Implementing the Model: Services
The program offers a range of services to aid sheikhs mediate conflicts within their communities:
- Develop a model tailor designed for the particular community, which integrates traditional mediation practices (sulha) and modern professional mediation.
- Connect the sheikh to the local municipal Community Mediation and Dialogue Center, which are supported by the Gishurim Program and operate in both the Arab sector and mixed Jewish-Arab cities.
- Provide opportunities to participate in courses, trainings, and professional development adapted to the needs of the sheikh on topics of community mediation and conflict resolution.
- Support their activities by promoting public awareness in their communities about the important connection between sheikhs as religious leaders and effective community mediators.
Development of the Program
A significant aspect of a sheikh’s role as a religious leader within Arab Muslim society is resolving conflicts within the community: between neighbors, couples, families, or clans. However, no professional resources were made available to these leaders.
In 2020, Mosaica established the Sheikhs as Mediators Program, which is directed by Sheikh Dr. Eyad Amar. The program works closely with the municipal Community Mediation and Dialogue Centers supported by the Gishurim Program, and which are established in Arab cites and towns, and mixed Jewish-Arab areas around the country.
The Sheikhs as Mediators Program increases the capacity of these religious leaders to resolve conflicts within their communities by offering courses in professional mediation and training in conflict resolution that are designed to be integrated with more familiar traditional approaches to mediation. The fosters a connection between them and their local Community Mediation and Dialogue Center, which provides unique and ongoing access to municipal bodies and resources.
Program Staff
Sheikh Dr. Eyad Amer received his Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of California in 2018. He earned a Master’s degree in Management and Educational Pedagogy from the Center of Academic Studies in 2010 and a Master’s Degree from Bar-Ilan University in Arabic and Islamic History in 2003. He received his BA from Bar-Ilan University in 2000 in Arabic.
In 2012, he became the principal of a high school in Kafr Qasim and has also
served as the Imam of a central mosque in Kafr Qasim. He is a member of the Sulha council in Kafr Qasim and has served as a mediator on the Sharia court. He has over 35 years of experience in education, having served as the principal of the Alhuda high school in Ramle and also served as a lecturer and pedagogic advisor at Beit Brill College and Achva Academic College.
He is also one of the first religious singers to have founded an Islamic band. It is called “al-Srat” (the straight path).
Sheikh Taiseer Mahamed earned a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Eastern Mediterranean University in Northern Cyprus and a Master’s degree in Conflict Resolution and Management from Ben Gurion University. He is an educator and education system manager with 25 years of experience.
He is responsible for developing the field of mediation and dialogue in Arab communities with the goal of improving the quality of life in Arab society and disseminating the mediation language as a key-value and way of life.
Rabbi Dr. Daniel Roth is the director of Mosaica, an Israeli NGO advancing community mediation and dialogue in Israel. Much of Roth’s work focuses on the network of insider religious mediators who help prevent, mitigate, and mediate crisis situations throughout Israel, the Middle East, and beyond. Roth also works to connect religious leaders to the roughly 90 community mediation and dialogue centers and initiatives throughout Israel, including 30 in the Arab sector and 16 in mixed Jewish-Arab cities and areas, which Mosaica professionally supports through a tender of the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs called the Gishurim Project.
Dr. Roth is a core faculty member at Bar-Ilan University’s Graduate Program for Conflict Management, Resolution and Negotiation and at Tel Aviv University’s International Program in Conflict Resolution and Mediation, where he teaches graduate courses on crisis management, religious conflict resolution, and peacebuilding. Roth is also a core faculty member of Shakla vaTariya, the institute for negotiation and crisis management based in Herzliya. Roth is also a regular lecturer for MEJDI Tours/National Geographic. He has published several academic articles on conflict resolution in the Jewish tradition and on insider religious mediation in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. His book, Third-Party Peacemakers in Judaism: Text Theory and Practice, was published by Oxford University Press in 2021.
Formerly, Roth was the founder and director of the Pardes Center for Judaism and Conflict Resolution; the Mahloket Matters Projects; and the 9Adar: Jewish Week of Constructive Conflict, which continues today as Dibur Hadash: the Israeli Week of Mediation and Dialogue. Roth was a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution.
Roth holds a Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University’s Graduate Program for Conflict Management, Resolution, and Negotiation; an MA in Talmud from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; a B.Ed in Jewish Philosophy from Herzog Teachers’ College; and studied for eight years at Yeshivat Har Etzion during which time he received Orthodox rabbinic ordination. He lives with his wife and four children in Jerusalem.
For more information, contact:
Taiser.gishurim@mosaica.org.il