Eleven female students, including five Jewish, three Muslim, one Hindu, one Christian and a student who is agnostic, will live and study together this year at Jameson Residence Hall at Douglass College, a female college within Rutgers University. Their goal: to learn about the Middle East and ultimately to improve Jewish-Muslim relations at Rutgers and beyond.
The new Middle East Coexistence House, which opened this month, is part of the Global Village of living-learning communities at Douglass. Designed to train ambassadors of peacemaking and conflict resolution, the house is built on the conviction that women bring special skills to the work of intercultural understanding – that, in fact, peace efforts in the Middle East will fail until women are at the table.
Danielle Josephs, a Douglass College senior, envisioned the house and proposed the idea to Carmen Twillie Ambar, dean of Douglass College.
Prior to this, there were demonstrations both pro Israel and Pro Arab on campus, some of which turned ugly: chants of "death to the Jews." The Univ even cancelled some conferences on the middle east because of tensions among jewish and muslim students. Danielle Josephs, head of the Hillel Center (Jewish student center) on campus came up with this idea her sophomore year. She had to talk to conservative muslim students' families (parents, siblings etc) because devout muslims are very family centered: would this be safe? Would religious rituals be respected?
This is so beautiful - one young woman can transform a campus, maybe even more. Fantastic!
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