Neurobridges is a summer school that brings together students from countries in the middle east so that they can learn about the brain, as well as each others' cultures. The aim is to take a small step that might reduce tension and build understanding. Perhaps the best way to show you what Neurobridges is about is by telling you about a few of the conversations that took place during the course.
At lunch, I sat with two students, an Israeli student from Jerusalem. and an Iranian student from Tehran. After a bit of talk about
their individual areas of study, we talked about the summer course. The Iranian
student said: "Here the idea is to use science to bring people
together, with the purpose of seeing each other’s humanity, to reduce
our perception of differences." Then the Israeli student added: "This is
much better than bringing people together and having them talk about
their cultural differences or similarities. Science is a better excuse
to start the conversation."
At another meal, a young lady from
Macedonia mentioned that she learned from an Iranian student that the
two cultures shared a custom: "when the host offered you food, you
politely declined. When they offered it again, you again declined. Only
on the third time you accepted. I was delighted to learn that this was
the measure of etiquette in both cultures."
The Palestinian
Israeli young woman, born and raised in Haifa, now studying for her PhD
in Europe, was sitting across the lunch table from a Jewish Israeli
young woman, a postdoc in America. The Palestinian woman called herself
Palestinian, but she said: "The Jewish Israelis don’t like it when I
call myself Palestinian. They’d prefer if I called myself Arab Israeli."
She
continued: "Until college it was rare for me to have any interaction
with kids of my own age who were not Palestinian. This is because there
are 4 types of schools, 3 of which are Jewish, and the fourth one which
is for Arabs. There are rare schools that admit both. When I graduated
from college and wanted to apply for grad school, there were many
foundations that offered scholarships, but all of them required military
or public service. I didn’t have those."
The Israeli woman replied: “Why didn’t you volunteer for civil service?”
The Palestinian woman said: “How could I serve a government that is oppressing me and my people?”
The Israeli woman replied: “But you are Israeli, this is your country.”
The
Palestinian woman replied: “I am Palestinian. I live in an occupied
land. Right now my whole people are just trying to survive. I can’t
think about helping Israel.” She continued: “When you go to Ben Gurion
airport and try to leave the country, if you are Palestinian, you are
taken aside for extra searches. When someone asks the authorities why,
they say, "What's a little inconvenience to search your body and
suitcase if it improves safety?”
The Israeli woman said: "I'm sorry about that. I know that's not fair."
But
the conversations are not just bridges that help build understanding
among young people, they are also a conduit for learning among the
professors, who also come from diverse backgrounds. Here is a sampling:
At
breakfast each morning, the professors sit together and talk. I learned
that at Hebrew University, the admissions officers are encouraged to
enroll students from East Jerusalem, i.e., Arab Israelis. My colleague
said: "the university receives more funding for graduating this
population of students than Jewish students."
He continued: “If the
Arab Israelis participated more, for example, by voting, they would have
more power in the government. The fact that they don’t seem to want to
participate tells me that they don’t seem to want to be a part of
Israel.” Another colleague mentioned that look at the Druze people in
Israel. They participate in the Army, and other aspects of being an
Israeli. "Recently I heard that the best high school in the country is
one in the Druze region."
Listening to these exchanges, I'm reminded that the value of Neurobridges is not that it dissolves
political realities or resolves historical wounds, but that it creates a space where curiosity takes precedence
over fear, and where the first move toward understanding is made not
through slogans or diplomacy but through shared pursuit of ideas. When
students and faculty discover that science can be a neutral ground on
which difficult identities can coexist, and even converse, they begin to
see one another with more dimensionality. That shift is small and
fragile, but it is real, and it accumulates. In a region where young
people are more often taught to imagine an adversary than a colleague,
the act of studying synapses, brain circuits, and behavior side by side
becomes a modest but profound counterexample. Neurobridges does not
claim to fix the world; it simply gives the next generation a better
starting point.
