Israel boasts impressive ethnic, religious and social diversity, with lines drawn over several axes, including Jewish-Arab, Orthodox-secular, Mizrahi-Ashkenazi, man-woman-non-binary, just to name a few. Despite this impressive diversity, most local citizens and residents have little to no opportunities for meaningful positive contact with people outside of their identity groups, resulting in disrespect, ill feelings and sometimes even fear. This is especially true for Arabs and Jews, who live almost entirely in separate societies. Mabat combats this challenge by providing citizens with the tools necessary to engage positively in a multicultural society.
Based on leading multicultural education models, Mabat was founded in 2008 to address challenges with diversity at Israeli college campuses. Mabat recognized the college campus as the first and possibly the last common space that diverse populations meet on equal footing. Yet even on campuses where diverse students share the same space, they often remain segregated along ethnic, religious, and cultural lines. Mabat was established to create conscious frameworks to bring together students from diverse backgrounds for transformative encounters over accredited, yearlong leadership seminars at Israeli academic institutions. In the past 10 years, Mabat has implemented 100 accredited courses on 10 campuses, building a network of over 1,700 alumni across Israel. All programs are co-funded by partner institutions of higher education.
Now ten years in, Mabat is exploring additional opportunities to create shared spaces for Israel’s diverse groups. Mabat’s methodology is easily replicable, and can be applied to the workplace, public health institutions, sports teams and other frameworks. In the coming year, Mabat intends to take its model beyond the university campus.
MaMabat also employs 12 facilitators and coordinators who lead ongoing projects and community initiatives. Mabat facilitators are ethnically and culturally diverse, and have training and experience in facilitating inter-group dialogue and project management
In addition, Mabat participants and alumni serve as student-coordinators who take on a leadership role and coordinate Mabat activities at their universities and colleges.
Lior, who has served as the director of Mabat since 2009, has 20 years’ experience in informal education and non-profit project management. He holds a master’s degree in education from Ben Gurion University.
Daniel is an organizational and educational consultant. He has a master’s degree from Brandeis University in the fields of business management and community service, and an additional masters in education from the University of New Hampshire. Currently, Daniel is the Director of the Leadership Development Institute at Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston
Formerly the CEO of the Jerusalem International YMCA, Forsan holds an MBA from Harvard University, an MA in international relations and global economics from John Hopkins University. Forsan has 20 years of experience in co-existence activities between Jews and Arabs, including cross-border projects between Palestinians and Israelis.
Meron is the director of the pre-college preparatory program at Kinneret Academic College, and is a doctoral candidate at the University of Haifa.
Eran is the Israel director of Sefaria, a free, living library of Jewish texts. He is a social entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience working with Jewish initiatives.
International lecturer and first Israeli Arab selected for the prestigious Rhodes Scholar Scholarship Program in Oxford. Founder of Peaceful Infusions, an Arab-Israeli social enterprise promoting the employment of Arab women in Israel.
Director of Knowledge Resources at Branco Weiss, has been publishing in educational and social organizations for more than 30 years. Resident of Modi’in
The former Dean of Students at Beit Berl College and currently a doctoral candidate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Ziad is also a resident of the joint Jewish-Arab community Neve Shalom-Wahat al Salam.
Harimon 45, PO Box 192, Ein Ayala
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