Center for Shared Society

Empowering Jewish and Palestinian Israelis to build a vibrant democracy together based on the values of equality, equity, and justice.

About the Center for Shared Society

The Center for Shared Society empowers Palestinian and Jewish Israelis to build a vibrant democracy together by working with change-agents across Israeli society to enhance, improve, and integrate the notion of shared society and positive Israeli-Palestinian relationships in as many frameworks and contexts as possible, with the aim of a broad positive impact throughout Israel.

“We foster deep and sophisticated conversations centered around identity, values, and commitments so that participants have the knowledge and relationships to work together to build a vibrant democracy in Israel based on the values of equality, equity, and justice.”

Rana Fahoum

Director, Center for Shared Society

Jewish-Arab tension, expressed through the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stems from many factors including systemic discrimination and cultural, ethnic, and religious differences; inadequate religious and cultural familiarity among the sectors makes the conflict even more acute. Many educators within the Jewish and Arab educational systems in Israel lack the tools and experience they need to effectively deal with the reality of conflict. They struggle to make the other’s culture accessible, address preconceived biases, and lead nuanced discussions, especially in the face of ongoing heightened tensions between Jews and Arabs.

All these factors amplify and widen sectoral gaps, deepen rifts, and have the potential to tear Israeli society apart. At the same time, separate education systems for Jews and Arabs in Israel and internal divisions within each population group compound the complexities of creating connection and familiarity between these populations.

Through the Center for Shared Society, which launched in the summer of 2022, the Shalom Hartman Institute is making a concerted effort to the lay the foundations of a shared society for Jews and Palestinians based on the values of justice, equality, and equity.

Goals of the Center for Shared Society

The Center aims to:

Build foundations for a shared society in Israel based on values of justice and equality
Curate new educational leadership programs for teachers, principals, and program. participants that will effectively promote the values of a shared society.
Continue to scale the flagship Min HaBe’erot educational program, specifically working with and educating more principals and teachers and strengthening programming for the alumni network.
Empower and equip leaders and change-agents from all aspects of life to build. coalitions of people who share the mission of forging a shared society in Israel.
Advance research with diverse Jewish and Palestinians voices to enrich the Hartman Institute’s program curricula.
Foster platforms for dialogue and discussion based on narratives that break stigmas and preconceived notions.

Research Seminars and Fellows

Through the Center for Shared Society, six Palestinian research fellows joined the Kogod Research Center in 2022. These fellows, alongside their Jewish colleagues, are working together on research seminars exploring key questions and challenges facing Israeli society today and developing innovative ideas to shape the public discourse. In 2022-23, Jewish and Palestinian research fellows participated together in the following research seminars:

Jewish-Arab Relations in Israel explores the challenges involved in building shared society in Israel by using religious, cultural, and national texts from Judaism and Islam, as well as texts from Jewish-Israeli culture and Arab Palestinian-Israeli culture, to examine the fundamental questions and tensions between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
Identity, Controversy, and Symbols in the Public Sphere in Israel considers the role of symbols in the public sphere in Israel and explores if and how symbols central to the identities of non-Jewish minorities in Israel might be integrated into public spaces for the purpose of promoting mutual understanding and good will.
Quran: The Holy Book of Islam deals with the structure, language, and content of the Qur’an. Jewish and Muslim fellows explore topics ranging from the uniqueness of God and the emphasis on monotheism, to ways of interpreting the Quran, and consider how Jews and Muslims can learn from each other’s sacred texts.