IFS Healing for Peace

I first encountered Nitsan Joy Gordon’s work almost ten years ago, when I attended one of her workshops at Esalen. I remember being deeply moved by her approach to peacebuilding—bringing people together across profound divides and creating spaces where pain could be felt, witnessed, and transformed.

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We reconnected at the IFS conference in October 2023, just a couple of weeks after October 7 and during the beginning of the devastation in Gaza. I had also just learned that a family member had been taken hostage from the Nova festival. Like so many people in the IFS community, I was struggling to take in what was happening and wondering what I could possibly do.

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Nitsan had already spent decades doing this work through Together Beyond Words, bringing Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians together through movement, embodied practices, deep listening, and IFS. Her work is rooted in the belief that pain that is not transformed is transmitted—and that when we create space for pain to be felt and transformed, it can become a doorway to empathy, connection, and peace.

 

During the conference, a group of us gathered around Nitsan and began asking: What could the IFS community do to help?

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The answer was attuned presence—something IFS practitioners are trained to offer. We could be there with people in their pain, without trying to fix it or make it go away, and help them access their own Self energy in relationship to their activated parts. We could offer a compassionate, grounded presence while people were navigating experiences that were almost impossible to comprehend.

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I volunteered to send an email to the IFS community asking for practitioners who were willing to offer support. We initially hoped to find volunteers for about 24 people in Israel. The response was far beyond what we imagined. What began as a small effort grew into nearly 100 volunteers who have supported almost 200 people in Israel and the West Bank—including facilitators who are part of the Army of Healers.

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Nitsan went on to develop the Army of Healers, drawing on the decades of experience and relationships she had cultivated through Together Beyond Words. The Army of Healers creates spaces where Jewish and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian facilitators can help people feel, grieve, listen to one another, and begin to rebuild trust and connection. The goal was to create 100 groups across the land; there have been dozens so far and the army is still growing.

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In 2025, Nitsan and Jawdat Kasab received the IIE Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East in recognition of their work with the Army of Healers. The award honored their leadership in fostering healing, connection, and resilience across communities.

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For me, Healing for Peace has grown into something I never could have imagined when I sent that first email. It has become a way for me to bring the values and practices of IFS into relationship with people who are doing courageous healing work in an extraordinarily painful context.

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This October (2026), I’ll travel to Israel & Palestine to participate in workshops where facilitators themselves are learning IFS, to spend time with people doing this work on the ground, and to deepen my own understanding of what healing across such profound divides can look like.

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And I intend to share the experience—to bring what I learn, the stories I hear, and the possibilities I discover back to my own community.