Propelling Peace in Jewish Communal Spaces

Jewish communal life is full of hard questions right now: disagreement over Israel, trust in government and institutions, and political polarization, and deteriorating senses and spaces of belonging, and the strain of trying to stay in relationship across deep difference. This class offers a practical way to make sense of that complexity. Drawing on The Propeller Toolkit, a conflict transformation framework developed at Harvard Kennedy School through research on peace processes and protracted conflict, we’ll explore three core dimensions of communal change: how people make meaning and form identity, how groups engage with each-other, and how leadership and institutions shape what becomes possible. We’ll look at real cases from conflict resolution and bring the framework home to Jewish communal life. Along the way, we’ll put modern systems thinking in conversation with Jewish ideas about leadership, responsibility, and repair. Participants will leave with a sharper lens for diagnosing a communal, organizational, or societal challenge they care about -- and a clearer sense of where intervention may be possible. No background in peace studies required. . . . Elan Kogutt is a strategist, educator, and facilitator working in the spaces of conflict, leadership, and community life. He helped lead Why It Worked, a multi-university research initiative at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) on how societies move from protracted conflict toward peace, and helped develop The Propeller Framework and Toolkit, practical tools for diagnosing and intervening in conflict systems at the HKS Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory. He is a Fellow of FASPE and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, and is currently training for the rabbinate through the Shalom Hartman Institute.