Nablus-Samaria-Ramallah:
Roots’ work in this very sensitive region began in 2020 with the formation of a dialogue group. The number of group members has grown over the past two years, and they recently designated a leadership council responsible for planning events. There is currently no physical center despite the group’s attempt to develop a center in conjunction with a nearby Palestinian-owned restaurant. At present, the group holds its meetings at a Samaritan-owned restaurant. Thanks to the work of local activists, we have held several parlor meetings in local communities which have been successful in drawing new members to Roots work and even attracted the attention of local officials.

South Hebron Hills:
Since 2018, Roots has hoped to bring our work to this especially tense region. Through the work of an Israeli activist independent of Roots, and Palestinian members of Roots from the Yatta region, we have slowly planted the seeds for a network of local residents interested in working together. In January 2022, we visited a potential site for a physical center in the area. After several previous unsuccessful attempts at finding a suitable site, we are confident this site would best serve Roots’ purposes. Together with several Israeli and Palestinian supporters, we are investing in the establishment of the center, and held our first joint meeting there for local Palestinians and Israelis during the month of Ramadan. We anticipate investing roughly ₪35,000 in this project throughout 2022.

Jordan Valley:
In 2018, Roots received a query from Israelis living in Kibbutz Na'aran in the southern Jordan Valley. At that point, the only relationships they had with neighboring Palestinian communities were purely economic. Inspired by Roots’ ground-breaking programs of transformation and reconciliation, they wished to expand the nature of these relationships to counteract the enmity amongst the populations in their area.

Over the past five years, Roots has created and fostered standing partnerships between Israelis from across the southern Jordan Valley and Palestinians from the villages of Ouja, Fesayel, and others. Regularly held meetings, shared religious celebrations, and childrens activities laid the branch’s foundation for its first three years. After cultivating relationships with Palestinian university students in the Jericho area in January 2021, Roots’ core staff launched a pilot dialogue program connecting them with local Israeli university students. The group met bi-monthly throughout 2021 and has evolved into a joint study group in which participants learn about nonviolence, with an emphasis on the religious bases of nonviolence in Judaism and Islam. Roots activists in the Jordan Valley also hold a bi-monthly clean-up event at the local Ouja spring, and recently submitted a proposal to fund a joint restoration and environmental education project there. Our fourth Run for Reconciliation took place in March 2022 in the Jordan Valley, bringing together over 90 Roots supporters.

Roots has four part-time staff in the area: Israeli and Palestinian coordinators for the branch, and Israeli and Palestinian coordinators for the students’ study group.

Kfar Adumim-Jahalin:
Though in the past, Roots supported the work of "Friends of the Jahalin," led by several Jewish residents of Kfar Adumim in solidarity with the Jahalin community in Khan al-Ahmar, this issue has become very politicized. In the summer of 2021, Roots leaders met with residents of Kfar Adumim who were interested in advancing more inter-cultural and inter-religious exchanges with neighboring Palestinian communities. The connections with a small Jahalin village have slowly developed, and the branch is planning its first public event. All the work to date has been done on a volunteer basis, and Roots budgeted an additional ₪14,000 for programming through 2022.