The Jewish-German Compassionate Listening Project was founded in 2002 by Beate Ronnefeld and Leah Green, to provide an opportunity to advance Jewish-German reconciliation and healing. The project brought together Jews, Germans, and those affected by World War II, to explore beliefs and to humanize the “other.” Through Compassionate Listening training, personal sharing and hearing the stories of witnesses, participants deepened their understanding of the complex wounds generated by WW II and the Holocaust.
After the first delegation in 2002, Brian Berman and Andrea Cohen led two additional delegations with Beate, and the Jewish-German Project became a living reconciliation model among participants. Participants remain connected through gatherings and a list-serve, having experienced the profound healing of wounds around the Holocaust and WWII. This extended participant “family” is an example of how the work of Compassionate Listening can be used to empower individuals to strive for peace. Compassionate Listening facilitators Brian and Lisa Berman have led “Compassionate Journeys” to Berlin and also teach there on occasion.
For more information please visit Berman Healing Arts. You may also contact Andrea Cohen.
Embracing Story is a beautiful film that was made of the 2003 Jewish-German delegation by two of the German participants, Gabrielle Siels and Eve Rennebarth.
Photos and stories from the Jewish-German Compassionate Listening project were published in our July 2003 newsletter, available online at Spring 2003: Jewish-German Project [PDF].
Participant Comments
I recommend to make this project a global ‘must’!
This project is a living model to take to other hot ‘rifts’ to invite possibility…truly awesome!
This was the most wonderful, loving, important project I have ever been a part of. I leave full and connected to myself, to Jewishness, to Jews and Germans. I feel proud to be a part of the human race!
I think this project is a world healing – and personal healing miracle. From the moment we started, the healing began…
This was the closest, most supportive retreat I have ever experienced – you have given us a gift and we have breathed a gift unto our world…
The layers of healing this project provides go deeply inward and hold the possibility of great gifts – to families, communities and nations.
It is encouraging to witness the energies being released, particularly in dealing with such deep wounds in the relationship between two groups. This creates a vision for all present conflicts on this earth. This is a precious thing and it should spread.
I expected to have a powerful experience that would finally put to rest any residue of long held truths – “We do not go to Germany”; “We do not buy German goods”, etc. – to put some closure on over 50 years of living with the horrors of WWII, the holocaust, and the terrible trauma that impacted on many of our lives, until today. This experience has exceeded in depth anything I could have known I wished for. I will carry this experience in my heart forever.
This project saves at least a year of therapy…it’s about becoming human.
This project can save 10 years of therapy and enables very deep encounters.
I was longing for a way to go beyond my shame, fear, grief, hatred…searching for truth and healing. My hopes were met 100%.
For me it was the most intense processing with the holocaust/Germany issue. For me as a German as well as for me personally – I have found another piece of inner peace.
I really believe that if everyone on this planet participated in such a project, the world would have so much changed that we would live free and creatively and joyfully. I hope we extend our work and get many more people involved – let this peace spread out!
Compassionate Listening
Compassionate Listening offers a framework for reconciliation and healing in these deeply troubling times. We believe that peace comes through the hard work of meeting the human being behind the stereotype, and acknowledging one another’s suffering.
We will learn to listen with our “spiritual ear,” to discern and acknowledge the partial truth in everyone – particularly those with whom we disagree. We will learn to put aside our own positions while we listen, and to stretch our capacity to be present to another’s pain. We will also learn how to build bridges between people in conflict.
Our training curriculum includes theory, exercises, and practice sessions with one another. Our field experience will help participants to gain a deeper understanding of the history of the German-Jewish relationship and to rehumanize the “other”. Individuals will learn how to work with their own internal conflicts and judgments to become instruments of reconciliation and healing.
The Compassionate Listening ProjectP.O. Box 17, Indianola, WA 98342, USA
phone: (360) 626-4411 fax: (360) 297-6563
staff@compassionatelistening.org
