As fate would have it, moving to the North brought Lior Yom-Tov closer to the South.
Up until just a year ago, Lior lived in Holon, where he had grown up as the oldest of four brothers. Lior taught at the Mikve Israel Agricultural High-School and co-managed a boarding school, while at the same completing a master’s degree at Tel Aviv University. In 2022, to be closer to his partner Rachel, Lior moved to Haifa, and soon after moving, got in touch with an old friend who, it so happened, worked at the Arava Institute while living in Haifa. So began a friendly recruiting push to get Lior, freshly armed with a master’s in social psychology with a specialization in group trauma, to run the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies’ Dialogue Forum, the core component in the Institute’s Peacebuilding Leadership work supported through our partnership with the Glickman Family Foundation.
Lior joined the Arava Institute in August of last year, and by all accounts he has done a wonderful job. For as far back as he can remember, Lior has been drawn to the worlds of education and justice. To Lior, political justice and environmental justice are not only intertwined, but also interdependent. This aligns deeply with the spirit and mission of the Arava Institute. While the Arava Institute’s student body is multinational, Lior finds the most satisfaction in bringing together the two primary sides of the conflict in our region – Israelis and Palestinians.
Asked to reflect on what he has learned in his first semester on the job, Lior pauses before answering. “Before coming to the Arava Institute, I knew that a multinational dialogue can be very meaningful to each participant in terms of examining his or her own identity. What I’ve learned this past semester, however, is that dialogue can also serve as a space for individuals to build their identity and resilience as a community. I realized that when I saw our students cooperate in a Palestinian social justice project.”
“This land needs an energy of healing,” Lior is fond of saying. To Lior, the starting off point of healing, particularly in the context of group trauma, is dialogue.
We are extremely proud and lucky to have Lior leading the dialogue amongst all our students and wish him continued success.
ARCHIVES
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
OLDER POSTS
“This land needs a healing energy” – Meet Lior Yom Tov, Coordinator of our Dialogue Forum
Like this article?
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Linkdin
Share on Pinterest