Between Lines and Borders

Reflections from a Groundwork Fellowship in Israel

“A country is never one story.
It is a conversation still unfinished.”

A four-day fellowship trip to Israel can reveal many things: innovative social programs, painful memories, hopeful initiatives, and complex conversations about identity and belonging.

This series of reflections grew out of a Groundwork Fellowship organized through Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP), with programming facilitated by the iCenter.

Over several days, we traveled through Haifa, Tel Aviv, the South, and Jerusalem, visited educational and cultural initiatives, spoke with community leaders, and stood in places where recent history still feels painfully present. Along the way, modern Israeli poetry accompanied the journey, offering a way to slow down and reflect on what we were seeing.

What follows are not conclusions, but observations and questions—about Israel, about how narratives are formed, and about what educators and community leaders bring back home after such a trip.