"Can We Talk?" Bridging the Political Divide: a community conversation on how to make this happen
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Please mark your calendars for an upcoming and important event at the Manchester Community Library. Based on requests from the community, the Library will host a program called "Can We Talk? Bridging the Political Divide: a community conversation on how to make this happen" on Monday, July 24 at 7 p.m. Rabbi Michael Cohen and Judy Livingston will serve as co-facilitators. Rabbi Cohen will start things off, drawing on his work in Conflict Resolution (he teaches courses on it at Bennington College and BBA and deals with conflict resolution a lot with the Arava Institute, which works with Israelis and Palestinians) and talk about the importance of civic discourse. He'll set the stage for a respectful conversation. Judy Livingston will discuss models of talking across the political divide, giving some examples of how resolutions/laws came to fruition during her experience in the House. The audience will then break into small groups where they will be given a few questions to generate understanding of where they are coming from- their interests and needs. What influenced their personal political identity? The idea of this exercise is to humanize each other by sharing personal stories.