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ADVISORY COUNCIL

Dr. Dalia Fadila
Board member
Dr. Yehuda Stolov
Board member

Dr. Dalia Fadila is the founder of Q Schools: English Language and Human Development and president of Al-Qasemi College of Engineering and Science. In the period between 2000-2011, Dr. Fadila acted as the academic manager of Al Qasemi Teacher Training College. She is also a fellow member of the "EU Visitors Program," and "US International Leadership Visitors' Program".  

 

Dr. Fadila is an expert on organizational development and educational entrepreneurship in developing societies and an international speaker on the issues of Arab women and education.

 

She has led and managed national and international seminars and projects on issues of gender, culture, identity and education. Of deep concern to her are promoting quality education for the Arab students through establishing an alternative schooling system, and empowering Arab women as educators, entrepreneurs and leaders. She has established private schools for teaching English called Q Schools - English Language and HR Development that proposes a unique approach to learning/teaching English suited to Arab students and stemming from the need of these students to develop personally and professionally.

 

Dr. Fadila is currently also faculty member of the International School for Leadership and Diplomacy at IDC-Inter Disciplinary Center in Hertzelya and member of the governmental civil-service higher committee, President Revlin's committee for a shared society, and the advisor to the Kenesset on Arab education issues.

Dr. Yehuda Stolov is the executive director of the Interfaith Encounter Association, an organization that works since 2001 to build peaceful inter-communal relations in the Holy Land by fostering mutual respect and trust between people and communities through active interfaith dialogue. 

Dr. Stolov has lectured on the role of religious dialogue in peace-building throughout the world, including Jordan, India, Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea, North America and Europe.  He also published many papers on related issues.

In 2006, he was awarded the Immortal Chaplains Foundation Prize for Humanity, which honors those who "risked all to protect others of a different faith or ethnic origin"; and in 2015 he was awarded the IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East. 

 

Among other activities, Dr. Stolov is a member of the International Council of the International Association for Religious Freedom and was a member of the steering committee for the United Nations Decade of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace.  He holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in Physics and a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is married and father of three children, living in Jerusalem.

Andrea Azarm
Volunteer and Board member
Rabbi Michael Cohen
Guest Educator and Board member

Andrea is an early supporter of Jerusalem Peacebuilders and has been a camp volunteer since 2012, working with Dorothy Porter and the other volunteers to provide healthy, home-cooked meals to campers from three faiths and two continents.  The work nourishes her own passions for faith, food, and the Middle East. 

 

Andrea was born into a Lebanese family on her mother’s side and has been married to an Iranian immigrant for almost 30 years. She was raised in the Christian faith and has been an active member of the Episcopal Church for most of her life.  She made her first trip to the Middle East shortly after graduating from college and has visited many of the holy sites of Israel and Palestine more than once, walked the mountains of Lebanon, wandered the streets of Old Damascus, and stood in the shadows of the pyramids at Giza. 

 

Since 2002, Andrea has operated her own business, Azarm & Associates, LLC is based in Southport, Connecticut and serves businesses, law firms, and government organizations nationwide and internationally. Andrea holds a BA degree from the University of Connecticut. 

Rabbi Michael M. Cohen is a graduate of the University of Vermont where he received the History Award, and graduated in 1980.  Rabbi Michael received ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 1990 becoming the first rabbi in the history of the Israel Congregation in Manchester Center, Vermont. He served as their rabbi for ten years, and also was elected during those years to a term as the President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. He presently is the rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation. 

 

Rabbi Michael was a founding faculty member of The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in 1996 while on sabbatical from the Israel Congregation. Since then he has divided his time between his home in Vermont and the Kibbutz Ketura campus of the Arava Institute. He also is on the faculty and staff at Bennington College where he teaches classes on conflict resolution for the College’s Center for the Advancement of Public Action.  In 2002 he co-founded the Green Zionist Alliance, the first Environmental Zionist party to run in the World Zionist Congress elections. In 2009 he co-founded the Arava Power Company which is working to make Solar Power the main energy source for southern Israel and the region. In his capacity with the Arava Institute he helped establish the Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) an organization of Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian NGOs working for peace in the region.

 

He is the author of numerous articles on the environment and the Middle East peace process that can be found in Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post – where he is a regular columnist, Letter From America and blogger, the Jerusalem Report, The Palestine Times, the Israel-Palestine Journal, The Jordan Times, the Rutland Herald, the Christian Science Monitor, the Arab News, the Saudi Gazette, Today’s Zaman, and the Huffington Post.

Amer Nimr
Board member
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Bruce Barrett
Treasurer and Board member

Amer was born in the West Bank during the time of the Six Day's War of 1967, and grew up in rural Jordan and abroad. His father was a career diplomat serving as the Ambassador of Jordan from 1973 to 1992 in Syria, Germany, Scandinavia, Tunisia, Malta, United Kingdom, Ireland and Egypt. Fluent in Arabic, he is well-informed of ongoing international matters, particularly developments in the Middle East. He has been a guest commentator on MSNBC.com regarding the Middle East and the global political situation. Coming from a family that believes in open dialogue, two of his children have attended the “Seeds of Peace” camp program in Maine. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Business Administration from George Washington University.

Bruce A. Barrett is an active peacemaker. He was born in 1962 in New Haven CT, attended Foran High School in Milford, and graduated from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1985 with a B.S. in Applied History and Industrial Management. After graduation, Bruce spent one year teaching English and running a youth group at Saint James Episcopal Church in Punta Arenas Chile.  With his missionary tour completed, he returned home to join and help build Barrett Outdoor Communications Inc, the family billboard business.

 

In 2006 Bruce created IWagePeace.Org and began branding active peacemaking as a patriotic act of faith by juxtaposing the words “IWagePeace” over the American flag on various of his company billboard locations.  That same year he received the Living Waters Award from the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ for working with youth and promoting peace and diversity.  In 2009, Bruce directed, edited, and produced his first film, The Billboard from Bethlehem, chronicling the peace work of the Israeli/Palestinian non-violent group The Combatants For Peace, while organizing the first “Painting for Peace” among Israeli and Palestinian youth in the West Bank. Shot on location in Israel and Palestine, the film won four documentary film awards, including the Mondavi Award for Peace and Cultural Understanding at the Napa Sonoma Film Festival.

 

In 2010 Bruce created the IWagePeace Walk, where members of area mosques, synagogues, and churches walk and support one another as peacemakers under the banner “We do not need to agree on everything to work together for Justice and Peace.” In 2011, Bruce sponsored the Combatants For Peace speaking tour of ten area Rotary Clubs, elected officials, and radio broadcasts.  He has, with IWagePeace.Org sponsored four additional “Painting for Peace” projects, two in New Haven and two with Jerusalem Peacebuilders in Brattleboro, VT. In 2017 Bruce, his brother John, and childhood friend and Brewmaster Jeff Browning opened in Bridgeport the largest Brewpub in CT, The Brewport Brewing Company.  Bruce is treasurer and musical director of his local church, he also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Religious Campaign against Torture in Washington DC.

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