Teenager Eva Friedlander heads to peace camp to bridge divides and build dialogue
'At a certain point, conversations can only get so far if someone's only listening to prove their point and not actively listening to what the other person says'
A Squirrel Hill teen is going to camp to discover how to get along with others. For three weeks this July, Eva Friedlander will live among Israelis, Palestinians, Indians, Pakistanis, Americans and Brits at Seeds of Peace Camp in an effort to better appreciate conflict resolution.
Eva, 15, described the Maine-based summer camp as both an “isolated community” and an “experiment of what society can be.”
Campers, who range in age from 14-17, spend the summer trying to build “successful relationships,” Eva said. “And even if they’re not always successful, each person still leaves feeling like they can have a connection with the other person.”
The Shady Side Academy student, who will be in 11th grade next fall, said her interests in theater and international relations — given their reliance on “using dialogue to create positive interactions between people” — spurred her summer pursuit.
The camp, she continued, enables participants to talk, connect and see others not “just as a Palestinian or an Israeli, but as humans with much more in common than their national identities but still not forgetting about those national identities.”
Seeds of Peace was established in 1993. Camp materials state that following that first summer — during which 47 Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and American teens attended camp — campers were invited by then-President Bill Clinton to attend the signing of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn.
Eva said she’s “always been interested in the conflict,” though recent events have sparked new desires for greater understanding.
“The connection to Israel, as a Jew, was kind of something that I grew up with,” she said.
Whether during religious school or services at Rodef Shalom Congregation, Eva said she addressed Israel through prayer. “The concept of Israel was always just like a part of my life — I have family that lives there.”
After Oct. 7, 2023, she began thinking more intensely about the region and her relationship to its residents.
“In society, it’s hard for us to see things as being in a gray area,” she said. “I can be a Zionist, I can be pro-Israel and I can also be pro-Palestine, but society doesn’t want to recognize all of these things to be true. I think at Seeds of Peace, that’s something that can be true. We’re not just viewing each other as one thing. We’re viewing each other as multifaceted people.”
Reaching that conclusion requires work, she explained.
As a lead-up to the summer, Eva and fellow campers from the U.S. and the U.K. participated in several Zoom sessions where facilitators stressed the importance of paying attention.
Through monthly meetings Eva has realized it’s “important to go into things wanting to learn more, not necessarily to have a response to what someone’s saying but just to listen,” she said.
“At a certain point, conversations can only get so far if someone’s only listening to prove their point and not actively listening to what the other person says. I oftentimes find myself doing this when I am having a conversation with someone that could be under the umbrella of stated debate — I’m listening to what they’re saying, so maybe I can trip them up in a phrase they said or pick apart one of their points — when it would be so much more successful if I just listen to understand where that person is coming from.”
Eva acknowledged the privilege she has this summer, but is confident that even those without access to the camp can still achieve positive outcomes.
“Obviously not everyone can spend three weeks going to a summer camp in Augusta, Maine, but learning conflict resolution is pretty accessible,” she said. “Applying small things daily, like that active listening I talked about, and not viewing conversations as an argument to win but a dialogue to understand, is another small thing that can be applied to day-to-day life.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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