Building Bridges Across Borders
June 19, 2025
On May 7, 2025, at the bequest of Global Ties – Detroit, which partners with the U.S. Department of State, advocating for global engagement, and the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program, IFLC was privileged to host a six-person cohort of Israeli Arab and Palestinian specialists comprising a task force concerned with juvenile crime prevention and social cohesion, primarily in the West Bank and occupied territories. Under a program themed, “Community-Based Crime Prevention,” this group, comprised almost exclusively of lawyers, traveled to Detroit to meet with Detroit-based law enforcement, as well as interfaith and NGO leaders/strategists to gain insights from the hosting parties that the program participants might deploy in Israel to counteract violence and foster peacebuilding among local communities.
Greg Geiger and Bryant Frank met with the group at Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Farmington Hills. The two IFLC Board Members provided an introduction to the work of IFLC, describing the efforts of a group of lay leaders representing various faith-based communities in our Detroit Metro area who come together to address issues of common interest. The visiting participants were particularly intrigued to learn about IFLC’s Bridging to Belonging programming, where small, religiously diverse groups of individuals forge relationships as they meet and learn of one another’s common values and humanity. Through his national Muslim-Jewish work, Mr. Frank additionally was able to put this group in contact with his colleague, Humera Khan, President and co-founder of the anti-radicalization think tank, Muflehun, and a nationally recognized expert in preventing, countering, and mitigating extremist violence and hate.
The participants included: Nasreen Salameh Head of division of arab society, Public Defender’s Office – State of Israel Ministry of Justice; Rawyah Handaqlu, Director of E.HQ to Combat Crime Violence, The National Committee of The Local Arab Authorities in Israel; Wiaam Kablawi, Director, Criminal Department-Northern District State Attorney’s Office, State of Israel Ministry of Justice; Shade Akariya, Director of Evaluation Research, Bleeding Out Project; Yaacob Ibrahim, Director of the leadership Department, Givat Haviva; and Hanan Hassan Yahya, Office of Legal Counsel and Legislative Affairs, Department of Criminal Law, State of Israel Ministry of Justice.
In a follow-up letter from Mr. Kablawi, he writes:
Dear Mr. Geiger and Mr. Frank,
On behalf of our delegation, I would like to express our sincere gratitude for the opportunity to meet with you and learn about the work of the Interfaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit.
Your deep commitment to interfaith collaboration, community engagement, and the vital need to recognize and accept the other was truly inspiring. We greatly appreciated your openness, thoughtful perspectives, and the depth of experience you brought to the conversation.
The dialogue we shared enriched our understanding of how shared values and partnerships between faiths can strengthen the social fabric and foster peace. We were especially impressed by the diversity of your initiatives and your leadership in promoting inclusive civic spaces.
We, at IFLC, express our sincere appreciation both to Global Ties – Detroit and the U.S. Department of State for this opportunity and we will continue to look for future opportunities such as this to share our message of interfaith inclusiveness and community.
Bryant Frank
Interfaith Leadership Council Board of Directors
