The Parents Circle-Families Forum
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| Founded | 6 September 1995 |
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| Website | www |
The Parents Circle Families Forum (PCFF) is a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members due to the conflict. The PCFF operates under the principle that a process of reconciliation is a prerequisite for achieving a sustained peace. The PCFF is also known as Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families for Reconciliation and Peace and as Bereaved Families Supporting Peace, Reconciliation, and Tolerance.
PCFF was founded in 1995 by Yitzhak Frankenthal and several bereaved Israeli families. According to an article in The Guardian, PCFF had more than 500 members in 2009. The members conduct dialogue sessions, give lectures, and engage in projects to support dialogue and reconciliation.
The Parents Circle – Families Forum is a not-for-profit organization registered in Israel which operates from two offices, one in Israel, and one in Beit Jala. Mazen Faraj and Nir Oren, a Palestinian and an Israeli, respectively, are the co-general managers of the PCFF.
In July 1994, 19-year-old Israeli soldier Arik Frankenthal was kidnapped and killed by Hamas. To come to terms with the loss, Arik’s father Yitzhak Frankenthal joined with several other bereaved families to found the Parent's Circle Families Forum in 1995.
In 1998, the group held its first meetings with Palestinian families in Gaza; however, this connection was severed as a result of the Second Intifada. In 2000, the PCFF was able to reestablish its connection with Palestinian families, incorporating families from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
PCFF’s most broad-reaching activity is its “Dialogue Encounters” program. Dialogue encounters allow a group of individuals to hear the personal narrative and message of reconciliation of one Palestinian and one Israeli. These messages aim to increase the willingness of participants to embrace dialogue as an alternative to violence, and to better understand the needs and perspectives of the ‘other side’. One of the primary goals of this program is to allow Palestinians and Israelis to meet one another, which has been increasingly rare since the Second Intifada. For many participants, the Dialogue Encounter is their first time meeting a member of the other side.
Beginning in 2010, the PCFF began a Narrative Project which brings together groups of Israelis and Palestinians from similar disciplines who meet with one on a regular basis in order to forge mutual understanding and respect. They engage through a process called the ‘Parallel Narrative Experience’, which aims to help each side understand the personal and national narratives of the other. These groups have included grandmothers, social activists, physicians, students (2 groups) mental health specialists, educators (2 groups), artists, Film, "Wounded Crossing Borders", "One Voice", Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian students from the Arava Institute, Palestinian and Israeli young political leaders, "Combatants for Peace", Media people, The groups engage in a series of uni-national and bi-national dialogue meetings and together visit the former Palestinian village of Lifta as well as the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. Israeli author Jonathan Kis-Lev praised the organization and described his personal journey as a member of one of these groups in his book "My Quest For Peace". Artist Omer Golan stated his own experience in the group as "remarkable".
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