April 25th, 2010 Speaker and Performer List

MAYOR JOHN DESTEFANO, JR., was first elected Mayor of New Haven in 1993. He has been re-elected seven times based on his strong record of cutting crime nearly in half, creating jobs, improving the public schools and stewarding New Haven’s transition from its old economy to a successful new, thriving economy. DeStefano’s innovative policies have been recognized by leaders across Connecticut and the nation and have often been replicated. His fellow mayors elected him President of the National League of Cities, an organization that he is still very active in today. He is also the past President of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.

THE COMBATANTS FOR PEACE: ELIK ELHANAN and BASSAM ARAMIN The Combatants for Peace are former Israeli and Palestinian fighters who no longer see each other as enemies. They forswear violence and advocate together for an end to the Occupation. Bassam Aramin, was formerly a Fatah fighter who spent 7 years in an Israeli prison. He now heads the Al Quds Association for Democracy and Dialogue.

On January 16, 2007, 3 Palestinian girls were walking home from school in Anata, East Jerusalem. An Israeli Border Police jeep drove through the school zone firing rubber bullets; Bassam’s daughter, Abir, was wounded and died 3 days later. She was 10 years old. ABIR’S GARDEN has emerged as a way of memorializing Abir by building a safe place for her classmates to gather, play and heal on the grounds of her school.

In 2007, Bassam received the Bremen Peace Award for reconciliation work in the Middle East and the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Middle Eastern Journalism by Search for Common Ground.
Elik Elhanan, military refuser, served as a soldier in an IDF combat unit from 1995-98. In 1997 his sister, Smadar, was killed by a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem. He speaks all over the world and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Middle East Studies at Columbia University.

DR. ARNOLD NOYEK is Professor of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Professor, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and Professor of Medical Imaging (Radiology) at the University of Toronto. He is also Director of International Continuing Education for the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto and founding Director, the Peter A Silverman Centre for International Health, Mount Sinai Hospital (PASCIH). He was Otolaryngologist-in-Chief at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, from 1989-2002 and continues on staff. Dr Noyek is the Founder of the Canada International Scientific Exchange Program (www.CISEPO.ca), based at Mount Sinai Hospital (PASCIH) and University of Toronto. Dr Noyek has worked actively in an international leadership role on promoting continuing medical education, professional development and capacity building with universities in Israel since 1972 and with Arab universities since 1982. Since 1995, CISEPO has fostered Arab and Israeli cross-border cooperation through joint health initiatives among Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian individuals and institutions. CISEPO’s cooperative programs are equitable, diverse and inclusive, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary in medicine, public health, science, nursing and allied health, and involve faculty and students while focusing on the needs of the marginalized and disabled. Projects take place on the ground in the Middle East, domestically in North American universities and medical schools and communities and, through distance learning, engage multiple global sites through highly interactive teleHealth videoconference rounds. CISEPO recently established American CISEPO; both are NGO’s that have registered charitable status in Canada and the US. Dr Noyek has published widely, received many significant awards and is recognized internationally for his innovation and ongoing contributions to building trust and confidence across the Arab and Israeli frontier. In 2009, Dr Noyek was elected as a Senior Ashoka Fellow which now provides a lead social entrepreneurial platform and global partners to extend the Ashoka mission and the CISEPO model in global health, human rights and peacebuilding.

IMAM JIM JONES is the Associate Professor of World Religions at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York with a concurrent appointment in African Studies at Manhattanville College. Professor Jones is former chair of the World Religions Department and a Professor of Comparative Religion at The Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences. He is Director of the Al-Azhar University (Egypt) Arabic Summer Immersion Program for Americans. His writing, research and lecture activities are focused on Muslim American identity development and conflict resolution. Internationally, Dr. Jones has lectured at, taught in or consulted to institutions in Bahrain, Bermuda, Egypt, Jerusalem, Trinidad-Tobago, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.  Dr. Jimmy Jones holds a bachelor’s degree from Hampton University, a master’s degree from Yale University Divinity School and a Doctorate of Ministry degree from Hartford Seminary. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut with his wife where they are striving to build a better Muslim community via Masjid Al Islam's community development project.

RABBI PONET is the Howard M. Holtzmann Jewish Chaplain at Yale, where he has served as a religious leader since 1981. He earned his undergraduate degree from Yale in 1968 with a major in Religious Studies and his masters and doctoral degrees from Hebrew Union College, where he was ordained in 1973. Rabbi Ponet lived in Israel from 1974 through 1981, studying Jewish thought at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and serving as a Fellow and teacher at both the Shalom Hartman Institute and the Pardes Institute. He returned to the U.S. in 1981 to become Yale’s Jewish Chaplain, a position he has held ever since.

DR. JAMES LECKMAN is a leading international authority on child and adolescent mental health. He and his team of clinicians and investigators are based at the Yale University Child Study Center and the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. Dr. Leckman is the Neison Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology at Yale where he also serves as an Associate Director of the Albert J. Solnit Residency program.  Dating back to his university and medical school training when he spent time both at the American University of Beirut and the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, Dr. Leckman has been actively involved in efforts to encourage Palestinians and Israelis to work together to provide tangible mental health services and joint educational opportunities. In conjunction with the late Donald J. Cohen, M.D., Dr. Leckman has worked closely with Dr. Caffo since 2004 in creating regular "encounter" discussions to examine the issues involved in Arab-Jewish collaborations throughout the Middle East with a particular focus on the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict.  He has traveled to the region on an annual basis where he regularly meets with the Palestinian and Israeli experts on child and mental health services and training.  In 2004, guided by the reality that our children are the future and that respect for and protection of children is a shared human value, he played a key role in founding the ERICE (Empowerment and Resilience in Children Everywhere) partnership of Israeli and Palestinian child mental health professionals to promote the well-being of children and families affected by the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The group consists of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, and includes Palestinians, and Jewish and Arab Israeli citizens. The organization has affiliations with major academic institutions in the region including Al-Quds University in East Jerusalem, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and from the Universities of Tel Aviv and Bar-Ilan. We also have the involvement and support of Yale University in the US and the University of Rome and of Modena.

In the past the major focus of the ERICE group has been ongoing cross border discussions and small-scale capacity building and research projects. In March 2010 with the encouragement and support of the Honorable Samuel Gejdenson, the ERICE team submitted a USAID proposal: (1) To conduct cross border seminars and training and working groups on Arab-Jewish collaboration on mental health issues of mutual concern; (2) To expand the Facilitation of School-Based Interventions to Address the Aftermath of Trauma and train a second group of mental health facilitators; (3) To complete the first comprehensive examination of Effects of Repeated Exposure to War, Terror, and Violence on the Development of Infant and Young Children with the aim of providing needed services; and (4) To complete an epidemiological study to assess Service Needs, Treatment Gaps and Barriers to Treatment in the West Bank and Arab-Israeli communities. 

ANDREA BLANCH PhD, the President and Director of CRT, has worked for over 30 years as a social change agent. A former state mental health commissioner, she was founding director of the Collaborative on Conflict Management in Mental Health and the National Trauma Consortium. Andy has published widely on women’s mental health, trauma, and social change, consults nationally and internationallly, and has done grassroots organizing in the Balkans and the MIddle East. She was a 2009 Fellow in the Women, Religion and Globalization program at Yale University. Her efforts are focused on building CRT as an interfaith network to shape a peaceful and sustainable future, with an emphasis on the role of women. Andrea was awarded the 2010 annual Duisberg Peace Award by the Southwest Coalition on Peace and Justice

SA’ED ATSHAN is a joint doctoral candidate in anthropology and Middle Eastern studies at Harvard University. He received an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2008 and his BA from Swarthmore College in 2006. Sa'ed has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union, the UN High Commission on Refugees, Human Rights Watch, Seeds of Peace, the Palestinian Negotiations Affairs Department, and the Government of Dubai. He is presently a lecturer in peace and justice studies at Tufts University, and he is a  three-time recipient of distinction awards from Harvard for his work as a head teaching fellow there. Now 25, Sa’ed was born in the US to a Palestinian refugee family, and was raised in the Occupied Territories. 

PERFORMERS

THE AFRO-SEMITIC EXPERIENCE is a band of African-American and Jewish-American musicians who are dedicated to preserving, promoting and expanding the rich cultural and musical heritage of the Jewish and African Diasporas. They present interpretations of music from the rich traditions of our two cultures: Gospel, Klezmer, Nigunim, Spirituals, Bebop and Swing. In performance they also frame the music, telling stories about what the pieces mean, how they relate to us as individual members of the community, and how they reflect upon the relations between Blacks and Jews.

THE YALE BELLY DANCE SOCIETY was founded in 2003 with the goal of bringing Middle Eastern dance and culture to Yale. Over the years, the group has evolved into a performance troupe of talented dancers dedicated to promoting belly dance at Yale and in the surrounding community. Members of the Yale Belly Dance Society rehearse weekly and perform regularly at a wide variety of events. Auditions for membership in the Yale Belly Dance Society are held annually at the beginning of the fall semester. Membership is open to all members of the Yale community.

THE ICE BROTHERS Ice Brothers is an intersection of 4 musicians from wildly different backgrounds. Their common language is the British Invasion with Singer/Songwriter/Rhythm Guitarist Gregory Golda bringing a modern edge to their original yet classic sound. Electronic Jazz drummer Tracey Kroll unplugged for this group and lead guitarist Sid Gottlieb's blues drenched sound coupled with scorching harp embellishments give the band its roots. KJ Dayton's melodic and often thunderous bass lines run perpendicular to his solo career as a progressive/experimental artist.

 
THE DUKE’S MEN OF YALE are an all-male a cappella singing group at Yale University. The Duke's Men perform around the world, including well-known venues such as the Lincoln Center and the White House. The group undertakes regional tours in January and March of every year, and an international tour every May. Previous destinations have included Hawaii, Europe, Japan and Thailand.

THE OPERA THEATRE OF YALE COLLEGE (OTYC) is the undergraduate opera company of Yale University. As a vital part of Yale’s vibrant classical music scene, the OTYC's productions are highly anticipated on campus. Noted for its impeccable musical standards and innovative productions, the company performs to consistently sold-out audiences of Yale faculty, students, and members of the greater New Haven community. The Opera Theater of Yale College is proud to have worked in many of Yale University’s most prestigious performance spaces. Our productions have been seen at the University Theater, the Whitney Humanities Center Theater, the Off Broadway Theater, the Yale School of Medicine Auditorium, the Davenport/Pierson Auditorium, and Dwight Chapel.

Tables

1. The Combatants for Peace

2. Muslim Student Association at Yale

3. Health is a Bridge to Peace

4. JStreet at Yale

5. Pat Westwater Photography

6. Christian Community Action

7. Yale Student AMA

8. The Fair Haven Clinic

9.  Hill Health Center