Rabbi's Week in Review Blog

I had the great pleasure/honor of meeting with Esti Shohat Rozenfeld, the CEO of Tech2Peace. Tech2Peace is the organization Sarah Milgrim z”l worked with in Israel, and one of the many places where her guiding spirit and enormous impact is still felt.

Tech2Peace, through the prism of technical entrepreneurship training, brings Jews and Palestinians together for a two week program. The number of Jews and Palestinians in each cohort is equal, and, for each four person room in which they are housed, there are two Palestinians and two Jews assigned to each room. Likewise, for group projects, there are equal numbers of Palestinians and Jews in each group.

Esti described one of the groups to me in which a Palestinian had greater knowledge and experience to solve the technical problem at hand. She remarked on the dynamics in which, for the first time, the Jewish member of the group would have to look to the Palestinian for leadership, and the Palestinian had to acclimate to being the leader in relation to the Jewish member of the group. Often, it is the case in the program that there are participants who have never met people from the other side. (I use the phrase other side with hesitancy, but don’t have a better reference at hand.)  

Amongst the many challenges to this important work, when Trump cut USAID support, many NGO’s, including Tech2Peace, lost significant funding. In the case of Tech2Peace, it was some three million dollars.

Esti is not just highly competent and intelligent, but also passionate about the work. She yearns for a time in which no Israeli child should have to mourn the loss of a hostage parent, and a friend in Gaza does not have to suffer the loss of numerous family members.  

Going forward it is my hope that we can make a meaningful contribution to the work of Tech2Peace. In so doing we have the opportunity to honor Sarah’s memory, to honor Esti’s work, and that of everyone connected to Tech2Peace, both staff and program participants. It is the work of Tech2Peace and other organizations that are the true peacemakers and our hope for a better future.