Abi Dauber Sterne
Cofounder of For the Sake of Argument (FSA)
A) What qualities make the nominee deserving of the Z3 Bridge Builder Award?
Abi Dauber Sterne is the cofounder of For the Sake of Argument (FSA), a young nonprofit that employs new techniques and approaches for creating respectful dialogue and healthy disagreement with Israel as its core content. Dauber Sterne cofounded FSA in 2021 while she was serving as the director of Makom: Israel Education Lab, a project of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which designs new Israel educational resources, trainings, and programs for educators and young adults. After more than two decades leading and pioneering pluralistic Jewish educational programming, she realized that when the topic of Israel came up, people overwhelmingly shied away from respectful dialogue and disagreement. Dauber Sterne’s innovative methodology at FSA uses healthy arguments around Israel and the Israel-Palestinian conflict as critical spaces for learning, growing, and gaining additional perspectives.
The past founding director of Limmud NY, past director of Mandel Jerusalem fellowship, and former Vice President for Jewish Education & Director of the Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Experience at Hillel International, Dauber Sterne has been supporting Jewish educators across North America develop new programs, implement engagement strategies, and teach deep Jewish content. Working in these spaces has given her a deep understanding of the challenges educators across North America have been facing around Israel education and also Jewish engagement.
Responding to October 7, Dauber Sterne and her FSA cofounder Robbie Gringreas have developed a new program addressing the acute challenge of intergenerational conversations around Israel. This new initiative builds on her decades of educational engagement and focuses on an Israel education that no longer shuts down (uncomfortable) discussions but instead opens up conversations. These conversations about Israel between parents and children embody FSA’s core message: We need to talk!
Dauber Sterne is responding to the critically urgent need to develop specific interventions for families in conflict over Israel. Furthermore, her approach builds off of her expertise in teacher training, meaning that this new program has the potential to quickly scale and be widely implemented. (Importantly, this innovative pedagogical and methodological approach may be applicable to broader socio-political divisions, be they between family members or others who share community.)
B) In what ways has the nominee demonstrated exceptional leadership and commitment to their work in bridging divides?
Abi Dauber Sterne is a leading practitioner, researcher, and thought leader. An accomplished educator regarded as a teacher’s teacher (she has been leading workshops and providing guidance to teachers for over 15 years with the Mandel Fellowship, Hillel International, Makom, and now with For the Sake of Argument) she is currently pursuing rabbinical ordination from the Shalom Hartman Institute/HaMidrasha at Oranim, whose program “emphasizes the development of a common values-based language for Jewish society in Israel” that is “meta-denominational,” meaning that it is explicitly designed for rabbis who want to work across communities. Pursuing this particular program implies a deep dedication to bridge-building and addressing some of Israel’s most pressing concerns as core to her rabbinate.
In an article published in in the Times of Israel shortly before Passover 2024, Dauber Sterne reflected on the importance of inviting questions and healthy arguments at a seder. In this piece, she presents three approaches and practices that anyone could use to invite healthy argument, allowing family members and guests to respectfully engage in discussions around Israel-Palestine. She invites people to use these pedagogical tools to “move beyond the painful narrowing of our family and political discourse and emerge from that narrow place — Mitzrayim — and into liberation.”
These tools are quite effective. According to a recently published, two-year study conducted by Rosov Consulting, FSA’s approach leads to participants’ greater interest in learning about contemporary Israel, significant improvements in skills around having healthy arguments, and a deepening of relationships between people who have healthy arguments. This early success demonstrates that Dauber Sterne is an incredibly successful and thoughtful educator. There are few Israel educational interventions that have demonstrated such early success in creating deeper engagement without extensive immersive experiences.
C) How has the nominee's work impacted the Jewish community and beyond?
Abi Dauber Sterne has already reached thousands of people in the first two years of For the Sake Argument. Her workshops and writings have helped thousands more discuss issues including religion in the public space, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the proposed judicial reform, and the Hamas-Israel war.
In fewer than two years, Abi Dauber Sterne and FSA have taught over 2,000 Jewish educators in its workshops, sold over 3,000 copies of Stories for the Sake of Argument educational workbook (which Abi co-authored with FSA cofounder Robbie Gringras), and led workshops for North American teens, college students, and young adults. Working with the Jewish Education Project (teens), Hillel (college students), and Moishe House (young adults), she has brought this important new conversational pedagogy and practice to Jewish communities who are struggling the hardest with having discussions (and healthy argument!) around Israel.