Sponsored by the David, Ursula, & Adina Michaeli Memorial Education Fund at Shaare Zedek

Shaare Zedek welcomes peace educator, community organizer, and political activist Dr. Merav Ben-Nun to our community. After kiddush lunch, Dr. Ben-Nun will talk about the challenges, successes, and motivations for building a shared, Jewish-Arab community and educational model in today's deeply divided Israel through Hand in Hand, which brings together thousands of Jews and Arabs in six schools and communities throughout Israel. She will talk about trust, friendship, and politics that make up the fragile base for this undertaking. Dr. Ben-Nun will touch upon her personal story, about what lit her passion for the advancement of a more equal and democratic Israeli society -- a background that includes grandparents who were Holocaust survivors and a deep appreciation for the values of democracy, influenced in part by her experience teaching about American democracy to Fulbright scholars at NYU.

Dr. Merav Ben-Nun, who received her PhD from NYU in International Education, is based in Haifa, Israel. She has been working for Hand in Hand, the umbrella organization of the Hebrew-Arabic bilingual integrated schools and shared communities, for the past six years. Merav dealt with the immense challenges of breaking the rooted segregation of the Israeli educational system, as the founder and first principal of the bilingual preschool in Haifa and in building Haifa's Jewish and Arab shared community. Merav is also one of the leaders of a group of intellectuals and political activists calling for Jewish-Arab political cooperation, reflecting the shared society that already exists.

We welcome guests to services beginning at 9:30 a.m. and lunch at noon, prior to Dr. Ben-Nun's talk.

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