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In 2014, RTT’s founders—Melissa Weintraub and Eyal Rabinovitch—saw that a proxy war around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the U.S. had many harmful ripples—intensifying polarization and unraveling communities in the U.S., pouring lighter fluid on the conflict in the Middle East, and leading many in the U.S. to feel scared, alone, confused, enraged, and/or like they had nowhere to go for the supportive, nuanced learning and discussion about the region that they sought.
Melissa had worked for nearly two decades to build the capacity of American and Israeli-Jewish leaders to advance solutions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, previously serving as the founding Co-Executive Director of internationally-recognized organization, Encounter. Eyal had served as a sociology professor at Wesleyan University—where he taught courses on conflict transformation and democracy—before retooling as a mediator in civil and criminal court.
In 2016, RTT’s growing team saw that America was degenerating into its own intractable conflict. We pivoted to address toxic political conflict in the U.S. more broadly, with polarization surrounding the Israeli-Polarization as one spoke in that larger wheel. We began with a Listening Campaign and series of dialogue forums in the heart of the rural Wisconsin and Iowa Rust Belt counties that swung Obama-to-Trump in the 2016 election, engaging many “unusual suspects” for bridge-building work, from conventional dairy farmers to blue-collar workers.
RTT now consists of an all-star staff team bringing expertise in multiple disciplines—from TV writing to trauma therapy—and a robust bench of more than 100 skilled facilitators and coaches who facilitate courageous dialogue forums, catalyze inspiring media content, and offer world-class training programs for leading clergy, TV showrunners, higher education administrators, conservative and progressive leaders, and other norm-shapers across the country.
