Healing Across Divides
Talks. Workshops. Trainings
With
Jawdat Kasab and Nitsan Joy Gordon
Winners of the 2025 IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East
In 2025, Nitsan Joy Gordon and Jawdat Kasab received the Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East from the Institute of International Education (IIE) for their work founding the Army of Healers (AOH) — a groundbreaking initiative created after October 7 to address the the pain and trauma of Israelis and Palestinians. AOH has trained 30 Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Bedouin, and Druze facilitators who have been leading over 30 healing groups with more than 600 participants, rebuilding trust and reawakening compassion across divides. As Nitsan and Jawdat say, “In moments of deep division, the world needs an army — not of soldiers with weapons, but of healers cultivating pathways toward peace.”
Our Intent
The skills we’ve developed in our Army of Healers Healing Across Divides groups in Israel are relevant wherever people are divided or in pain. Drawing on years of hands-on experience, we now offer talks, workshops, and trainings around the world to share the tools that help transform fear into connection and pain into compassion.
- Through this work, we hope to:
- Inspire healing movements in other divided communities.
- Shift perceptions about Israelis and Palestinians by sharing stories of courage, empathy, and reconciliation.
- Gather support for our ongoing healing work in Israel — and for the vision of growing “armies of healers” across the world.
Our community was deeply blessed to share in a workshop with Nitsan Joy Gordon and Jawdat Kasab of the Army of Healers. The group included people with very different perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and yet they were amazed at how they could share their stories in ways that broke down barriers and opened the door to communication and compassion.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this work and the depth of skill these two bring. I wholeheartedly recommend them and hope their work will be widely shared and supported.
–Rabbi Paula Marcus, Temple Beth El, Santa Cruz
