"Can We Talk?" Bridging the Political Divide: a community conversation on how to make this happen

Please mark your calendars for an upcoming and important event at the Manchester Community Library. Based on requests from the community, the Library will host a program called "Can We Talk? Bridging the Political Divide: a community conversation on how to make this happen" on Monday, July 24 at 7 p.m. Rabbi Michael Cohen and Judy Livingston will serve as co-facilitators. Rabbi Cohen will start things off, drawing on his work in Conflict Resolution (he teaches courses on it at Bennington College and BBA and deals with conflict resolution a lot with the Arava Institute, which works with Israelis and Palestinians) and talk about the importance of civic discourse. He'll set the stage for a respectful conversation. Judy Livingston will discuss models of talking across the political divide, giving some examples of how resolutions/laws came to fruition during her experience in the House. The audience will then break into small groups where they will be given a few questions to generate understanding of where they are coming from- their interests and needs. What influenced their personal political identity? The idea of this exercise is to humanize each other by sharing personal stories.