BY STAN PAUL
UCLA Today
Peace begins with a conversation.
For Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, that dialogue
began two years ago when he read an article on the Middle East
conflict written by a Palestinian student at UCLA. This led
to an e-mail exchange, which fostered a friendship and finally
evolved into an unusual undergraduate course titled, “Voices
of Peace: Perspectives on Confrontation & Reconciliation
in the Arab-Israeli Conflict.”
More than two years ago, Seidler-Feller, longtime
director of UCLA Hillel, and Fadi Amer, now a law student at
Harvard, developed a friendship after the rabbi sent Amer an
e-mail in response to his article. “You are my brother
in peace,” Seidler-Feller wrote.
Together, the two men laid the foundation for
what would become a course examining problems in the Middle
East; in particular, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Today, the four-unit special topics sociology
course, co-taught by the rabbi and another Palestinian recommended
by Amer, Shawki El-Zatmah, a doctoral candidate in Middle Eastern
history, has more than 80 students participating in lively,
serious and thought-provoking discussions at a time when a new
peace plan is once again on the table.
The purpose of the course is to “give
the students a perspective on the necessity of compromise and
the need to reject violence as an option; in concrete terms,
the pursuit of a two-state solution,” said Seidler-Feller.
“What is unusual about the course is that a strong Zionist
and a profoundly nationalist Palestinian can join together to
advocate for peace and encourage their students to reach out
to one another and do the same.”
Each week, students examine different aspects
of the conflict from historical, legal and religious perspectives
with such visiting scholars as Professor of Political Science
David Rapoport, who discussed various meanings of terrorism
from a historical viewpoint. David Myers, who teaches Jewish
history, and Najwa Al-Qattan, a Palestinian American and professor
of Middle Eastern history at Loyola Marymount, have also participated.
Two undergraduate students, Maraam Haddad,
who is Palestinian, and Jaime Rapaport, who is Jewish, serve
as coordinators for the course. “I was actually a student
in the class the first time it was ever taught,” said
Haddad, president of the United Arab Society on campus. “Being
very good friends with one of the initial coordinators, I was
able to get to know Rabbi Seidler-Feller much better outside
the classroom. This allowed us to develop an understanding and
a solid respect for one another’s perspectives,”
Haddad said.
Rapaport, a fourth-year international development
studies major and co-president of the Progressive Jewish Alliance,
said she wanted to help teach the class “both to learn
and to foster dialogue between students and to get them to really
think about these issues and create discussion.”
Encouraged by students’ positive response
to the course, course organizers put together a panel discussion
for the campus that was held in Royce Hall on May 14.
“The panel grew out of our desire to
bring what was happening in the classroom to the community at
UCLA,” said Seidler-Feller. “We hope to go beyond
the campus into the larger community so as to model how people
with different points of view can get along, listen to and learn
from one another.”
