The Kivunim Institute

The KIVUNIM Institute believes that education, and particularly Jewish education, must take place within a context of lofty goals and aspirations filled with optimism, tempered by reality and encouraged by the understanding that words have power and that betterment of the world is the central goal of the Jewish people and its religious and national tradition. Programs of The KIVUNIM Institute have as their central goal the active interpretation of the past and understanding of the present in order to build and insure the future.

To accomplish this goal the KIVUNIM Institute’s programs seek to re-establish the lost link to the history of the Jewish people throughout the world by discovering and sharing the noble and creative story of Jewish life around the globe. Jewish education for the 21st century must help to minimize fears and maximize comfort with people, cultures and religions that are different than our own, both as Americans and as Jews. Sadly, many contemporary institutions and programs often educate to the opposite.

The KIVUNIM Institute inspires its program participants to forge a lifelong relationship with Israel and the Jewish People through travel across the world - gaining understanding of Jewish life and history together with that of the many cultures, religions and worldviews amongst whom the Jewish people grew in its 2000 year Diaspora. Our international travels build and deepen Jewish identity within the context of an emerging sense of “world- consciousness” both as Jews and as citizens of the world. We welcome participants from all backgrounds in the belief that mutual understanding can only enhance the possibilities for greater peace and justice across the globe.

The KIVUNIM Institute is based in Jerusalem where we encounter Israel openly: appreciating its grand and historic achievements together with its unfulfilled goals and aspirations. We encourage a perception on the part of our participants that there is work yet to be done and that they have a role to play in the fulfillment of the Zionist promise, the national ideology of the Jewish People. The KIVUNIM Institute is expanding that ideology from its current inwardness to a greater outer-directedness actively seeking improvement of the world’s tolerance, mutual respect, commitment to human rights and human dignity, in a more just and more peaceful world: giving life to the words of the Hebrew Prophets in modern times. We introduce our participants to the world of Arab-Jewish co-existence, perhaps the greatest challenge to the State of Israel and the Jewish People in our time. We encourage them to return to their homes (on college campuses, in emerging families, and within expansive communities) and their future lives with the capacity for and commitment to building dialogue in place of confrontation and of becoming living representations of the words of the founder of the Zionist Movement, Theodor Herzl:

"IF YOU WILL IT, IT IS NOT (WILL NOT BE JUST) A DREAM."