Speaker Moty Cristal is always one of the student favorites and, frankly, I never know what he is going to do. Last time, he led us in an exercise learning about coalitions. This time, Moty focused on the lessons from his upcoming book chapter in the Negotiator’s Desk Reference regarding negotiation in low-to-no trust environments. … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–Trust is Optional–Last Blog of the Trip!
Another new meeting this year was with Oshra Friedman of Tebeka legal services, an organization that provides specialized legal services for the Ethiopian immigrants to Israel. As we learned on our last trip, Israel has welcomed thousands of immigrants from Ethiopia of Jewish heritage and assimilation into the modern society of Israel can be very challenging. As we also saw … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–Race and Diversity
One other new visit this year was with Dr. Ofer Merin, a commander of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) Medical Field Unit and emergency room doctor at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. As student Margo Clark notes, his roles often require both flexibility and understand beyond our immediate biases. Dr. Ofer Merin is the Chief of … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–Treating Terrorists and Other Medical Challenges
This year we were able to meet with two different former Israeli Supreme Court Justices–at the beginning and at the end of the trip–which provided great bookends to our week of learning. Student Celeste Borjas reflects on the visit to the Supreme Court… On our last day in Jerusalem we were able to tour the … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–The Israeli Supreme Court
As we did the last trip, we visited with Lydia Aisenberg at Givat Haviva to understand the peacebuilding work that the kibbutz did. (More about that here.) And we also walked into the town of Barta’a–divided once by the green line in 1949 and again with the security fence a few years ago. Student Lauren … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–The Divided Town of Barta’a
This trip we added a few new places and this was one of them. As student Jessica Lothman reflects, this particular bridge was filled with history, symbolism, and hope. Bridging Time and Space: The Gravity of Old Gesher Einstein put forth his theory of relativity in 1915 having determined that massive objects cause a distortion … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–Old Gesher (the Crossing into Jordan)
Our visit with Riman Barakat, a former Marquette Fulbright scholar who has worked in many different Palestinian-Israeli peacebuilding NGO’s is always a highlight of the trip. Student Adrianna Hromadka reflects on the questions and answers of her talk. East Jerusalem offers a unique type of citizenship. After 1948, East Jerusalem was not included in the … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–The Case of the Curious Citizenship (East Jerusalem)
From student J.J. Moore, here is a reflection on how the story that is told depends on the storyteller. I have always loved ruins. Ruins tell a story and bring an appreciation of the past. However, a forgotten aspect of ruins is the stories that surround them. The combination of beauty and history converge at … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–The Truth (?) of Masada
I am going to start posting the student reflections from the trip on a regular basis for the next couple weeks–hope you enjoy! For the start of our Israel trip this year, we first stopped for an overlook of Jerusalem. Here our tour guide, Asaf, gave us a very brief history of Israel—6,000 years in 6 … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017–Day One–or Should a Bartender be the next Mediator for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?
I had the delightful pleasure of traveling with our Marquette Law students over this past spring break to Israel again and I will be posting their reflections as I have time (!) But to start us out, I am sharing the blog post from my colleague Vada Lindsey who teaches property and tax law. Her … Continue reading Israel Reflections 2017