Interns for Peace is an organization founded by Israeli Arab Farhat Agbaria and American Rabbi Bruce M. Cohen in 1976 with the mission of fostering the creation of personal relationships between Israel's Arabs and Jews, with the goal of creating greater understanding and promoting peace.
Bruce Mark Cohen was an American Rabbi who co-founded the Interns for Peace, an organization founded in Israel in 1976 that is dedicated to fostering understanding between Arabs and Israelis through the training of community development and peace workers.
After five Arab citizens of Israel were killed in Nazareth by Israeli security forces during the Land Day protest on March 30, 1976, Cohen's congregants from Congregation Mishkan Israel, Hamden, Connecticut provided funding for a mission to Israel for Cohen to promote peace. While on his trip to Israel, he met Agbaria, an Israeli Arab who shared Cohen's vision of peace-building, and the two co-founded Interns for Peace. Initially the group trained American college students, but shifted over the years to training Arabs and Jews from Israel. Interns for Peace aims to foster peace through building personal connections between Arabs and Jews, with Cohen noting that "every time you create contact it's successful because it breaks stereotypes". [1] Cohen sought to overcome longstanding attitudes in which Israeli Arabs are viewed as a fifth column, while Jews are labeled as oppressors. By May 1980, the organization had trained 10 interns who spent six months at a kibbutz learning Arabic and Hebrew and were placed in the Israeli Arab communities of Kafr Qara and Tamra. The local Arab-led governments covered the cost of housing the interns while salaries were paid by Interns for Peace. [2] Cohen emphasized that the organization is not a Peace Corps, in which Jews would be the ones helping poor Arabs. Rather, Jews and Arabs would work together and learn skills from each other by working together. [3] By 1999, Interns for Peace worked to create a chapter of the organization in the West bank. [4]
Nazareth is the capital and the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In 2017 its population was 76,551. The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30.9% Christian. Nazareth Illit, declared a separate city in June 1974, is built alongside old Nazareth, and had a Jewish population of 40,312 in 2014.
Land Day, March 30, is a day of commemoration for Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians of the events of that date in 1976 in Israel.
Congregation Mishkan Israel, in Hamden, Connecticut, is the oldest Jewish congregation in Connecticut, the 14th oldest continuous operating synagogue in America as well as the oldest continuing synagogue in New England.
By 2010, the organization had trained 300 volunteers who have worked together on projects ranging from arts festivals to tree planting projects. [1] By 1994, the organization had brought together 80,000 Israeli Arabs and Jews in community projects, helping build understanding through common action. Palestinians trained through the program and placed in the West Bank and Gaza could help Arabs identify and address their own community needs. [5] An Interns for Peace program in 2004 had participants work together on road safety projects, addressing the lack of infrastructure in Arab and Jewish communities outside the big cities. [6]
The West Bank is a landlocked territory near the Mediterranean coast of Western Asia, bordered by Jordan to the east and by the Green Line separating it and Israel on the south, west and north. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore. The West Bank was the name given to the territory that was captured by Jordan in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and subsequently annexed in 1950 until 1967 when it was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Gaza Strip, or simply Gaza, is a self-governing Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, that borders Egypt on the southwest for 11 kilometers (6.8 mi) and Israel on the east and north along a 51 km (32 mi) border. Gaza and the West Bank are claimed by the State of Palestine.
Cohen's widow, Karen Wald Cohen, is now international director of the organization, and Mr. Agbaria is chief of the Israeli division. [1]
