Students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and Georgetown University participating in the Middle Meets program met this week with Pope Leo XIV and senior Vatican officials to discuss dialogue and reconciliation amid war. The initiative, founded by the Hebrew University’s Entrepreneurship Club in the Humanities, unites Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Druze students in open discussions about conflict and coexistence. The meeting, held in collaboration with Scholas Occurrentes, highlighted the students’ shared commitment to building trust and hope across divides.
This week, young participants from Middle Meets – an academic and cultural dialogue initiative founded by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Entrepreneurship Club in the Humanities – met with Pope Leo XIV and Cardinal George Jacob Kovakad, Head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.
The delegation included Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Druze students from Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, and Georgetown University. During their meetings at the Vatican, the students shared personal reflections on the complexities of life during wartime, as well as their shared commitment to fostering a language of hope, reconciliation, and mutual responsibility.
Middle Meets brings together Jewish and Arab students from Israel and across the world for in-depth discussions on conflict, dialogue, and peacebuilding. The current seminar, held in collaboration with Scholas Occurrentes, a Vatican’s global education network, focuses on the question of how to build trust, hope, and cooperation in the aftermath of war.
The visit reaffirmed Middle Meets’ mission to continue building bridges between communities—even, and perhaps especially, in the most difficult times.
Photos credit: Scholas Occurrentes
