The award recognizes Nitsan Joy Gordon and Jawdat Lajon Kasab for their work to foster healing, connection, and resilience between Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and Bedouins in the Middle East
JERUSALEM, July 16, 2025 — The Institute of International Education (IIE) awarded the 21st annual IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East to Nitsan Joy Gordon and Jawdat Kasab, for their work together to lead transformative dialogue between Jews and Muslims in the region, fostering healing, connection, and resilience. The pair will share a US$20,000 prize.
During this time of violent conflict, the 2025 IIE Goldberg Prize recognizes Nitsan and Jawdat for their visionary leadership of the Army of Healers (AOH)—a groundbreaking initiative created in response to the profound trauma, grief, and suffering experienced by both Israelis and Palestinians in the aftermath of October 7. To address this deep crisis, AOH has trained and mobilized 30 Jewish Israeli, Arab Muslim, Christian, Bedouin and Druze facilitators who now lead more than 20 healing groups with over 400 participants across communities, ages, languages, and experiences.
Through ten-session dialog circles, individuals engage in brave conversations that allow them to express pain, confront fear, and hold space to grieve and to heal. In the midst of one of the most painful chapters in the region’s history, the initiative aims to rebuild trust and reawaken compassion to disrupt the cycles of vengeance and despair.
Nitsan and Jawdat lead this work in the belief that “in moments of deep division, the world needs an army—not of soldiers holding weapons, but of healers cultivating pathways toward peace.”
Those who take part in the Army of Healers groups learn to: cope with the immense emotional toll of living in a place of conflict and the uncertainty embedded in it; build empathy and understanding across lines of differences; strengthen community bonds and create lasting relationships that extend beyond the sessions; and gain the confidence and tools needed to build a common culture of peace.
Rooted in Internal Family Systems (IFS), Radical Aliveness, Dance/ Movement Therapy, Playback Theater, Nonviolent Communication and the Beyond Words approach, their work helps participants process deep emotions and build bridges across painful divides. Army of Healers is a current initiative of the Israel-based non-profit organization Together Beyond Words.
Victor J. Goldberg, a retired IBM executive and longtime IIE trustee who created and endowed the prize in 2005, presented the award in a virtual award ceremony that brought the winners together with colleagues, friends, and supporters of interfaith initiatives across the region.
“In this time of violent conflict, we believe it is more important than ever to share stories of hope so that they may encourage and inspire others. Nitsan and Jawdat are inspiring examples of the brave individuals and groups who are building platforms of mutual trust and cooperation. Most importantly, they have not lost their commitment to bringing people together to get to know one another as human beings — to developing caring relationships and working together for change,” said Mr. Goldberg. “As we mark the 21st anniversary of the IIE Goldberg Prize in 2025, we recognize the courage and conviction of Nitsan and Jawdat as well as the accomplishments of all the inspirational pairs of winners whom we have recognized in previous years.”
IIE President Emeritus Allan E. Goodman joined Mr. Goldberg in presenting the award, commenting, “The IIE Goldberg Prize is a testament to the vision of what courageous individuals working together can achieve. Courage and compassion underlie all that all our past laureates have done. People who started out hating each other and rejecting their respective narratives somehow managed to overcome all that to do something good. They re-wrote textbooks to stop demonizing ‘the other,’ they consoled families whose children had killed each other so that their grandchildren would not grow up filled with hate, they provided emergency medical services regardless of religion, they drove sick children to hospitals for cancer treatment and then waited hours to bring them back home. During these difficult times, we look to these courageous and compassionate individuals as beacons of hope.”
Following the award presentation, Nitsan and Jawdat spoke about the work they are doing together to lead transformative dialogue between Jews and Arabs.
Learn more about the previous 26 pairs of winners on the IIE Goldberg Prize website, and in this report: “IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize: 15 Years of Encouraging Grassroots Partnerships in Peacebuilding.”
About the Institute of International Education (IIE)
The Institute of International Education (IIE) is the leader in designing and implementing international education strategies and program services. IIE works with governments, policymakers, educators, and employers across the globe to prepare students and professionals for the global workforce and equip them to solve the increasingly complex challenges facing our interconnected world. With support from donors, IIE also creates initiatives that assist students, scholars, and artists whose lives and work are threatened; expands teaching and learning across cultures; and provides life-changing opportunities. A not-for-profit organization founded in 1919, IIE has a network of offices and affiliates worldwide and over 1,600 higher education partners. Visit iie.org.
About Victor J. Goldberg
Victor J. Goldberg retired from IBM in 1993 as a corporate vice president after a 34-year career at the company. Mr. Goldberg received both his undergraduate and his M.B.A. degrees from Northwestern University. He joined the Board of Trustees of the Institute of International Education in 1979, is a member of its Executive Committee and served for 13 years as vice chairman of the Board. He has served as a trustee of the International Fellowship Program, a Ford Foundation initiative for underserved populations around the world and is on the Westchester County Fair Campaign Practices Committee.
About the IIE Goldberg Prize
IIE awards the Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East annually to recognize outstanding collaborative work being conducted jointly by two individuals, one Muslim Arab and one Jewish Israeli, working together to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East. The two individuals whose work is judged to be most successful in bringing people together and breaking down the barriers of hatred toward “the other” share a $20,000 prize. The winners are chosen by a selection committee that includes leaders from business, academia, the not-for-profit sector, and government. Learn more about the IIE Goldberg Prize at www.iie.org/GoldbergPrize.
2025 IIE Goldberg Prize Winners – Nitsan Joy Gordon and Jawdat Kasab
Nitsan Joy Gordon
As the Director of the Together Beyond Words Organization, Nitsan Joy serves as a visionary leader, guiding the development and ongoing activities of the organization and the Army of Healers initiative, supervising staff and facilitators, running workshops, developing curriculum and overseeing research projects. She is also deeply involved in training the facilitators for the Army of Healers initiative, and serves as one of six highly trained supervisors supporting the initiative’s group leaders. She was previously a Lecturer and Teacher at the Haifa Arab Teacher’s Academy, providing empowerment and emotional awareness courses for Arab women studying to be early childhood educators and in- service training for those who are already working in the field. She has served as a visiting lecturer at Tel Hai College, where she taught courses on Understanding and Healing Prejudice, and at Goucher College in the United States, where she lectured in Peace Studies. She began her career as a dance/movement therapist at Baltimore’s Veterans Administration Hospital. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and English literature from Haifa University in Israel, and a master’s degree in dance/movement therapy from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She is the author of the book, Together Beyond Words: Women on a Quest for Peace in the Middle East as well as the children’s book The Magic of Tears, written in Hebrew, Arabic and English.
Jawdat Kasab
Jawdat is a Nonviolent Communications (NVC) practitioner with a commitment to community and culture building. He is also a trained solicitor and a lawyer who is admitted to the Israeli Bar Association, practicing Intellectual Property and Civil Litigation. Jawdat plays a leadership role in supporting the community of participants that is growing out of the Army of Healers groups and programs. He co-leads facilitator team building activities, facilitates groups, and analyzes outcomes data. He has also coordinated programs for Elham—The Day After, a nonprofit organization that weaves together the creative forces of Israeli and Palestinian artists, driven by a collective aspiration to sow the seeds of hope and potential of a shared future, and for the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. He co-founded Fallahi, a project that harnesses skills of participatory leadership, dialogue, storytelling, and nonviolent communication for the purpose of creating a safe space for collective healing. Jawdat earned his LLB and LLM from Kingston and BPP Universities in London, and is an alumnus of the Arava Institute.