Cultural Heritage in Service of Empowerment and Reconciliation: On Using Islamic Foundational Texts in Intercultural Programs in Israel

.
Both groups, the Jewish majority and the Palestinian minority in Israel, frame many socio-cultural and political conceptions of statehood, peoplehood, citizenry, indigenousness, commemoration and the alike in a religious language and render these into the public sphere using theological frameworks and justifications. In doing so, both groups are engaged in twofold process: the heritagization of the sacred, and the sacralization of heritage. Religious traditions, be it Jewish, Muslim or Christian, are represented and contested as “heritage” that makes them appear more relevant to the politics of identity and belonging; and heritage forms are imbued with religious meanings that makes them appear authentic and irrefutable. These entangled interfaces between religion, politics and heritage formation in Israel, thus, make it increasingly difficult to promote dialogue between Jews and Palestinians in Israel without paying attention to the influence of each group’s religious heritage on the prospects of any type of dialogue between both groups.
That said, this presentation’s focus is on “From the Wells” – Min Habe’erot Initiative: Jewish-Arab Education Toward A Shared Society – which is an educational program for Jewish and Arab headmasters and teachers in Israel. Initiated and facilitated by The Shalom Hartman Institute, the program aims at transforming the study of traditions, civilizations, faiths and religions in the Israeli public education into a more plural, humanistic, diversified, and inclusive type of education. Specifically, the presentation examines the dynamics of the processes of the heritagization of the sacred and the sacralization of heritage in the work of this program. Furthermore, as teachers and principals keep questioning whether it’s religiously permissible or theologically legitimate to use other religious traditions’ foundational texts to enrich one own’s religious experience, expand religious imagery and interpret sacred texts, the presentation sheds light on how the program advocates the use of Jewish and Christian literatures in the interpretation of the Holy Qur’an from an Islamic perspective.