with an emphasis on Muslim-majority societies in two ways - it engages with intellectual debates in Muslim-majority societies on questions of humanity and forgiveness, and it considers the application of Islamic restorative justice practices among Muslims

• Leading by Example Away From Cultural Violence

  The Fetzer Institute is working with Kudirat Initiative for Democracy to produce documentary films highlighting the powerful love and forgiveness shown by the area's exemplars, and soliciting more stories from online visitors to drive the message further. Two powerful stories have been highlighted and about 10 other exemplars have been nominated, which suggests the concept is resonating with the Nigerian public

• Triggering Peace in Strife-Torn Settings

  Researchers at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, Israel are using reconciliation and understanding interventions in hopes of breaking long histories of division and violence in the Middle East. The study, set against the tense background of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other Middle East strife, seeks to establish and define practices to re-architect biological and social "switchboards" toward more inclusivity and empathy and away from us-versus-them mindsets. The work is unique in its combination of empathy training intervention and biological testing of brain, hormonal and physiological processes along with social behavior

• UK Museum of World Religions

  Love and forgiveness are key internal and shared components of religions around the world, and a collaboration between the Fetzer Institute and a new Museum of World Religions in the UK aims to draw out and enhance those connections in an interfaith setting. Birmingham, UK was chosen as the site for a new Museum of World Religions due to its multicultural, interfaith community, European character and central location in the United Kingdom

• Broadening "All-Denominational" Chautauqua

  Chautauqua and Fetzer brought together leaders of world religions to discuss and design methods, for conversation with the 170,000 Chautauqua summer season participants, that enhance awareness of the transformative power of love and forgiveness to help neutralise religious prejudices

• Peacemakers Extend Interfaith Efforts in Philippines

  An interfaith organisation based in Metro Manila, Philippines, in partnership with the Fetzer Institute, has brought its peacebuilding efforts to areas of armed conflict in Mindanao. This is to promote love and forgiveness in that southern region of the country where conflict has been raging sporadically for decades between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and government troops. The Peacemakers' Circle Foundation, Inc. (TPCFI) has been engaged in building relationships of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation among people of diverse cultures and beliefs in Metro Manila since 2001. Today, TPCFI has inspired the creation of Muslim-Christian cooperative organisations in four communities around the metropolis. Its members support each other in their effort to live up to the teachings and ideals of their respective faith traditions and engage in co-creative actions that promote peace, justice, and healing in their communities

• Playing for Peace in the Middle East

  PeaceMaker is an award-winning strategic video game about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict designed to encourage open minds and hearts when considering the conflict and the affect it has on each side. Since 2007, the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa, Israel has used the game in workshops for Israeli and Palestinian youth—run separately for each group. Now, groups will play together for the first time. The Fetzer Institute is working to increase awareness of the difficult issues by supporting workshops in which 15- to 18-year-old Israelis and Palestinians will play the game together. Results will be analysed with an eye on developing values such as empathy, compassion, love, and forgiveness

• Stories of Faith - A Doorway to Interreligious Appreciation

  Storytelling opens the door to admiration and empathy by pointing us toward the hidden, underlying spiritual harmony that connects us all. The power of mutual admiration was a central theme during the three-day “Stories of Practical Holiness” conference held in spring 2012 at the University of Notre Dame. Tales that cut across religious boundaries, from an Israeli woman and Palistinean man becoming friends through a homeland struggle to Christian monks putting their lives on the line for the Muslim community hosting them, provided inspiration for the gathering. Conference coordinators also shared ways to build interfaith understanding through stories like these when communicating with spiritual and secular audiences.

Main Focus Countries of Activities

Ramle, Israel - Indonesia - Turkey - Seattle, WA, USA - Nigeria - Tel Aviv, Israel - Birmingham, UK - Chautauqua, NY, USA - Manila, Philippines - Jaffa, Israel - South Bend, IN, USA