After spending a year in Israel, Jeff Spivack realized that, despite having to hide in bomb shelters multiple times during his trip, he rarely thought about the nation’s politics.

When he arrived on the Syracuse University campus the following year, Spivack wanted to understand these politics on a deeper level. Now, the junior television, radio and film major is president of LIME: An Israeli-Palestinian Dialogue Group.

The organization was once an acronym for Learning about Israel in the Middle East. In more recent years, group members decided to drop the acronym to focus on both the Israeli and the Palestinian perspectives.

At the beginning of his college career, Spivack showed up to the first few LIME events and quickly learned about different sides of the conflicts. He said he had never met a Palestinian person before.

“The [initiative] we want to take is a dialogue-driven one whose sole purpose is to engage the campus by educating from an academic perspective and exposing people to other people that they might have never met before,” Spivack said.

Spivack said it is important to have a diverse mix of people at LIME meetings because different perspectives make the discussion more meaningful.

“We recognize that we have our own individual opinions and we are the product of our experiences, but as an organization we strive really hard to take no stance,” Spivack said.

LIME holds three regular types of events at least once a semester — speakers, presentations followed by round-table discussions and film screenings followed by short discussions. He said the discussion are interesting, but he said he thinks he’s benefitted most from developing friendships with people in the group with different viewpoints.

Through his experience, Spivack said he has learned that everyone’s perspective matters. He has learned to find ways to understand people with different opinions, despite holding his own beliefs.

“They’ve had [a certain] experience, so that’s why they think this,” Spivack said. “You have to really try to put yourself in other people’s shoes to really understand where these conflicts come from.”

Published on November 2, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact: moberger@syr.edu