Healthy arguments make us smarter and bring us closer. They spark learning, growth, and connection through and because of our differences.
We’re here to help you unlock their power.
For the Sake of Argument is a non-partisan educational initiative founded and directed by Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringras, with generous support from the Jim Joseph Foundation.
In a deeply divided world, we’re committed to advancing healthy arguments as a game-changer in the field of education.
We develop tools and techniques to help you engage in healthy arguments in your home, school, campus, workplace, or community.
In the first phase of our work, we’re using Israel education as our core focus area. As we research and understand more about the impact of our work, we plan to develop new resources encompassing other issues.
Stories for the Sake of Argument features 24 short stories about contentious issues relating to Israel and the Jewish world.
Our resource center is packed with hands-on tools and materials to help you master the art of healthy argument.
Learn how to engage in healthy arguments in your family, school, campus, workplace, or community.
The session helped me to envision how facilitated conversations on Israel might play out in select communities that we are now approaching about hosting similar conversations. These would be less about navigating disagreement and more about toeing into hard conversations about Israel.
Using stories as a jumping-off point, participants learn to direct their emotions and opinions in constructive ways that lead to productive conversations and new understandings. I highly recommend this unique, groundbreaking educational program for Jewish educators everywhere.
Yet in their latest educational resource, Stories for the Sake of Argument, Robbie Gringras and Abi Dauber Sterne do just that. Their book is an invaluable platform for students and teachers alike to explore some of the thornier and more divisive questions that Israelis and Americans face daily.
Abi Dauber Sterne and Robbie Gringras’s book, Stories for the Sake of Argument, reminds us each week that knowing our perspective requires that we constantly shift the seat we are in so we are seeing situations from more than our own eyes. I am so grateful to have Stories for the Sake of Argument as an integral part of our Shabbat conversations as each week, we turn to a new story and discuss. Not only has this book shifted how we argue but also we are better listeners and have learned to take in all the information before stating opinions or debating.
The feedback from the students was exceptionally positive, all stressing just how helpful it was - the role of argument, the specifics of that as pedagogy, and of course, applying it to education about Israel.
Let’s be real: we live In a world where an ideological dispute can tear close friends and family apart. We shout. And thus, we become more polarized. Stories for the Sake of Argument changes this paradigm by helping reframe disagreement as something healthy and necessary for learning, growth, and a better world. I love this book and think people of all ages and walks of life should read it.
This book represents the creative handicraft of two master educators, who use the format of stories and the processing of narratives to help shape more dignified, enduring, respectful and meaningful conversations across differences. Stories for the Sake of Argument has an important place in homes, classrooms, boardrooms and libraries world-over.
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The war zone
Explore our selection of educational resources and events to help you have healthier arguments during and about the war in Israel and Gaza.