website creator The son of a peace activist brutally killed on Oct. 7 is determined to make sure that her dream for Israel does not die with her.

website creator With conflict seeming more inexorable than ever, victims from both sides tell US audiences understanding and willpower can keep future generations from paying the price they’ve borne

website creator Georgetown has partnered with an organization of bereaved Israelis and Palestinian families to produce a program that fosters meaningful dialogue about the human side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

website creator Two bereaved mothers who know price of war work for peace | Harvard Gazette Layla Alsheikh, Robi Damelin argue path to Mideast reconciliation begins with acknowledging common humanity

website creator On Tuesday, Sept. 17, NYU in Dialogue hosted “Shared Grief, Shared Hope: Holding Onto Humanity” in collaboration with the Parents Circle Families Forum

website creator Bereaved Palestinian and Israeli mothers visit Harvard.

website creator Magen Inon lost both his parents Bilha and Yakov in the Oct 7th massacre, and was given a standing ovation after speaking at the conference in Brighton

website creator ‘It’s really difficult to talk to your occupier, or your enemy, or your jailer’, says a Palestinian member of the Parents Circle-Families Forum; ‘I am here to learn,’ says an Israeli teen

website creator Join us to hear from a group of individuals profoundly affected by the conflict as they share their stories of loss and their unwavering belief in our shared humanity.

website creator The photos of Abir and Smadar are projected on the stage at the Rimini Meeting. These two young girls resemble each other in the freshness of their youth, both with tied back hair and deep gazes.

website creator In defiance of a Jerusalem District Court order, Israel’s Education Ministry has frozen a ‘Dialogue Encounters’ program run by an organization that brings together bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families

website creator Two daughters die in the Middle East conflict. Their fathers Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan are examples of how to find a future perspective. They speak with Udy Levy at the Goetheanum about conflict, grief, solidarity and peace.

website creator As the Rimini Meeting draws to a close, Rami Elhanan, an Israeli, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian, share their stories of losing their daughters in the decades-long conflict in the Holy Land, calling for reconciliation to transcend the war between Israel and Hamas.

website creator The Irish author Colum McCann participated in the meeting together with the protagonists of his book “Apeirogon”

website creator Yasmeen Eshtaya is a Palestinian teacher whose life has been deeply affected by the brutal violence of the Israeli state. But she is committed to reconciliation and forming bonds through teaching Arabic

website creator Despite opposition, a group of Palestinian and Israeli teens have recently come together in Cyprus on a mission for peace and reconciliation.

website creator The AFT has partnered with Parents Circle to launch the program, which will be available for free to all public school educators.

website creator It is not naive to know that the only route to justice and equality is peace.

website creator Eetta Prince-Gibson explores how Combatants for Peace and the Parents’ Circle are mourning for Israelis and Palestinians amid the war.

website creator More than 4,000 young people and families have joined the March for Peace, 1,500 people participated in the three-day event, 400 attended panels and workshops, and 200 children took part in the Peace Citadel.

website creator Sunday May 12 from Jerusalem a sliver of hope streamed through the world from the U.S.to Australia even Afghanistan–who knew there were Jews there?

website creator As the conflict in Gaza continues, reconciliation may seem a distant dream, but on both sides there are those working for peace

website creator The common stage for the re-telling of their stories is the 19th annual joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony. The ceremony consists of story-telling and singing in Hebrew and Arabic.

website creator The 19th annual joint Memorial Day ceremony, presented Sunday at the start of Israel’s national day of honoring fallen Israeli soldiers and victims of attacks, offered an alternative commemoration of both Israeli and Palestinian victims.

website creator Last month, the Jerusalem District Court ordered the Israeli government to allow the ‘Parents Circle – Families Forum’ to continue holding meetings between students and Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families, but the Education Ministry refrained from doing so until now

website creator Bereaved Israelis and Palestinians have come together to hold a joint Memorial Day ceremony and call for a “different future” for those in the region.

website creator A memorial event that was a narrow glimpse through a window that needs to be opened, to a different reality for the people of both Israel and Palestine

website creator In a day of great pain, and for many more than ever before, of personal grief, hundreds of Israelis, Jews and Palestinians, and others touched by the conflict across the world, attended a joint ceremony from Combatants for Peace and the Parents Circle — Families Forum.

website creator Amid war and lack of entry permits for Palestinians, controversial annual event is pre-recorded and livestreamed; Gazan who lost 60 relatives says all wanted to ‘live in freedom’

website creator “Many people have woken up to the reality that this conflict cannot go on,” said a director of one Israeli peace-building group, referring to the decades of violence.

website creator Immediately following the Yom Hazikaron ceremony in Israel two men who have recently lost family members to violence speak of the need for reconciliation rather than revenge

website creator Relatives of Israeli and Palestinian civilians killed since October 7 speak as rights groups call for an end to violence

website creator A number of bereaved Israelis and Palestinians have chosen to join the Parents Circle – Families Forum since October 7. Six of them tell Haaretz about their choice to stand together, with very little support from their society around them

website creator Since Israelis’ lives were engulfed in horror on October 7, a catastrophe that has yet to end for Palestinians in Gaza, we bereaved families from both sides of the conflict are coming together to remember the innocent children whose only crime was being Palestinian or Israeli

website creator We are dedicating the ceremony to children in war. Their only crime is being Palestinian or Israeli.

website creator While a ceasefire agreement is once again on hold, dividing Israeli society, some families of hostages say they are victims of intimidation by a government prioritizing its ongoing operation in Rafah.

website creator Jerusalem District Court judge Avraham Rubin criticized the education ministry for banning the Parents Circle – Families Forum from operating in Israeli schools, despite not conducting a ‘proper factual examination of the allegations’ made against it by right-wing organizations

website creator “The whole world has to come and force Israel and Palestine to come to the table to talk, because we cannot go on killing each other.” Robi Damelin, whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper, calls for an end to bloodshed in the Israel-Hamas war.

website creator In the city of Haifa, in northwest Israel, the sounds of Arabic, Hebrew and Russian chatter fill the streets. In the Arab-Christian neighbourhood of Wadi Nisnas lies Beit Hagefen, an Arab-Jewish cultural centre set in gleaming white stone.

website creator Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan — they are two fathers, Palestinian and Israeli respectively, who at different times lost a daughter, still a child

website creator An interview with two fathers, a Palestinian and an Israeli, who both lost daughters in the conflict in the Holy Land, were able to meet the Pope.

website creator Pope Francis meets with friends Bassam Aramin, who is Palestinian, and Rami Elhanan, who is Israeli, at the Vatican prior to his general audience on March 27, 2024. Both are fathers who have lost daughters amid the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.

website creator Two bereaved fathers, one an Israeli Jew and one a Palestinian Muslim, speak to Vatican News about their meeting with Pope Francis, who thanked them for their witness of fraternity.

website creator Pope Francis shares an embrace with an Israeli and a Palestinian, each of whom lost a daughter, saying the two men “look beyond the enmity of war” and are now friends.

website creator Pope Francis offered his solidarity Wednesday to Catholics in Israel and the Palestinian territories ahead of Easter, after meeting Jewish and Muslim bereaved fathers campaigning for peace.

website creator Amid recent health concerns, pontiff praises Bassam Aramin, Rami Elhanan for the ‘friendship of two men who care about each other’ and seek peace instead of war

website creator During one of these visits in 2017, a colleague invited Takac to go to the joint Israeli Palestinian memorial ceremony, which is held around the end of Ramadan and on the eve of Israel’s Independence Day in May each year to mourn those lost during conflict.

website creator As director of International Relations for The Parents Circle-Families Forum, which has offices in Beit Jala on the West Bank and in Israel, Damelin has traveled to the US twice, as well as London and Italy, since the war in Gaza began.

website creator Today, we speak with families who are striving for peace and reconciliation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Despite facing personal hardships, they hold onto hope for positive change on both sides.

website creator Colum McCann’s novel ‘Apeirogon,’ about the extraordinary friendship between bereaved Israeli and Palestinian fathers, is now out in Hebrew. The author isn’t sure if this is a case of bad timing or exactly the right moment for his book to be read by Israelis

website creator As negotiators discuss a possible cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, the Parents Circle Family Forum, a nonprofit organization made of Israelis and Palestinians who have lost loved ones in previous conflicts, sees reconciliation as the only way forward once hostilities cease. Keith Lane has more.

website creator About two dozen students, faculty and staff gather in Newcomb Hall Tuesday to hear from a Palestinian father and an Israeli mother who have both lost loved ones to violence in the Middle East. They are part of a group urging dialogue as a path to peace.

website creator Parents Circle-Families Forum, Taghyeer, and Standing Together are explicitly working to create the political will to end the occupation and create a way for the Palestinians and the Israelis to live together in dignity and equality.

website creator Bassam Aramin, Palestinian, and Rami Elhanan, Israeli, are members of The Parents Circle – Families Forum (PCFF), families whose lives have been upended due to tragedy. However, instead of giving into hate, each member has worked to understand and listen to the other side. They have become friends

website creator In the midst of the chaos, efforts are growing to promote peace and shared security between Israel and Hamas. Organizations such as Oasis for Peace, the Parents Circle-Families Forum, Hand in Hand, and the Palestine-Israel Journal are working towards reconciliation and dialogue. These groups, which have been around

website creator The terrible war initiated in October 2023 between Israel and Hamas was the result of the failure of leaders in both camps to construct a mutually acceptable peace. Yet, the horrors of this war can be an impetus to put an end to such violence. People from both

website creator This week, the Haifa municipality canceled an event marking the book launch of the Hebrew translation of “Apeirogon” by Colum McCann. The book is based on my story and that of my brother in bereavement, Bassam Aramin.

website creator In 2007, I moderated a panel at the Nobel Women’s Initiative Conference on Women, Peace, and the Middle East. The panel was made up of two Palestinian women and two Israeli women, and the topic was empathy. Two of the panelists had lost children and family members in

website creator Beit Hagefen, an Arab-Jewish cultural center in Haifa, is threatened by silencing and infringement of freedom of expression. The city’s legal adviser sent a letter Sunday to Beit Hagefen, requesting that he convene the center’s board for an emergency meeting over a book launch for the Hebrew translation

website creator Residents have expressed their opposition to the upcoming event, which is scheduled to launch the Hebrew translation of the book that recounts the story of a friendship between two bereaved fathers, one Israeli and the other Palestinian