Continuing Education

The trip forever colors your understanding of the security of Israel… It deepens your knowledge and exposure no matter how much you've read. Angie Atkins Director of Heritage Alumni, Wexner Foundation

The Encounter experience was such a powerful reminder of the importance of face-to-face interaction. After listening to and learning from actual Palestinian human beings, it’s impossible to revert to grand pronouncements about ‘the Palestinians’ as an undifferentiated, homogenous collective: They’re just as complex, multi-dimensional, thoughtful, and fallible as the rest of us. What a gift to be reminded of that elusive truth in this era of insidious generalizations. Aaron Dorfman President, Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah

So important to put faces and images to labels we read about. So important to humanize those often pitted as our enemies. So important to do so with Jews in a context of Ahavat Yisrael. Rabbi David Wolkenfeld Senior Rabbi, Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel

Being in some of the actual places most impacted by the conflict with one's actual body, feelings and self along with a cohort of incredibly thoughtful, passionate Jews who know a lot about the conflict and care deeply about Jews, Israel and the conflict itself, allows for an encounter with living history deeper than any panel, essay, sermon, or organizing session ever could. David S. Koffman Assistant Professor of History, Israel & Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, York University

Encounter is an opportunity to engage more deeply and seriously in the most pressing issues facing the Jewish people today. You need this. Not because you will emerge with solutions or talking points, but because you will break through and dive beneath the facile talk about solutions and talking points… Jon A. Levisohn Director, Mandel Center for Studies in Jewish Education, Brandeis University