Jewish-Muslim Women’s Leadership Initiative: A Program for Peaceful Dialogue

Abstract

Resolving cultural and political conflicts, building peace around the world, and reorienting our societies towards harmony and justice are goals that scholars and practitioners across many fields seek to attain. When faced with challenges such as these, education serves as a promising tool for helping the next generation of global citizens and leaders to develop skills in peaceful cross-cultural communication. This chapter explores one such education initiative — the Jewish-Muslim Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) — which brought together graduate and undergraduate women from Jewish and Muslim backgrounds to collaboratively explore the possibility for mutual understanding and inter-cultural cooperation. Set in the context of US higher education, the processes and outcomes of the WLI point to several interesting implications for those engaged in peacebuilding and conflict resolution, both within and beyond the field of education. Using qualitative research methods and analyses, this chapter describes the WLI, discusses the theoretical foundations of this type of pedagogical approach, and explores both difficulties and successes of the program with regard to its goals of fostering intercultural communication and collaborative action.