The Open House in Ramle - a peace education center in Ramle, Israel
 

Latest Stories

  • Summer Camp 2024Summer Camp 2024

    by Lutfia Gnime, summer camp co-director   This year we opened our camp despite all the fears of the war, it was important for us to tell the world that we will continue to believe in our way,...Read more »

  • Summer Camp 2023Summer Camp 2023

    Summary of the 2023 summer Camp by Lutfia Gnime   The Peace Camp of Open House was held between July 3rd and July 21st, 2023, the Arab-Jewish camp that has existed for many years with the aim...Read more »

  • Summer Camp 2022Summer Camp 2022

    This year's summer camp was between the 3rd to the 21st of July, 2022. The Ramle municipality provided the grounds of the YRF learning center and we could accept 80 participants to full...Read more »

  • Summer Camp 2021Summer Camp 2021

    We are delighted to share with you what was happening at our end during 2021. First of all, the Ramle Municipality offered us the YRF grounds (Youth Renewal Fund) for our Summer Camp in Ramle...Read more »
 

International Letters

Letter from Prince Hassan of Jordan
Royal Palace

Amman, Jordan

21st October, 2002

Mr. Yehezkel Landau

Co-Director

Open House

Ramle, Israel

Dear Mr. Landau,

Many thanks for your recent article entitled “A Holistic Peace Process for the Middle East.”

Undoubtedly, a mere political agreement between governments does not necessarily achieve peace between peoples. The focus on high-level diplomacy alone cannot exert enough authority upon two contesting societies to bring about a tangible accord. To this effect, a workshop organized by my office (Majlis El-Hassan) and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation entitled “The Middle East: Alternatives for the Future” indicated the need to integrate the cultural component into the negotiating process. ‘Soft security’ issues, such as religion and culture, are perhaps the hardest to agree upon.

IF ONLY…
An appeal addressed to Jews, Arabs, and concerned people everywhere
in response to the war between Israel and Hamas
by Yehezkel Landau
January 8, 2009
If only our empathy and compassion were as strong as our capacity for self-justification;
If only we could protect ourselves in ways that do not inflict harm on others;
If only we could see ourselves as interdependent, rather than isolated and threatened;
If only we could see the Image of God in one another, rather than projecting mythic images of Arab Nazis or Jewish Crusaders;
If only our leaders were committed to transforming conflict nonviolently rather than too often using military means to achieve political aims;
If only peace education were a part of school curricula throughout Palestine and Israel;

Letter from Cyndi Spindell Berck

January 23, 2010

Dear Dalia and, I hope, Bashir:

Now that you are international personalities, I am probably not the first stranger who has written. Dalia, I know from the Open House website that you are active in public life. If it is possible and if you think it is appropriate, please share this with Bashir.

First, consider this a standing invitation for one or two teenagers to stay with us if Open House ever visits the San Francisco Bay Area in California. We live in Berkeley, where my husband is a professor. We are members of a conservative synagogue that is involved in a Jewish-Muslim dialogue, beginning with the local Turkish community.

Letter from David McDermott
Dear Open House Staff,
I wish you every success in your continued endeavour to normalise life for the children and i guess, adults of that part of the world. I do not know what to call it. Israel or Palestine? I am no expert but i do wish for more people like you and ultimately peace in that beautiful land.
I have just read The Lemon Tree which has given me an understanding for the dilemma that remains. But peace is possibly. It can be achieved !
Sincerely,
David McDermott
Ireland

Letter from Rabbi Adam Morris

Dear Friends,

As Israeli Independence Day approaches (April 29), I anticipate the same sense of ambivalence that I have felt in past years. My ambivalence, as some of you may know, stems from a strong connection to this complex, magical place AND a sense of outrage in the way that Israeli treatment of Palestinians has grossly ignored Jewish and human values of justice and decency.  In the past year there I have found a few ways to share with some of you and with my community my struggle to navigate the nature of my relationship to Israel: dialogue and conversation; blogging (www.rabbimo.blogspot.com) while traveling on the Student Interfaith Peace Project trip to Israel last June and in my sermon on Yom Kippur 2008 at Temple Micah.