Interview with JoU facilitator, Aliza Gold

Last November, Aliza Gold took part as a facilitator in her first Journey of Understanding (JoU), a bi-national dialogue programme which brings together young Israelis and Palestinians. During these two-weeks, alongside Suma Qawasmi, Aliza co-facilitated group discussions and activities on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, challenging the participants perceptions of one another and the conflict.

Beyond her work with Encompass, Aliza works as the USAID Compliance Officer for the NGO Yozmot Atid where she focuses on a programme that brings together Jewish and Palestinian women from West and East Jerusalem who desire to establish their own businesses as a way to gain economic independence and financial security. Prior to this, Aliza has worked with various other peace-building organisations such as The Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue and with Jerusalem Peacebuilders. She has a Masters degree in Conflict Research, Management, and Resolution and has completed a dialogue facilitation training programme led by the NGO Tomorrow’s Women.

In the run-up to the next JoU, we caught up with Aliza to find out about her motivations for working in the field of conflict resolution, her experience as a facilitator in last year’s programme, and her plans for the upcoming Journey of Understanding: 

“My name is Aliza Gold. I live in Jerusalem, but was born and raised in Colorado in the U.S. Having grown up as a Reform Jew, Israel was always important to me, as it signified the history of my ancestors and my homeland. Yet, Reform Judaism as well as the community I grew up in in Colorado, also instilled in me very liberal values, such as “Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof” (Justice, Justice, you shall pursue) and “Tikkun Olam” (Repairing the World). From a young age, I took interest in understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at a deeper level, and knew that it was not black and white. It became an interest and career goal, to work in the field of conflict resolution and peace-building.  

I joined Encompass as a JoU facilitator last November as I had recently completed dialogue facilitation training and worked as a facilitator at a summer camp for the 16-17 age group, and I was looking for more opportunities to facilitate. I had heard about JoU from Yishai Pulvermacher, who is an alumnus of the programme and also had recently become the Israeli coordinator. From everything he had told me, it sounded like an amazing and impactful programme, and I was incredibly excited for the opportunity to take part in its facilitation.”

As a JoU facilitator, Aliza is involved in the planning of the programme’s discussions and activities, deciding on what topics should be addressed and how. In the run-up to the programme, she meets with her co-facilitator to plan the structure and content of the dialogue sessions: 

“We discuss what topics we want to cover as well as what activities we want to use to lead into the group dialogue. In addition, we discuss our styles of facilitation and what tactics we want to use to be able to communicate with each other during dialogue and facilitate fluidly. I personally also go over notes from my dialogue facilitation training to remind myself how to use the different facilitation tools such as reframing and asking for others to reflect and respond to what another has just said.

In my opinion, a good facilitator is one that can guide a discussion on a topic and help the participants to converse. What I mean by this is that it is not just asking a question and having each participant share what they think, rather, helping the participants to engage and respond and reflect on what others have said. Additionally, the role of a facilitator is to challenge the participants to keep their minds open and try to step into the shoes of the other to understand their point of view. The facilitator should prompt deeper thinking as well as be there to aid in misunderstandings that might occur. 

Some of the topics we explore in our sessions are history, national narratives, personal narratives, current events, nonviolent activism and the future. Each session has its own topic and an activity that segues into a dialogue. One of my favourite activities is called the Tree Activity. This activity promotes thinking about the conflict at a deeper analytical level. In mixed groups of 4 or 5 people, the participants are asked to draw a tree on a large piece of paper. Through group work, they are to analyse the root causes of the conflict, the definition of the conflict, and the negative consequences of the conflict. On the roots of the tree they are to write down the root causes, on the trunk of the tree they are to write the definition, and on the branches of the tree they are to write down the negative consequences. After the activity, we rejoin as a whole group in a circle and discuss the activity and what they came up with. This leads to a more in-depth dialogue surrounding the conflict that moves beyond historical dates and events.”

As the next JoU soon approaches, the Encompass team are busy finalising the last few details of the programme and are eagerly anticipating what the next Journey may bring: 

“I am incredibly excited for the upcoming JoU. In this upcoming programme, the numbers regarding Israeli and Palestinian participants are equal, and I feel this will lead to more engaging and impactful dialogue. My hope is that the participants will continue to grow from this experience and that they will undergo meaningful transformations.

Programmes like JoU are incredibly important because they bring together people who would otherwise never have the opportunity to meet. There are many dialogue programmes and encounter programmes inside Israel that bring together Jewish Israelis and Palestinian Citizens of Israel or East Jerusalemites, but programmes that meet Palestinians from the West Bank with Jewish Israelis are hard to come by. Most of these Palestinian participants have never met Jewish Israelis, and most of the Jewish Israeli participants have never met Palestinians from the West Bank. 

One of the biggest criticisms towards dialogue programmes is that they only bring together people who are already “left-wing” or pro-peace. Yet, I have found that, while this to an extent may be true, the dialogue sessions are still incredibly fruitful and the participants still gain a lot from them. Also, considering the age group of the participants, 20 to 28, this programme is important because these are the people who are now becoming the leaders in society. It is an important age group to work with as each of these participants is studying and working and growing into society’s new leaders.”