Dr. Avi Elkayam

Head of the Shlomo Moussaieff Center for Research in Kabbalah Bar-Ilan University.

Dr. Elkayam has been a peace activist for over 12 years. He focuses on establishing a spiritual dialogue between religions to promote peace, love and understanding, mostly among Jews and Muslims in Israel, Palestine and throughout Europe.
 

Among Dr. Elkayam’s peace initiatives:
Dr. Elkayam is one of the founders of the Derech Avraham Israel Sufi Way. This group is open to Jews and Muslims and holds bi-weekly and weekend meetings and music and peace workshops, based on the Kabbalah, Hasidism and the Sufi Islamic mystical tradition.

Dr. Elkayam has also published Adon Ha’Shalom Siddur together with Rabbi Roberto Arbib and Shaikh Ghassan Manasra. This Siddur is a unique collection of prayers for peace from the three major monotheist religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in one book and in three languages – Hebrew, Arabic and English.

 

Ben Yeger

Ben Yeger is a peace activist and member of the Combatants for Peace as well as a teacher in the Medicine Movement and a drama therapist.
Over the last 25 years, he has focused on treating groups of people who have been cast aside by society, helping them to find and express their unique voice.

Content and Training Methods:
The course involves therapy by movement, an approach which focuses on the inner conflict of every individual, how it appears in daily life, and how can it be released. The workshop is based on the methods developed by Joanna Macy.

 

Dalit Eliahu Borantin

M.A Spiritual Psychology, University of Santa Monica, CA
Life coach developed the Coaching method based on the principles of Spiritual Psychology. Founder of “Mastery life coaching” the Israeli school for Spiritual Psychology.  Coaching, training and facilitating workshops for advanced communication, empowerment and Self-management skills and conflict resolution.

Content and Training Methods:
Communication skills such as Heart-Centered Listening, Seeing the loving essence and prizing build the basis for more advance Spiritual Psychology skills with emphasis on taking personal responsibility.
Teaching leadership skills in an experiential formant which enables us to see the other as a mirror of our consciousness and assist us in growing within our ability to be in the loving. The program is based on the programs developed in the University of Santa Monica – the world center for practicing the principles of Spiritual Psychology.

Dr. Daniel Nave

A lecturer in the Anthropology Department at Bar-Ilan University and the School of Environmental Studies at Tel Aviv University, Daniel Nave lived for a year among the Nayakas, a society of hunter-gatherers in the rainforests of southern India. His research focuses on the manner in which people in hunter-gatherer societies perceive nature and on the differences between this concept and those of other societies around the world.

In parallel with his academic research, Dr. Nave invests in experiencing and training in different forms of traditional meditation (Jnana, Kundalini Yoga and the Course in Miracles). He has a doctorate in anthropology, an MA in Prehistoric Archeology and other degrees in History and Education. During the 1990s, he participated in archeological digs at prehistoric sites dating from different periods.

Content and Training Methods:
The content presents the relationship between peace and the environment, the wisdom of listening and peace which emanates from self-knowledge.

 

Efrat sar Shalom - Hanegbi

Shalom Hanegbi has taught the “Course in Miracles” for 26 years and is one of the translators of this book and its appendices.She also trains teachers to be guides in the course. She initiated and founded the “Zman Midbar Eco-Spirit Lodge”, a spiritual ecological site in the Judean Desert. She is also a peace prayer Guide.
 

Content and Training Methods:
The lessons will be conducted according to concepts from the “Course in Miracles” – a change of mindset, relationships, the revealed and the hidden – the ability to expand and change goals, let go of guilt, being and maintaining the process of forgiveness, from the guide to the teachers – “A Course in Miracles” teaches rational leadership and the character development that supports such leadership and is especially designed for the training of young leaders.

 

Emma Sham-Ba Ayalon

BFA from the Art Academy, Bezalel, an ordained Jewish Renewal Rabbi, chaplain, artist, poet, peace activist and woman of vision. one of the vision holders for the creation of a Peace Research Village in the Middle East. her path is deeply connected and inspired by many years of engagement in the healing biotope - Tamera - Portugal.

We will  get to know the connection between inner and outer peacework, and the need of building a community - or a social model that implements and demonstrates a culture of peace at all levels of life including love and sexuality as an essential aspect of peacework. We will get inspiration from Tamara's political theory that claims that  there is a real possibility of creating a future without war, a future where there is enough water, energy, food and love for all mankind. According to the political theory, a small group of people can have a global impact if they manage to do the necessary critical turning point needed in our times - we will connect with our own vision and check how this this vision touches our deepest questions. We will experience vision work,  textual study, conversation, sharing, inner work and group work.

Prof. Eran Halperin

Political and social psychologist, Dean of the School of Psychology at the IDC.

Content and Training Methods:
The aim of Dr. Halperin’s research is to examine ways of changing national feelings by educational, communicational, and other types of interventions.

He examines why people support conflicts and go to war, and he tries to provide answers to questions pertaining to social psychology. In his doctorate, Dr. Halperin studied the influence and role of hatred in political processes, while trying to offer innovative ways of reducing that hatred. In his post-doctoral work at Stanford University, he developed a theory of emotions as psychological barriers in conflict resolution. The theory assists in explaining the unique role of each emotion in influencing the manner in which people behave in the context of a political conflict. When Halperin returned from his post-doctoral work, he began composing the theory of Emotion Regulation and did further research in the field of conflict resolution. His research showed that when one tries to understand the political decisions of people within a situation of harsh conflicts, the emotional component affects decision-making much more than other components such as ideology and cost vs. benefit. More importantly, his research showed that regardless of ideology people who learn how to regulate their feelings with respect to political events tend to respond more peacefully.
In an additional research series published in the prestigious Science Journal, Halperin and his partners at Stanford University asked how peace could be promoted in groups by reducing inter-group hatred. From the results of his doctoral thesis, he concluded that hate emanates from a deep belief that the external group is naturally evil and that it will never change. Therefore, in a long series of studies, the researchers brought the participants to believe that groups can change and thus dramatically lowered the hate levels between the groups, established more positive opinions, and increased the tendency to compromise. Halperin has conducted research on this topic in seven groups worldwide: Jews in Israel, Arabs in Palestine and Gaza, Arabs in Israel, and groups in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, the USA and the Netherlands.

 

Galia Halfi (Adv, peace maker)

Founder of Beshalom Disputes Settlement Center and develops the method of 'Ladder'.

During her work as a lawyer Galia felt that the areas of Law and Mediation do not address real conflicts settlement, leaving the disputants wounded and emotionally un- balanced. She went on a journey, during which she discovered and developed the method of 'Ladder', and wrote a book detailing the work through this method.

Learning a new language; the language of the ‘Ladder’:

Speaking the language of the Ladder means to enter the shoes of others, taking responsibility, forgive and create order from chaos through a list of practical steps to realize the new order. We use the Ladder as a scale to rise.

During the meetings we will experience together the power of the Ladder each time with another volunteer while the entire class actually climbs the scale on the same issue on the agenda. The process is experienced by the volunteer and by other members of the group. The meetings are experiential and during them a new language absorbed through original thinking that changes the perception of life and that helps us to rise to the place that we aspire to reach.

Gur Rotem

Echo log M.S.

Teacher of farmaculture . Founder of  “ ADAMAMA” An echological farm for experiments

and demostration in Moshav NIR MOSHE A peace seeker.

Content and Training Methods:

The connections  and rehabilitation of man- earth relations

Promotion  and creation of abundance consciousness .

Our position in the biosphere. And the planning of our life systems accordingly

Hagit Lipschitz

Summa Cum Laude in her MA studies on Educational Consultancy, BA in Education and Behavioral Science, Hagit Lipschitz is a senior guide in nonviolent communication certified by the Center for Nonviolent Communication (CNVC) and has over 20 years of experience in guidance. She trains guides and coaches in the field. Lipschitz is also an organizational consultant, personal and group coach, certified court mediator and trainer for aspiring court mediators. As a practitioner of meditation and activist in promoting inner and world peace, she specializes in leading discussion groups between religious and secular individuals,

Arabs and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis, and left- and right-wing people.

Lipschitz has some 30 years of experience in counseling people who are at turning points in their lives to help them transform conflict into opportunity. She is also editor and host of the “On Wolves and Giraffes” radio show.

Content and Training Methods:
Providing theoretical and practical tools for constructive communication in order to promote the relationship between an individual himself and others, to avoid conflicts and to treat things as they happen. Other methods are also presented.
* Tools for communication with people we find hard to communicate with
* Tools for reaching agreements and cooperation in challenging situations
* Empathy as a practical tool in any situation
* Establishing connection with a person that challenges me
* Self-expression and listening to others with no judgment
* Constructive relation to feelings, needs and requests
* Constructive relation to emotions such as anger, guilt, shame, envy, fear, depression
* Honesty in challenging situations; saying “No” and hearing “No”
* Dependency and independency
* Responsibility and choice
* Asking for and offering help
* Types of power
* Practical self-empathy
* Reconciliation, apology, and forgiveness
* Expressing gratitude toward myself and others

Method:
The workshop will include both theory and practical knowledge. This workshop is experiential and will include role-plays and simulations of typical situations in the life and work of the participants while also identifying conscious and unconscious patterns invoked in the participants in different situations and learning constructive methods of turning these into opportunities.

 

Kibbutz Neot Semadar

In the early 1980s, a group of Jerusalemites imagined the idea of creating a more harmonious and compassionate society that would explore the nature of man. As they were a practically-minded group, they established the Kibbutz Neot Semadar in 1989, in the South Negev. Here they set up a learning society whose members follow the group’s vision through work, relationships and observation.

 Content and Training Methods:
* Dynamics and challenges in mutual relationships and cooperation.
* The art of discussion, listening, observing, seeking and finding mutual goals.
* Acquiring practical skills in different fields such as agriculture, art, education and ecological building
* Development of environmental awareness – learning about different green lifestyles, including organic agriculture, ecological construction and creative solutions for renewable energy and water.  

 

Lama Dvora – Hella

Guide in the Buddhist tradition for many years, in particular according to Tibetan traditions, Lama Dvora is a student of Khen Rinpoche Geshe Lobsang Tharchin, a Tibetan teacher who was the head of the Sera Monastery and master of the Buddhist Tantra and who is considered the “First among the first” of modern Buddhism. Geshe Michael Roach, the first American to be awarded the Geshe degree, was his student.

Among the other important teachers under whom Lama Dvora has studied are Art Engle, Lama Christie McNally, the 14th Dalai Lama, and Zopa Rinpoche. Lama Dvora holds advanced degrees in mathematics and computer science and has taught mathematics for 20 years at different universities, worked in the prestigious Bell Labs in the USA, and been employed in analytic research by a financial company on Wall Street.
Lama Dvora has completed a 6-year program in advanced Buddhism at Diamond Mountain University in Arizona, USA, and in April 2014 she did a 3-year solitary retreat in the same place.
Lama Dvora teaches Dharma and other texts of the ancient Indian and Tibetan Dharma and Yoga, both in the US and Israel, and has been a staff member.
Lama Dvora also translates classical Buddhist and Tibetan texts into Hebrew, focusing on the Yoga tradition. She invests a great deal of effort and resources to promoting the Dharma tradition and peace in our area.

Content and Training Methods:
Peace and nonviolence in the Buddhist tradition.

 

Liat Ishay

A student and teacher walking the path for over 25 years, Liat Ishay is an initiator, artist, writer and guide to Peaceful Living – an inspirational journey to promote self-knowledge and peace in man and his surroundings as a practical and useful tool in daily life. Yoga and White Tantra Master, Shay trains teachers and personal and group guides for journeys of being and synced communication, in Israel and abroad.

She is the founder of the “Simply Do” association and is also currently active in the Simply Peace movement for developing leadership and awareness. She is the initiator of the concept behind the unique project “AB Love” – a platform for sharing between artists and creators, spiritual persons and content from all around the world, bringing them all together into the creation of a culture of peace.

Content and Training Methods:

‘Perspective’ – (the dictionary meaning) from the limited personal point of view . Each and every one will have the option, responsibility and opportunity for healing – Relation Shift.
We will draw new lines, learn new practical tools, practice western and eastern techniques, study empowerment cards and reflection papers , and reexamine concepts and terms. The workshop program includes music, breathing techniques, guided imagery, writing, discussion, movement, meditation, practical learning and experience and discussion of many unanswered questions. Individual and group discussion will be organized either in a hall or outdoors in nature. The dynamic and creative space will be created by the participants present at the time. The workshop will create a favorable environment for observing and working with emotional movement, stream of thought, behavioral patterns, constructed obstacles, and the alchemy of the moment.
The mind is confused; the ego refuses to forgive; a strong will to control holds tight, judgment and criticism reign; anger, guilt, and obstacles to awareness refuse to cooperate. But suddenly the heart remembers, and that suffices to allow a single, clear insight, the release in the smallness of humanity, the revelation of the values in each and every one, and the awakening to the great importance and value of peaceful relations – interpersonally and universally.

 

Dr. Yair Maimon

OMD PhD Ac. Dr. Yair Maimon is an internationally renowned figure in the field of Integrative and Chinese Medicine with over 30 years of clinical, academic, and research experience. Over the course of his career, he has developed a special discipline in diagnosis and treatment for a variety of psychological issues, autoimmune disorders and cancer, stemming from a deep understanding of the applications of Chinese medicine in easing suffering and promoting healing.  

Dr. Maimon is the Head of “Tal center” - Integrative Cancer Research Center, Institute Of Oncology - Sheba Hospital, where he is leading a groundbreaking research on Integrative Oncology; Head of the Israeli center for research in complementary medicine (NPO); President of the International Congress of Chinese Medicine in Israel (ICCM); Head of "Refuot" Integrative Medical Center. He is also a sought out teacher and a Keynote speaker in numerous professional congresses and gatherings worldwide.

Nirit Dvir- Atlas

Teach and trains students to promote peace in all levels at daily life through personal and group projects.

A lecturer to Organizational  Behavior  in the management  Department at the Open University of Israel

Founder-CEO –'sight- Organizational Development Consultant'