The UJA sponsored program to reduce intra-communal conflicts among Beta Israel conducted its eighth session, this time, under the shadow of missile attacks. The uptick in the war against Hizbullah had an effect both on the mindset of the participants as well as on their physical ability to participate in the program. At one point, some of the participants who lived in the North needed to flee their computers and head to bomb shelters.
After discussing the schedule for the rest of the program (this meeting was dedicated to students presenting their interim reports, the next meeting will be dedicated to a lecture from Adv. Kaso and the students presenting their final reports, and the last event will be a summary conference), we summarized the last meeting and briefed the group on a fruitful discussion we had with our UJA partners in this program.
The participants reviewed the framework for documenting the final report about their interventions which will be used in the next and last session in this framework.
After completing the introductions, the meeting centered on the participants’ presentations of interim reports about their community interventions. Interventions included: Developing the self-identity of Beta Israel in the short and long term, body language and non-verbal communication in the Ethiopian community as a way of preventing and sometimes causing misunderstandings, Joint projects between the Ashkenazi and Beta Israel community.
