News & Updates

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• October 24, 2025

  Collaboration can build a stronger, healthier tomorrow

  Visitors to Givat Haviva often rub their eyes in disbelief: Jews and Arabs building deep, meaningful relationships every day, in every space, without denying their identities or narratives. Through our educational tools, mutual suspicion and fear are replaced with healthy curiosity and a desire to understand,” writes Mohammad Darawshe, Givat Haviva Director of Strategy, for Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) in the United Kingdom. ”The tragic war in Gaza is the longest and most brutal war we’ve ever known, and has shattered everything we’ve worked so hard to build – mutual responsibility, compassion, trust, and a shared society between Arabs and Jews in Israel,” Darawshe continues. “Surveys we have conducted during the war have confirmed that Jewish and Arab communities have closed off and distanced themselves from each other, avoiding the few shared spaces left in Israel. Against this backdrop, we have nurtured a healthy, thriving microcosm at Givat Haviva where partnership is not a necessity but a conscious choice. Jewish and Arab students arrive charged, angry, and hurt – but after 48 hours with children from the other society, they breathe easier. Thousands of emotionally wounded students came to us and left with friends and a smile. It’s hard to express just how meaningful it is to witness this process unfold every day, and to know that not all is lost.” Read Darawshe’s full article.

• 
  October 20, 2025

  Israel’s fractured soul Everything shattered on Oct. 7, 2023. Two years later, Israelis and Palestinians are far from picking up the pieces.

  During his weeklong trip to Israel in September, Boston Globe Editorial Page Editor James Dao visited Givat Haviva, met with staff and students at YOUNITED - Givat Haviva’s International School. Dao’s visit was a follow-up to Givat Haviva CEO Michal Sella’s meeting with the Globe editorial board in Boston in June. “Givat Haviva is an unusual oasis of diversity among Israeli public schools, with a mix of Palestinian Israeli, Jewish Israeli, and international students, almost evenly divided among Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Unlike many Israeli schools, they discuss Palestinian narratives in Israeli history, including about the Nakba — Arabic for ‘catastrophe’ — when some 700,000 Palestinians were driven from Israel in 1948,” writes Dao. “In a time when the Israeli left is a shadow of its once powerful self, the school is like a walled garden for the liberal vision of Jewish and Palestinian comity.” Yuval Dvir, principal of YOUNITED, and Clare King Lassman, the school’s director of fundraising and communications, are quoted in the article.

Recent Events

All Events

• 

  Sep

  7

  Through Other's Eyes @ Temple Ner Tamid

  On Semptember 7, 11 AM to 12:30 PM, come to Temple Ner Tamid (936 Broad St. Bloomfield, NJ 07003) to see a photo exhibition feauturing four students: two Arab and two Jewish students of Israel. The students will speak briefly and present their photos.
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  Sep

  4

  Through Other's Eyes @ ChappPAC

  At 7 PM on September 4, 2025, come see the the exhibit and hear from two Arab and two Jewish Israeli teens, who participated in TOE, a program created by Givat Haviva. Through Others' Eyes (TOE) is a dialogue and community-building project that brings Arab and Jewish teenagers together. The teenagers learn photography skills as they explore questions of identity, nationality, religion, and community. TOE addresses the growing need for open channels of communication between Israeli Arab and Jewish youth who rarely, if ever, actually meet one another. The program uses photography to bring about better cultural understanding and respect through lessons, dialogue sessions, study tours, overnight seminars, and the production of a group photography exhibit. TOE intends to fundamentally change the way the participants relate to the conflict, to each other, and to their own ability to make a difference. The project allows participants to learn about each other and achieve a greater degree of understanding and openness. You can register for tickets using the given link: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36677/production/1249465