Incoming students for the 2024-2025 academic year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, or Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

In 2024 the program is being held in conjunction with the aforementioned universities, and therefore only students who are enrolled at those universities in the coming academic year can participate in the program. In future years the program may be open to students from other higher education institutions as well.

The program has three parts:

• The summer program: The summer program will take place at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute for five weeks from Sunday, August 25, 2024 to Thursday, September 26, 2024, on Sunday-Thursday every week from morning to evening. It includes shared accommodation in flats at a dedicated site in Jerusalem. The program will also include one shared weekend.
• Follow-up meetings: Follow-up monthly meetings will take place on Fridays once a month during the 2024-2025 academic year. These encounters will be devoted to continued learning, additional enrichment, and working on personal journeys. 
• Personal Journey: In the course of the summer program and the monthly follow-up meetings, each fellow will develop a personal project that combines research and social and cultural activity, with close and ongoing support from the program’s staff. 

Program requirements: 

• Full attendance during the summer program that will take place Sunday-Thursday over five weeks from August 25, 2024-September 26,2024. This includes sleeping in the shared dorms from Sunday to Wednesday, as well as attendance of a joint weekend during the summer program. 
• Full attendance at each of the follow-up meetings to take place on Fridays once a month over the academic year.
• Completion of the personal journey.

The contents of the program are challenging and require unconventional, complex and critical thought. The program’s diverse social composition promotes broad and innovative perspectives on complex current affairs. 

The studies include seminars, tutorials, excursions, guest lectures, writing and creative workshops, and provide ample opportunity for mutual enrichment between the participants. 

Examples of past seminar subjects include: “Being human in a technological world," "The rise and fall of wisdom," "The question of freedom," "On moral thought and orientation," "Rethinking Israel, the Palestinians and the Middle East," and more.

The summer program takes place at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. The fellows will be provided with accommodation in Jerusalem. The follow-up meetings over the academic year will take place either at the university or at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

The program is taught by leading scholars in the humanities and social sciences, including Prof. Shai Lavi, Prof. Nissim Mizrachi, Dr. Yochi Fischer, Dr. Raef Zreik, Dr. Assaf David, Dr. Hagai Boas, Prof. Benjamin Pollock, Prof. Ilit Ferber, Prof. Danny Filc, Dr. Ronit Ir-Shai, Prof. Yonatan Mendel, Prof. Maayan Amir and others. 

The program is intended for a small and select group of incoming students in any field at the aforementioned universities. The group of fellows includes Jews and Arabs, ultra-Orthodox, religious, traditional, and secular Jews, from all parts of Israel, who are embarking on studies in diverse disciplines (humanities, social studies, exact sciences and more).

The social aspect is a key part of the program. The fellows spend five consecutive and intensive weeks together, in the course of which they live in shared housing. The shared living arrangement contributes greatly to bonding and to creating a once-in-a-lifetime social experience, as well as intensifying the intellectual experience by providing a direct encounter with diverse views. In fact, the lively discussions that begin in the classroom are often continued with even greater intensity in the shared housing.

No prior knowledge is required, but commitment, seriousness, persistence, and the desire to study in a diverse community are required.

There is no charge for participation in the program. Furthermore, during the summer program (August 25, 2024 – September 26, 2024) fellows will live in dedicated dorms in Jerusalem covered by the program.

Moreover, each fellow receives a NIS 5,000 university scholarship, subject to the completion of all the program’s requirements specified above.

Program fellows may be eligible for 4 university credits, subject to the completion of all the program’s requirements and the university’s conditions.

1. “The program restored my joy of studying texts… They invested enormous resources in us and gave us the feeling that the program was a joint project that we were all building together.” (Yarden Lichterman, Year 1)
2. “The program taught me a new language for thinking, for answering questions, and for taking a broader and more critical look at the society and the period in which I am living. I really appreciated going through the study and growth process with such a diverse and smart group of people. In addition, the program helped me feel a deeper and more authentic connection and empathy towards people and groups whose lifestyles are different from mine." (Omer Yitzhak, Year 3)
3. “The people I met here came from completely different backgrounds from mine, with different beliefs and values, but the most important thing we all had in common was the ability to listen and talk to each other. It was the first time in my life that I talked to people so different from me in that way. I learned so much from each one of the members of the group about their life and their thoughts, which broadened my horizons and my thoughts and taught me to see the world through other people's eyes.” (Zeinab Hassan, Year 3)
4. “The diversity of opinions to which I was exposed in the program, especially those that were expressed between classes and in the evenings, enriched me and made me re-examine my own views and habitual patterns. Even though I consider myself liberal and open-minded, I had never developed significant relations or a profound dialogue with ultra-Orthodox Jews or Palestinians, and in the program I had the opportunity to get to know them in a way I never had in other places.” (Omri Agassi, Year 4)
5. “The program organizers did the impossible, and gathered young people from the entire cultural spectrum in Israel with different and completely opposite views, and had them discuss the biggest ideas that shaped and continue to shape Western culture as we know it today. They did that in a program that is a unique social and human experience. We acquired the tools to study and analyze philosophical and intellectual texts. The encounter with the broad and outstanding human spectrum of program participants raised questions and lively discussion and forged unusual friendships.” (Shimmi Cohen, Year 4)
6. “The exposure to opinions that challenged and sometimes angered me took me out of my comfort zone, and I began to learn how to deal with completely different basic views from mine. Today I can listen and give myself time to understand the other side.” (Malek Abu Sahyoun, Year 5)

After the end of the year-long program, its graduates join our alumni community, which meets for seminars, weekends, and study and dialogue encounters, and serves as a social network to support the initiation and promotion of personal and group initiatives by program graduates.

The application deadline is May 26, 2024.

You can send us an email to journeys@vanleer.org.il or call us on 02-5605251.