Yehuda Stolov
About the Author
YEHUDA STOLOV is the executive director of the Interfaith Encounter Association (www.interfaith-encounter.org), an organization that works since 2001 to build peaceful inter-communal relations in the Holy Land by fostering mutual respect and trust between people and communities through active interfaith dialogue.
Dr. Stolov has lectured on the role of religious dialogue in peace-building throughout the world, including Jordan, India, Indonesia, Turkey, South Korea, North America and Europe. He also published many papers on related issues.
In 2006, he was awarded the Immortal Chaplains Foundation Prize for Humanity, which honors those who "risked all to protect others of a different faith or ethnic origin"; and in 2015 he was awarded the IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East.
Among other activities, Dr. Stolov was a member of the International Council of the International Association for Religious Freedom and a member of the steering committee for the United Nations Decade of Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace.
He holds a B.Sc. and a M.Sc. in Physics and a Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is married and father of three children, living in Jerusalem.
Resources by Yehuda Stolov
Dialogue #8: How Interfaith encounters build relationships: a story from the Holy Land
Yehuda Stolov, Executive Director of the Interfaith Encounter Association (IEA), explains a grassroots model for building durable relationships among Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze and others in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Founded during the second intifada, IEA deliberately avoids taking organisational positions on contested political questions. Instead, it brings neighbouring communities together around meaningful religious and cultural subjects, allowing participants to discover similarities while also learning how to sustain friendship across real disagreement.
Stolov argues that a single positive encounter is not enough: lasting change requires recurring local groups whose members meet over months and years, become friends, and gradually carry different attitudes back into their families, workplaces and communities. He describes groups involving Israelis and Palestinians, including settlers and Palestinians in places such as Hebron, as well as work with schools, universities, women and young adults. The discussion addresses anti-normalization pressures, unequal internet access during COVID-19, funding constraints, Druze participation, work in Palestinian communities, and the practical methods IEA uses to make dialogue safe, substantive and repeatable.
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