The Martin Buber Center for Dialogue Education

One of Israel’s most pressing issues is the socio-economic gap between the country’s relatively robust central areas and its weaker periphery. Beit Berl’s unique Martin Buber Center for Dialogue aims at bridging that gap and providing better opportunities for the periphery’s at-risk youth.

The program’s students combine living and community activism in Israel’s low-income development towns and Arab villages with academic study and exploration. The students of today, already active within the community as an integral part of their studies, become tomorrow’s community leaders, working in the informal education areas and helping to create new opportunities for Israel’s disadvantaged youth.

Students receive a B.Ed. in Informal Education to complement their teaching certificate.

Inspired by the Jewish philosopher and educator Martin Buber, Beit Berl created the Martin Buber Center for Dialogue Education, in cooperation with alumni from Israel’s leading youth movements – Dror Israel, HaMahanot HaOlim, HaShomer HaTzair and Al Ajial. We integrate Buber’s thoughts on community with the hands-on experience of the youth movements’ alumni – to create a program that is for the community, from within the community, using community learning.

Students in the Martin Buber Center for Dialogue Education combine hands-on community service with community learning:

• A community of learning – teachers and students pose vital questions and set about together to explore them, using academic texts, service learning, poetry, art, films, interviews and more in seminars, field work and independent research.
• Living in the community – students live in cooperative communities in low-income development towns and Arab villages throughout Israel.
• Community activism – the students use what they learn every day when they return home – in the neighborhoods, schools, community centers and youth movements in which they work, volunteer, and organize – aiming to close social gaps in Israeli society.