David Mattis
David Mattis is an alumnus of one of the first NewGround fellowship cohorts. Both before and after his involvement with the organization, he has been exploring his own personal path with Judaism and the various communities he calls his own. After moving to Los Angeles eight years ago from New York, David enrolled in rabbinical school at the American Jewish University. He had heard about NewGround from many people, but his biggest influence in joining the organization was his interest in interfaith dialogue. He saw his unique position as a rabbinical student as a valuable asset to the cohort, and believed that his prior experience with opening dialogue between Christian and Jewish communities would be helpful. With regard to the types of discussions that NewGround fosters, David notes that one might think that “it’s about Judaism and Islam, but it’s really about Jews and Muslims, where we are as people and humans. It’s about everyone learning from each other”. Read more...
Lana Daoud
Lana Daoud’s formative years
were spent traveling between the Middle East and the U.S., observing and
absorbing two different worlds. Long
before 9/11, Daoud became accustomed to assumptions from both American friends
and family in the Middle East. Daoud’s vantage point inspired a desire for
understanding, later inspiring her chosen study of History and Middle East
Studies at San Francisco State University. Daoud’s childhood best friend was Jewish, she attended an
ethnically diverse elementary school, and became accustomed to a culturally
eclectic Muslim community- an “other” growing comfortable among various
“others.” Read more...
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Tasneem Noor
When
Tasneem Noor first began participating with NewGround, she was happy to see so
many diverse and open-minded people, ready to discuss not only the topics
important to all of them, but to get to know the people in the room and learn
about how their faith was part of their everyday
lives. Born in
Pakistan but raised there, in India, and in United Arab Emirates, she moved to
Los Angeles when she was a junior in high school. She attended UCLA for both her Bachelors in
English, and Masters in Education in Student Affairs. Now, as part of the student affairs division
at Cal State Los Angeles, she is working with the student government to support
student programming and advocacy based initiatives. Read more...
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Amy Kolsky
Amy Kolsky is an adventurous spirit. During the NewGround experience,
Kolsky was the only Jewish fellow who had not been to Israel or
Palestine. “I didn’t have
much of a connection to Israel or particularly strong views on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I
just knew that both sides experienced
a painful past and both sides took a powerful stance now. I came to the realization that after
NewGround, I wanted to learn more about the region.” So Amy took a position teaching at a
summer school in the West Bank city of Nablus. After completing her teaching
assignment, she spent a month traveling or more specifically, “Couchsurfing,” around
Israel. “I came in to NewGround open-minded and the fellowship taught me how to
take this experience to the next level- to encounter people as individuals not just as representatives of political entities." Read more...
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Rachel Gandin
NewGround alumna Rachel Gandin recently returned from 4 months in Jordan where she produced the first Arabic-language feature film made by a major American studio. The United is a family sports film that tells the story of a reluctant Egyptian soccer coach who brings together a rag-tag team of teenage boys from across the Arab world to defeat his longstanding French rival. It will be released throughout the Arab world in early 2012. Raised as a Reconstructionist Jew, Gandin is fluent in Arabic has long been drawn to Arab culture. Read more...
Rebecca Berger
2010 Newground alumna, Rebecca Berger, is a Judaic Studies teacher at Sinai Akiba Academy where she is working with fellow alumnae to create an exchange program between her Jewish middle school students and the Muslim middle school students at New Horizon Day School. This partnership will give students the opportunity to understand each others' religious traditions and gain insight into what it means to be a young Muslim or Jew in America today. "NewGround's philosophy of 'embracing curiosity over assumptions' is deeply compelling to me and it is something that I think is vital to share with the younger generation of Muslims and Jews." Read more...
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