Category: conflict management/negotiation

  • When rockets fly overhead, look down at the grass.

    When rockets fly overhead, look down at the grass.

    When you’re a news junkie, everything sucks all the time. When you’re an optimist, you’ll never give up reading the news because something good is just around the corner. When you’re both… After 1.5 years of our co-directors building the 50:50 Startups tech accelerator against the backdrop of pandemic and evergreen conflict, it was really…

  • איך העולם הפך להיות מקום הרבה יותר נחמד

    איך העולם הפך להיות מקום הרבה יותר נחמד

    הספר שהילדים הביאו אליי לקרא הערב; אף פעם לא ראיתי אותו בבית שלנו… אין לי מושג מאיפה זה הגיע לכאן… אבל הערב, קראתי אותו. היה דבר נחמד איך העולם הפך להיות מקום הרבה יותר נחמד ג’וסלין מויזס פעם אחת, לפני הרבה זמן, היה עולם מלא בדברים לא נחמדים ואז פתאום משום מקום הגיע דבר מאוד…

  • On rocks, Arabs, talking it out, conflict, and more rocks.

    This, an hour after listening to the recent This American Life podcast on the way home from work; the one titled, #570: The Night in Question, the one about the Rabin assassination and associated conspiracy theories. “Listen, I want to talk to you about some stuff. Do your friends talk about Arabs in school?” “[My…

  • It takes people to conflict.

    In a total understatement, there’s been a lot going on in Israel lately. People say it’s the start of the third intifada (again), while other people call for the third intifada. Stabbings, shootings, stonings, molotov cocktails. Lynch mobs. And the beat plays on: the same media headlines, the same talkbacks, the same Facebook statuses. The…

  • A day in the life

    7:50 Find out about the breaking news from a friend on Whatsapp 8:05 Make sure to give huz and kid #3 a solid goodbye 8:10 Have sinking feeling about letting your kids go for the day 9:45 Pick up kid #2 for speech therapy, feel excited because it’s bonus kid time 10:45 Drop kid #2 off at gan…

  • What do Palestinians think this month? A public opinion poll

    A friend of mine at Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Jerusalem sent me these findings of a new Palestinian public opinion poll (conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, September 25-27, 2014). Coming a month after the end of the latest Gaza war, and a couple…

  • War time in Israel

    It’s different this time. I guess it’s always different. It’s different this time because I don’t have enough fingers to count how many people I know, by first or second degree, who are called up, serving or waiting to serve in Gaza. And whereas in the past I figured the odds were too out there,…

  • What’s more complicated than kidnapped teens, baby heart surgery, and life in Israel?

    What’s more complicated than kidnapped teens, baby heart surgery, and life in Israel?

    Day 10. My god. This country. What is more complicated than this goddamn country? This is a news segment on Channel 10 [Hebrew] profiling a father of a Makor Chaim schoolmate of the two 16-year-old kidnapped boys. He is also Dr. Dudi Mishali, a 20-year Tel HaShomer baby heart surgeon. He opens the chests of…

  • So that controversial Tzur Hadassah mikvah grand opening happened.

    So many mixed feelings. We moved here knowing there was no working mikva, and it may or may not get fixed one day. I’d say the same of most of the people who will end up using the now open-to-public-but-still-waiting-on-a-few-details Tzur Hadassah mikva. And it’s a pretty diverse but reasonable bunch – I’m guessing mostly…

  • Why is it still ok to call yourself retarded? To call your friends gay?

    Are you, indeed, retarded? Are you “less advanced in mental, physical, or social development than is usual” for your age? Do you have a mental handicap that requires you to be treated with a different sort of care? That makes certain life tasks more difficult? Are your friends being silly/dumb/foolish/loving actually gay? Are they attracted to…

  • #tomorrow13: Bill Clinton on Israel, peace, and how to change Us vs Them

    Another year, President Shimon Peres turns 90, and we join together for the fifth Israeli Presidential Conference. I know there’s quite a bit of criticism and controversy when it comes to the event. It comes from a good place but there are also good questions to ask about who isn’t present and what isn’t said. But…

  • What kids (don’t even know they) know.

    Sitting with Bebe on the couch. Flipping through a Time magazine. “Tomatoes!” “Yeah! That’s right.” “Balloons!” “Yup.” “Ima!” She points to the photograph of an unidentified woman holding a picture of Arafat Jaradat, the Palestinian prisoner who died while in Israeli custody. And then she repeats it. “Ima!” And points to me.