Be A Mensch Foundation: Advancing dialogue between secular, haredi Israelis

The Be A Mensch (BAM) Foundation has been working for the past 11 years to promote tolerance among Jews with extremely different values and lifestyles. 

By ABIGAIL KLEIN LEICHMAN JANUARY 12, 2025 22:49

A BAM facilitator (R) meets with secular teens at Amos Oz High Scool in Ramat Aviv. (photo credit: Courtesy of Be A Mensch Foundation)

It’s no secret that Israeli Jews are often bitterly divided along secular and religious lines. There’s little or no contact between hilonim (secularists) and haredim (ultra-Orthodox), and negative feelings between the two groups are only growing in the face of ultra-Orthodox intransigence regarding military service, despite our ongoing multi-front war.

According to the Jewish People Policy Institute’s recent Israeli Society Index, a large majority of secular Israeli Jews, who comprise 45% of the state’s Jewish population, are reaffirming their Jewish identity due to the Israel-Hamas war. 

Yet the survey revealed that “nearly half of all secular Israeli Jews, and two-thirds of those who identify as totally secular report feeling further distanced from ultra-Orthodox Israelis following the traumatic events of Oct. 7 and its aftermath.”

The Be A Mensch (BAM) Foundation has been working for the past 11 years to promote tolerance among Jews with extremely different values and lifestyles. 

BAM provides trained facilitators to lead dialogues actively educating each side about the “other,” changing attitudes, dissolving hatred, and fostering mutual understanding – which is not the same as agreement and doesn’t have to be.

HEBREW UNIVERSITY students at a BAM meeting. (credit: Courtesy of Be A Mensch Foundation)

Physician Moshe Kaplan, a psychoimmunologist who moved to Israel from San Francisco in 1986, established the foundation after seeing the infighting among religious and non-religious Jews. He felt that facilitated dialogues could help.

So far, about 50,000 individuals have been involved. Today, Kaplan says, this approach has more potential, and more need, than ever.

“Everyone agrees that the trauma of Oct. 7 broke down all barriers and prior assumptions. This new openness allows for new dialogue to work towards unity,” he says.

“But to execute that, you need access for ongoing meetings. Be a Mensch has the most access – our facilitators meet with Scout troops, high school and university students, Air Force pilots, and others. 

“We are the ‘go to’ organization when secular groups are seeking a meeting with haredim in which there will be no missionizing. This is a big opportunity and a big responsibility,” he says.

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Eli Shnapp, 45, of Jerusalem is one of the haredi facilitators. 

“Ten years ago, I was involved in education projects, working with secular and religious students. I realized that the true path to understanding one another is to discuss deeply the issues that lead to disagreement rather than let it lead us. So I started organizing group discussions,” he says. 

Soon, he heard about BAM and enthusiastically went aboard. 

Now, after a decade of organizing all the foundation’s meet-ups, he reflects: “It is precisely those who come to the discussion most charged with emotions who actually connect to their conversation partners most at the end. Participants [from each side] often maintain contact years later.”

THE CONVERSATIONS take place in several spheres: 

Tzofim (Israeli Scouts)

“Our longest-running program is with Scout leaders,” says Kaplan. “These men and women are Israel’s future leaders in business, education, the military, and government. We meet with them weekly for over a year, and the bond created between them and their mentors often lasts for years.”

Evyatar, a Tzofim counselor, calls the meetings “awesome, because it lets us discover new worlds. We’re allowed to ask the most bizarre questions, and there’s no judgment. We’re here to answer each other’s questions and learn from one another.”

Secular high schools

BAM has facilitated discussions involving about 9,000 students from 37 schools – and counting. Kaplan says, “In each one, the response has been the same: 1) We want more of this. 2) Everyone needs to experience this.”

Teachers from the Tichonet-Alterman School in Tel Aviv wrote following a dialogue in a 10th-grade civics class: “At the meet-up, the students had the opportunity to make something of a closer acquaintance with the haredi world, to shake off prejudices and stereotypes, and to experience pleasant, open, accepting, and constructive discourse. 

“The meet-up allowed them to ask complex questions, and it shed light on various issues pertaining to Israeli society and the relationship between the groups that comprise it. In a world where everything is political, we got to see a more reliable, less heated picture; a reality in which communication can happen in spite of differences.”

University students

BAM created a for-credit course for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Reichman University in Herzliya, which brings religious members of its team to meet twice a month with the students. 

This course is now in its second year at those two universities and in its first year at Ruppin College near Netanya. Next in line is the Open University. BAM aims to have the course implemented in seven institutions of higher learning.

“The interactions are deeply earnest. It’s remarkable to see how quickly stereotypes and prejudices melt as the students come to know our team as real people, not caricatures,” says Kaplan.

Nitay, a BAM coordinator at Hebrew University, says, “As someone who grew up in a secular environment, [I know that] different groups in Israeli society sometimes don’t meet each other. I believe in speaking to each other and understanding the other point of view.

“Sometimes we discuss topics at the core of the conflict between the haredim and the secular. Usually I give the secular point of view, and [fellow coordinator] Moshe gives the haredi point of view.”

Corporate executives

“An unexpected development this past year was an invitation from hi-tech corporate executives to meet with our team members,” says Kaplan. “From their perch in business, they see how dangerous are the social divisions that, especially before Oct. 7, were ripping Israel apart. And again, the result among these high-level execs was a desire to keep the conversation going.”

Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel

“We are included as an experience for participants on nature protection tours. In this case, it’s the protection of human nature,” Kaplan notes.

Military

Kaplan speaks of the “significant unity-oriented conversations” BAM has facilitated in response to a request from military units. 

“They heard about us. They wanted to talk. And now they want to talk more and more extensively about these critical social divides that we must overcome together – now.”

At one recent event, the Israel Air Force invited BAM to conduct a dialogue with 50 male and female rookie pilots, along with 10 senior career IAF officers. 

“We brought 10 of our highly trained group leaders and divided ourselves into 10 groups of six. What did these sophisticated military personnel want to discuss? How we in Israel are one family,” recalls Kaplan. 

“The primary question in each group was: How can we achieve the critical unity we need to strengthen Israel’s social fabric? The conversations were deep and probing – with no contention or resistance between the religious and non-religious elements. They left wanting more. This is a recurring outcome in our work.”

Shnapp says the haredi draft topic always comes up, and “it’s always emotional. It is not easy, but we just want to keep talking because it’s so important to understand the other side.”

Through the discussions, he says, “The [secular] soldiers understand how much the haredim value learning Torah and truly believe this protects Israel. They also hear that haredim value soldiers and pray for them.”

The haredi participants explain that many ultra-Orthodox men who do not learn Torah full time want to go into the army, but only if they are assured that the army will provide an atmosphere where they can maintain their level of observance. 

“Even if [the soldiers] don’t agree with what the haredim say, they are not indifferent; they are empathetic,” says Shnapp. “It calms the tensions. Everyone always leaves the meetings with a new understanding.”

Feedback from the pilots included statements such as “‘I most passionately recommend this program for all!” and “This was the first time I ever spoke to a haredi person; it was very important meeting them.” 

One pilot even declared, “This is the most important thing in our state today.”

NOBODY IS naive enough to believe that these dialogues can completely heal the sizable rifts in Israeli society. 

But as one secular Hebrew University student said, “We take this experience and go out to the rest of the world with it, and it lets us make new connections with other people. So the next time I meet an ultra-Orthodox person in a different framework, it will be much easier for me to connect with him.” 

From tragedy to unity

In the aftermath of last year’s Hamas massacres, the Be A Mensch (BAM) Foundation published the book Extreme Trauma: October 7 as an Outlier in the Range of Human Potential. 

Edited by BAM’s founder, physician Moshe Kaplan, this compilation “examines the depths of human cruelty personified by the Hamas terrorists but also celebrates acts of extraordinary resilience, unity, and hope.”

Among the authors of the essays (some reprinted from other publications) are Miriam Adelson, Noa Tishby, Douglas Murray, Sheryl Sandberg, Meredith Jacob, and Fiamma Nirenstein.

“The book seeks not only to memorialize the tragedy but also to inspire positive activism and national unity,” Kaplan says. “The book closes with a poignant appeal for enduring national solidarity, echoing President Isaac Herzog’s call to preserve the fragile unity that emerged after the attacks.”

The book is available on Amazon.