Academic Study Tours to Israel - Jewish Community Relations Council

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PROGRAMS:

Scholars as Bridge Builders: Exploring the Role of Scholars in the Israeli-Palestinian Context

This seven-day Study Tour to Israel and the Palestinian Territories is a key component of the Scholars as Bridge Builders Program. Each Study Tour takes about fifteen primarily non-Jewish faculty members, mainly from the Social Sciences and Humanities departments, diversity officers, and student life professionals of NYC colleges and universities to Israel. The Study Tours are designed to familiarize participants with Israel and explore the roles that higher education, specifically faculty members, can play in community relations and peace building. Additionally, the Study Tours promote relationships between participants and local scholars and experts.

Each Study Tour is organized with a specific academic focus.
The itineraries and meetings are designed according to the selected themes, enabling easier and more direct professional interactions between the participants and the experts they meet. Selected themes have included: peacebuilding and peacemaking, the environment and urban planning in conflict zones, education for peace and more.

Groups meet with leading scholars, campus administrators, representatives from civil society organizations, high level journalists, and public figures. Participants are able to gain a deeper understanding of the complex socio-political reality in Israel and the role that higher education plays and can play in it. It familiarizes participants with the region’s academic scene, features visits to universities and think tanks, hosts networking activities with Israeli colleagues, as well as tours of major points of strategic interest and holy and cultural sites. The groups travel around the entire country including major sites and cities such as Tel Aviv, Haifa, East and West Jerusalem, Ramallah, Akko, Sderot, Jaffa, Masada, and the Dead Sea.

Study Tour Testimonial

“…The tour as a whole is extremely well designed, conceptualized, coordinated, and executed. It has been a transformative experience; I am still slowly processing the vast amount of information that I have absorbed during the trip and have begun integrating my experience in Israel into my teaching.”

Study Tour Testimonial

…The mission of the trip is very important. More academics from the U.S. and perhaps even from Europe need to be on trips like this. What I was very impressed with was this was not a trip to whitewash any of the important and difficult issues…it was well suited for academic sensibilities and gave each of us a frame of reference for further critical inquiry…