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Join the Temple Emanuel and St. Paul’s Episcopal communities to learn from Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger and Noor A’wad about the challenging and groundbreaking work of Roots/Shorashim/Judur – an Israeli-Palestinian grassroots initiative for understanding, nonviolence and transformation based in Judea & Samaria/the West Bank. Roots is a unique network of local Palestinians and Israelis who have come to see each other as the partners they both need to make changes to end the conflict.

To learn more about Roots/Shorashim/Judur and the important work they do, please visit www.friendsofroots.net.

Speaker Bios

Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger lives in Alon Shvut Israel and is one of the founders of Roots/Shorashim/Judur, The Palestinian Israeli Grassroots Initiative for Understanding, Nonviolence and Transformation. Currently he serves as its Director of International Relations. He also is the founder of the American Friends of Roots, a multi-faith organization dedicated to supporting the work of Roots/Shorashim/Judur. Rav Hanan frequently speaks in the USA together with one of his Palestinian partner about the amazing work of Roots/Shorashim/Judur.

Prior to the founding of Roots, Rav Hanan spent his whole career teaching Jewish studies in various seminaries, colleges and frameworks in the Jerusalem area, among them the Pardes Institute, Beit Midrash Elul, Nishmat and Yeshivat Bat Ayin. He also spent two years as part of the Judaic Fellows Program in Boca Raton Florida and over ten years in Dallas Texas, first as Rosh Kollel of the Community Kollel and later as founder and Executive Director and Community Rabbinic Scholar for the Jewish Studies Initiative of North Texas.

He and his Israeli–born wife Ayala have four grown children and eleven grandchildren. 

Born to Palestinian parents, Noor A’wad and his family moved from Amman, Jordan to Beit Sahour following the signing of the Oslo Accords. There, he began engaging with his identity as a Palestinian refugee, both in violent and nonviolent ways. While studying to become a tour guide, Noor traveled to Israel and for the first time saw Israelis beyond the lens of “occupying soldiers” which put him on a path of intense rethinking about the reality of the conflict. In 2012, Noor was licensed by the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism. 

In 2016, Noor was asked to bring an overseas group he was guiding to hear Rabbi Schlesinger speak at Roots. He was profoundly challenged by what he heard, and after a series of intense, mind-expanding meetings with the rabbi and later with Ali Abu Awwad, in which he heard things he had never heard before, Noor became a Roots activist.

Later Noor became the Palestinian English-language Roots spokesperson, in which capacity he has spoken to thousands of overseas visitors and given them an incisive, honest and introspective perspective on Palestinian identity and experience, on the conflict and on Roots’ role within it in the arduous journey towards a solution. Today Noor is a member of the leadership team of Roots.

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