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"What an exceptionally honest search for truly diverse narratives of Palestinian and Israeli women and men in distress! Thank you for this up-to-date cross-section of the varied perceptions, deep feelings, and equal humanity of two fine peoples. This is it, for those who are looking for one film to better understand different sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.."

Libby and Len Traubman
Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group

• Father Elias Chacour, Author, and Director, Mar Elias School
• Judy Balint, Israeli Author
  
• Zoughbi al-Zoughbi, Director, Palestinian Conflict Resolution Center
  
• Sara Kaminker, former Jerusalem City Planner
  
• Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Director, Rabbis for Human Rights
  
• Daniel Seaman, Director, Israeli Government Press Office
  
• Salah Taamari, Palestinian Legislative Council
  
• Rabbi David Zeller, Director, YAKAR; resident, Efrat
  
• Dr. Sari Nusseibeh, P.L.O. Representative, Jerusalem
  
• Rabbi Seth Mandell, Father of Kobi Mandell, Takoa
  
• Hassan & Nardin Asleh, Family of Asel Asleh - Seeds of Peace activist
  
• Captain Peter Lerner, Israel Defense Forces, West Bank
  
• Devorah Brous, Israeli Peace Activist
  
• Hisham Sharabati, Palestinian Journalist and human rights worker

"Children of Abraham compellingly documents the profound possibilities within a society in which friends and enemies alike attune themselves to the voice of the other. It should serve as an urgent reminder of how badly we transgress and how much we forfeit when we dismiss the power of listening as too simple. This is not a promotion of a naive quick fix, but rather a call to the wrenching but essential heroism that Jewish tradition says inheres in making one's enemy into one's friend."
Rabbi Gordon Tucker

In January of 1998, twenty-two Jewish Americans traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories as part of the Compassionate Listening Project. Children of Abraham is a 34-minute broadcast-quality documentary which chronicles this journey.

The film follows the Jewish participants as they visit with and listen to Israelis and Palestinians - from leaders to refugees, and seek to understand the complexities of religious, political and human rights issues. Participants include Jewish leaders and professionals ranging from secular to observant.

This stunning documentary introduces the Compassionate Listening reconciliation model, and humanizes each Israeli and Palestinian portrayed. The film delivers a compelling message that conflict can be transformed through the simple act of listening.

To order your copy of 'Children of Abraham,' please use the Compassionate Listening Shop.

The following Israelis and Palestinians are featured:

• Fatima al-Assad, Palestinian refugee and High School Teacher, Kalandia Camp;
• Dr. Haidar Abdul Shafi, Founding member, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Director, Palestinian Red Crescent Society (the Palestinian Red Cross);
• Maen Ereikat, Palestinian Government Representative, Orient House, East Jerusalem;
• Rabbi Menachem Froman, Founder, Israeli Settlers' Movement and Religious Advisor to the Israeli Knesset;
• Amos Gvirtz, Israeli Peace Activist, Kibbutz Shefayim;
• Eve Harrow, Israeli Resident and Town Council Representative, Efrat, West Bank;
• Yossi Klein HaLevi, Journalist, The Jerusalem Report;
• Yehezkel Landau, Co-director, Open House Peace Center, Ramle, Israel;
• Dr. Iyad Sarraj, Director, Gaza Community Mental Health Programme and Director, Palestinian Independent Commission on Human Rights;
• Sheikh Ahmad Yassein, Spiritual Leader of HAMAS - the Islamic Resistance Momement.

"The politicians and the generals must ultimately resolve the issue, but only when the people on opposite sides speak their feelings, hear the other and so be heard - will the healing begin. Only through compassionate listening is there any hope for the intergenerational hatred to begin to abate. In this moving film, we understand how restraint and humility are required of the compassionate listener, though not an abandonment of his or her strongly felt emotions."
Blu Greenberg

Children of Abraham is screened regularly in large and small venues across North America, including film festivals. You can host a screening of Children of Abraham in your community (church, mosque, synagogue, university, etc.). Just send us an email, tell us where you live and we'll let you know if we can recommend a past participant in your area to screen the film, discuss their experience with the project and facilitate a dialogue with the audience.

There is fear on both sides: Jewish Americans are often afraid to come to Germany, and Germans are often afraid to meet Jewish people.

This film tells the story of 24 courageous Germans and Jews who came together for ten days in Steyerberg, Germany 2003 for Jewish-German Compassionate Listening. Through interviews and images, it illustrates the process of Compassionate Listening as a method for reconciliation and healing. Going beyond the guilt and blame that tend to lock people into categories of perpetrator and victim, the participants talk about the human pain on both sides.

The film takes the viewer inside the project, including the participants arrival and initial encounters, and their growing connections via shared exercises, rituals, a trip to Berlin, visits to memorials and Bergen Belsen concentration camp, and listening sessions with witnesses from World War II.

To order your copy of 'Embracing Story,' please visit the Compassionate Listening Shop.

"Beyond These Narrow Borders" follows the experiences of youth participating in the "Seedlings of Peace Summer Camp" in the Balkans. This project brings together youth from all sides of pre-war Yugoslavia to Latinovac, a small village in Croatia, to learn skills in the areas of Compassionate Listening, Nonviolent Communication, mediation, creative problem solving and cultural awareness. The rural surroundings, supportive staff, and techniques learned in listening and communicating, combine to create a "safe container" for the participating youth to express and receive each other's views and experiences.

It has become clear that peace-building activities among youth in the region are critical to a lasting peace in the future. The existing situation of social divisions according to ethnicity after the war has left segregated youth with no joint activities and little or no contact. Hatred, prejudice, and stereotypes are still very common and even growing through a lack of contact and interaction as well as from the history of violence during the war. Beyond These Narrow Borders is an extraordinary voyage into healing and reconciliation and reflects the spirit in this rich region of South East Europe.

To order your copy of 'Beyond These Narrow Borders,' please visit the Compassionate Listening Shop.

This beautiful 13-minute DVD introduces The Compassionate Listening Project through interviews with certified facilitators, project directors, participants and founder/director Leah Green. The DVD introduces the basic principles of Compassionate Listening and profiles our work in Israel & Palestine and Germany, and describes how we are training facilitators and teaching Compassionate Listening
world-wide as a skill-set and practice for peacebuilding in our daily lives.

The DVD includes interviews with Leah Green, Andrea Cohen, Brian Berman, Rabbi David Serkin-Poole, and Reverend Peter Ilgin-Fritz. Produced by Leah Green, Joseph Pitts, and Darren Ekman, 2006.

To order your copy of 'Compassion in Action,' please visit the Compassionate Listening Shop.