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Feb 18, 2016, 7:58 PM

9 Adar: Nonviolence Begins with your Thinking

Eruvin 13b “The bat kol emerged and said, “Both these and these are the words of the Living God…” The bat kol is a beautiful mystical image for the voice of God, the voice of the God that is yearning to...

Mar 19, 2015, 6:05 AM

The peaceful and the just

Walkouts and noncooperation with anti-Israel speakers will only deepen the chasm between the sides

May 1, 2014, 6:21 PM

The Torah of listening

A sensitive and thoughtful girl who had been my student the year before knocked on my office door. She wanted to talk. Actually, she needed to cry. Now in 8th grade and learning about the Holocaust for the first...

Feb 23, 2014, 1:57 PM

Mediating in the First Century B.C.E.

Conflict is the central operating feature of the universe. A basic physics principle says that its building block, a photon of energy, has two discrete and simultaneous characteristics: the individual character of a point and a relational character as...

Feb 18, 2014, 12:56 PM

Finding a uniquely Jewish path to peace

In his discussion of the laws of Chanukah, The Rambam writes: If states: "Its ways are pleasant ways and all its paths are peace." Thinking about the 9th of Adar that falls between Chanukah and Purim this passage seems especially...

David S. Berman

Feb 16, 2014, 12:50 PM

Cook/Eat (se’udah) for 9 Adar, the Jewish day of Constructive Conflict

Whether or not you decide to fast on 9 Adar, the Jewish Day of Constructive Conflict, you can commemorate it by the foods you eat marking the end of the day. What may be traditional foods to mark this...

Jonathan R. Cohen

Feb 16, 2014, 12:11 PM

From Jacob to Israel: On conflicts and inner growth

When we think about conflict and peacemaking, we usually focus on the parties’ interactions. Why aren’t they talking to one another? Is there a way that we can get them talking? Is there an agreement that they both might...

Feb 13, 2014, 2:49 AM

The symphony of civilizations

The article that follows arose out of my deep discomfort and eventual agitation with the classic article by Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations?, originally published in Foreign Affairs in 1993. I do not attempt to refute Huntington’s...

Feb 12, 2014, 12:12 PM

Managing conflict in organizations

When you think of conflict, what comes to mind? Most people have a negative response, and that's very understandable. But what if we re-frame the question: How do you react to the phrase “diverse views"? That tends to elicit a...

Donny Ebenstein

Feb 12, 2014, 11:51 AM

Why mediation works

As a Harvard law student two decades ago, I became involved in the well-known Harvard mediation program. After being trained as a volunteer mediator, I was sent to local small claims courts to help disputants resolve their conflict through...

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