A Jew, an Arab, a secular guy and a haredi guy meet in a study center in the Arab village of Abu Ghosh, outside Jerusalem to study the Torah and the Quran. It could be the start of a joke, but it's actually something that's been happening recently, ever since the Hinam Center for Social Tolerance opened its religious school.
The Hinam Center was founded in the heart of Abu Ghosh, which has come to symbolize co-existence in Israel, to promote tolerate between people from different backgrounds. A 150-year-old stone building that sits on 500 square meters of land houses a study center, a religious school, a conference center and a research department. People attend lessons at the center that are designed to bring different members of different sectors of the population closer.
One such participant is Yisrael Cohen, 32, a married father of three from Jerusalem. Cohen is a graduate of the prestigious ultra-Orthodox yeshivas Or Elchanan and Mir. He also holds a B.A. in philosophy and is completing his doctoral thesis, which focuses on the philosophy of Halachah (Jewish law). When he is asked what prompted a haredi yeshiva student to earn a degree in philosophy, he answers, "Curiosity."
"Philosophy somehow complements what I learned about the Torah and Halachah," he says.
Cohen found his way to the Abu Ghosh study center because his brother recently taught there.
"What's being done there is very interesting. There are Jews and Arabs, haredim and secular people, and everyone sits together and studies in an attempt to find points of connection between Jewish tradition and other [religious] traditions, like Islam for example.
"A week ago, we talked about how Sephardic Halachah was shaped in light of the challenges that characterized Muslim countries, and it's a very interesting through line. We studied a response from Rabbi Mashash, a Moroccan rabbi, to a halachic question – and in the lesson there were Muslims and Jews, religious and secular, devout and secular Muslims, all of whom were committed to tradition. We saw how the [rabbi's] answer grew and developed in the historical context of life in Muslim countries, where Judaism or Jews were less threatened that in Ashkenazi countries," Cohen says.
According to Cohen, "politics stays out."
"People come and study with the belief that politics could sully the natural relations between humans as human beings. We don't talk about the nation-state law or similar things and we just arrive and learn together, which creates a positive atmosphere. Of course, political landmines can't be ignored altogether, but we try not to focus on them and just focus on learning. When we finish a lesson … we find a lot more bridges and common subjects than what politics has to offer."
'The Quran is similar to the Torah'
Arab students feel the same. Nail Zoabi, 47, a school principal and a father of four from the village of Nein near Nazareth in northern Israel, is a social activist who, unlike many of his colleagues in the Arab sector, supports national service for Israeli Arabs. He found his way to the Hinam Center because he knows its director, Yaron Kanner.
"I teach my students to love people, to coexist in the State of Israel and listen to and accept others," Zoabi says.
"My worldview is that the other is the other and I am me, but there is no contradiction between us, and we need to be in contact with each other. The values written down in the Quran are values of justice, mercy, love and listening [to others]. People think that the only content [in the Quran] is fundamentalist and used by lawbreakers, but that isn't what the Quran is like. In these meetings, I tell [the others] that the Quran's message is one of peace," Zoabi explains.
Zoabi is one of the teachers at the center.
"Arabs, Jews, students, teachers, haredi men and women have all taken part in my lessons, and I talked about what the Quran and the Torah have in common. There are a lot of shared values. Even the stories in the Quran and the Torah are similar, and when I started to read verses [from the Quran], the haredim didn't understand where I was reading from, because the stories about Abraham, Moses, Jacob, and others appear there, too. The story of the sacrifice of Isaac appears in the Quran exactly like it does in the Bible, just without the name Isaac," he says.
Zoabi agrees that political tension is left at the door.
"We are detached from it. … I think that political tension is created because politicians want to survive, and we aren't there. I feel comfortable sitting and studying with them [Jews]. Religion is a wonderful thing full of values and it connects us to each other. Both the Quran and the Bible talk about how to respect one another. Our problem in this country is that we don't know each other well enough. True, it's a small country, but the different populations still don't know each other. To really get to know each other, we need to sit down and talk – only then do the barriers fall away," he says.
'The agenda is a lack of agenda'
Kanner explains that "the Abu Ghosh study center teaches tolerance based on three principles. The first is that the students and teachers have a variety of identities: Arabs, Jews, religious, secular and haredi – everyone is welcome to study and teach. The second defining characteristic is that the topics taught are varied and there are no watchdogs who decide what can and cannot be taught. Any subject you'd want to study or teach, from any religion, ethnicity, sector or culture, can be studied. The third characteristic is that there is no agenda … or political line. Rather, the agenda is a lack of agenda. It allows everyone to feel that this is a place that fits them."
In the other existing study centers, Kanner says, "whether they're haredi or secular-Jewish, Reform or national religious, there is always a certain line, and if you don't fall along it, you feel like you don't belong there. We have no clear line, so it's for everyone. No one is anyone else's guest. We believe that different people really getting to know each other is the most effective tool in promoting a tolerant, respectful society."
According to Kanner, many attempts have been made to build bridges between different identity groups in Israel, such as organized meetings for students from secular and religious high schools.
"When I was in school, there was something like that, but it didn't accomplish anything. They meet for an hour and a half of arguments, where people come to win and only sharpen the positions and views that label them, and aren't really open to listen. They mainly focus on their own arguments. With all due respect to all the dialogue circles and dialogue tents [in Israel], there is another level when it comes to knowing others that brings in different depths of the other person's world – religion, heritage, family, and the challenges they face," he says.
"Through this kind of meeting, you stop seeing a haredi, an Arab or a settler, and first of all see them as human beings who, even if you disagree with them, you don't hate. And the dialogue is gentler and more respectful, and people are treated with empathy and humanity. The goal is for the open study center to bring different people together and have them get to know each other better. Because of that familiarity, people will become a little more tolerant of each other," Kanner says.
