At North Suburban Synagogue Beth El, Anna Besser is thinking about how to create more space for honest conversations about Israel — first among educators, and ultimately among students.

Her teaching staff includes people with complex relationships to Israel and different levels of comfort expressing those views. Especially when conversations become heated, she wants teachers to feel that they can speak openly and be heard without the expectation that anyone has to change their mind.

For the Sake of Argument gave Anna practical tools for building that kind of culture. What stood out:

• Stories as a shared starting point, allowing people with different knowledge and perspectives to enter the conversation together.
• Small-group conversations that created more space for vulnerability and honest sharing.
• Exercises that make room for complexity, so participants learn to consider other opinions even while holding strong beliefs.

Most importantly, For the Sake of Argument reframed the purpose of disagreement as an opportunity to understand another person’s perspective and remain in conversation.

Anna sees that approach as essential for educators because what teachers practice, students learn. She wants disagreement to become part of how students understand Jewish learning from an early age. Rather than something to fear or shut down, it can be a skill they carry into conversations about Israel and far beyond the classroom.

“We grow and learn when we disagree. I want to be able to talk to someone and, even if I don’t agree with them, understand where it is that they are coming from and why whatever their belief is is so important to them. The more our teachers can model this, the more they show our students that this is part of who we are as a Jewish people. We don’t have to agree, but we have to have conversations where we listen with empathy and build upon what we hear.”

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