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Remaining In Dialogue

Yossi Klein Halevi and Mohammad Darawshe on Israel, Palestine, and Bridging Deeply-Held Divisions

Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 4:30 pm
Illini Union Rooms A & B

Please join us for the second conversation with Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, and Mohammad  Darawshe, a leading political analyst who has spent more than three decades advocating for Israel’s Arab sector. 

As many of us grapple with local and global conflicts and what the “new normal” can and should be, we are confronted with fundamental questions about shared community and core values. Now on campus following their virtual conversation with Chancellor Jones this past spring, Halevi and Darawshe will delve more deeply into the impact of current conflicts and how we can remain in dialogue with one another through numerous challenges and crises.

Sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and the Program in Jewish Culture & Society.

Co-sponsored by Illini Hillel, Illini Chabad/Chabad Center for Jewish Life, the Israel Studies Project (Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago/JUF), the Initiative for Holocaust, Genocide & Memory Studies, Center for South Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, European Union Center, School of Literatures, Culture & Linguistics, the Program in Comparative & World Literature, and the Champaign-Urbana Jewish Federation.

Speakers

Speaker Yossi Klein Halevi in a sunny room lined with bookshelves.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Together with Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University, he co-directs the Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI), which teaches emerging young Muslim American leaders about Judaism, Jewish identity and Israel. He is the author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor (2018), his attempt to untangle the painful lived experiences and histories that define the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Born in Brooklyn, he moved to Israel in 1982, and lives in Jerusalem with wife, Sarah. They have three children. 

Professional headshot of speaker Mohammad Darawshe.

Mohammad Darawshe is the Director of Planning, Equality and Shared Society at Givat Haviva, Israel’s oldest organization promoting cohesion and understanding between its Jewish and Arab citizens. He has also served as a strategic advisor on initiatives for the Arab sector in the Prime Minister’s office; a Knesset parliamentary assistant; Elections Campaign Manager for the Democratic Arab Party and for the United Arab List; and as an elected member of the town council of his hometown, Iksal, near Nazareth. He lives with his wife and four children in Iksal, and is a Muslim, Palestinian citizen of the State of Israel.