On 12 June 2019, the final evaluation meeting of the third EMDA course took place in Kibbutz Ginosar, on the shores of Lake Genezert.
The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung conducts the course in cooperation with Beit Yigal Alon, the World Zionist Organization and the Shalom Hartman Institute. The course, guided by Avi Zaira and Adi Apel-Tal, addresses tutors of pre-army and leadership academies, which young Israelis often visit after they finish school but before they start their military service.
It consists of a two-day workshop and 10 one-day-meetings, which are spread over eight months from October 2018 until June 2019.
The 15 participants, who teach in different academies, will not only improve their pedagogic skills but furthermore discuss specific contents regarding the Israeli society, particularly the Jewish-Arab relations, social justice and gender equality in Israel.
Furthermore, the participants coordinated selected projects in their respective academies under the guidance of the course leaders. One group, for example, initiated regular meetings with peers from the Arab community in Israel to “talk to them” and not just “about them”. Another developed its own initiatives for ecological agriculture in her academy.
