This guest post by Benette Phillips is part of a series of posts by participants in NIF’s 2014 Study Tour.

An overview of a very interesting and intense day:
Two sessions in the morning, one describing new strategic directions being taken by the NIF in response to recent and troubling developments in Israel, and a second by two members of the Council for Peace and Security, one of the organizations which exemplifies the type of work that NIF has decided to support, then:

A guided bus tour to three vantage points from which greater Jerusalem and the area surrounding it could be visualized and the patchwork of Jewish and Arab villages / settlements / neighborhoods that comprise this land could be appreciated, then:

A sumptuous lunch with the director of Molad, the Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy, then:

A meeting with three key leaders of KIAH, an organization devoted to educational programs that combine secular and religious approaches and that will hopefully foster a more tolerant and humane Israeli society, then:

A light and sound show at the Tower of David in the Old City.

(Other than that, an uneventful day)

Highlights of the day for me:

I found the presentation by the Director General and the Chairman of the Council for Peace and Security to be very compelling, because it is hard to dismiss the arguments of individuals who have served in the IDF and the Shin Bet and who have first-hand experience with the problems engendered by the Occupation that the current policies of the government are not working and will never work. In my view, these are the folks who have credibility that cannot be challenged and who therefore have the best chance of changing public opinion.

The guided tour that attempted to describe and de-convolute the “ecology” of East Jerusalem and the West Bank and the proposed strategies to divide the land was literally mind-bending. We had a wonderful guide, Shaul Arieli, who is considered to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Israeli-Arab conflict and who has a website that can be accessed by Googling his name.

The last presentation of the day, which was very moving, was given by Drori Yehoshua, a Mizrahi Jew who has founded the KIAH Memizrach Shemesh Program. KIAH (Kol Israel Haverim), is an educational organization currently being supported by the NIF as part of its new strategic initiative. KIAH has been in existence for over a century, and it is devoted to educations programs that foster a more tolerant and socially responsible Judaism. Drori began his presentation of the Memizrach Shemesh Program with music and singing – a friend of his played the Oud (a pear-shaped stringed instrument), and both sang traditional Jewish-Arab melodies (I think that’s what they were). Drori founded his program to reconnect Mizrahi Jews, especially Mizrahi youth, to what he sees as the moderate and tolerant ideals of the communities in the Middle East in which the Mizrahim have their roots. Many Mizrahi Jews in Israel do not have a strong sense of “belonging” and have gravitated toward ultra-Orthodoxy, finding a political home in the right-wing Shas party. Drori, a very passionate and soulful individual who moved me to tears with a story about his own daughter’s Bat Mitzvah, seems ideally suited for his educational role.