Finding Mideast Unity in the Classroom

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Professors of Peace
For 12 years, Palestinian professor Manuel Hassassian and Israeli professor Edy Kaufman have found a peaceful middle ground in their college classroom. Their belief in open dialogue to solve the raging violece overseas has fueled their lectures and long-term friendship.

A missile had hit their house, they said, demolishing one side of it but sparing them.

Days later, a bomber blew himself up in the cafeteria of Hebrew University, Kaufman said, about 15 yards from the Harry S. Truman Peace Institute that he led. Nine students died.

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The first team-teaching attempt was a failure. Kaufman had asked a Palestinian scholar to teach with him in 1985 at UCLA, but -- as he remembers it -- his colleague kept getting angry at students' confrontational questions. Then a threat came from overseas, warning against collaboration with Israelis.

Years later, when Kaufman asked Hassassian to teach with him, it was a tough decision, Hassassian said, very controversial: Many Palestinians were arguing against normalizing relations with Israelis.

But Hassassian, like Kaufman, believed that finding common ground was the only hope for resolution.

They started the class -- offered through U-Md.'s Center for International Development and Conflict Management -- with rules of engagement, avoiding certain terms, ensuring that either could ask for a timeout.

Kaufman, a longtime professor at Hebrew University, lectures on the Israeli version of events. Then Hassassian tells the Palestinian side. Both speak as scholars, analyzing the official rhetoric; both are moderates.

Still, the first summer was tense and adversarial, Hassassian said, as each tried to score points in class.

Lisa Kaufman could tell Hassassian wasn't happy in his little dorm room, and after talking, the Kaufmans invited him to stay with them.

In the classroom, the professors made more rules, boundaries not to cross. And at home, after initially giving each other lots of space, they found that they both loved classical music. They started going to the gym together and watching soccer.

Each summer, events changed the tenor of the class. A peace accord was signed in 1993. The Israeli prime minister was assassinated in 1995. In 2000, Kaufman had to find another professor because Hassassian was helping with negotiations over Jerusalem. Talks collapsed. A new intifada began.