RTT offers a number of storytelling modalities, some best suited for the dinner table and some for the stage. A “Life Maps” exercise offers a structured environment for exchanging formative life experiences and can be done as a stand-alone or as part of a longer process. Other story-sharing formats include MOTH-style workshop, MOTH-style performance, and 6-word memoirs. Often full of levity and laughter as well as gravity and struggle, MOTH-style workshops and performances can be a fun and social way to bring groups together and see each other beyond boxes and labels.
Resetting the Table’s celebrated workshop provides communal leaders with tools to build a culture of productive dialogue on charged political issues even in the face of strong differences. Participants exchange views and experiences, practice communication skills for addressing disagreement, and learn best practices and success stories from other communities. The methodology is practice-based and experiential, walking through road-tested exercises participants can replicate in their own institutions.
A Town Square offers a customized forum for a community to engage in courageous conversation across divides in facilitated, small group discussion. Highly trained facilitators support participants to surface what matters most and remain receptive and connected even while directly addressing charged differences. Common Israel-related topics include: Roles and Responsibilities of US Jews and Boundaries of Legitimate and Illegitimate Public Criticism. Common Red/Blue topics include: health care, guns, immigration, abortion, gay marriage, the proper role of government, and how religion informs personal political and moral commitments.
Drawing on conflict resolution and mediation frameworks, RTT’s unique facilitation training teaches interventions and skills that support participants to remain receptive and connected to each other even while confronting strong differences head-on. The training focuses on learning how to ask questions, offer reflections, name differences, and build bridges among participants to help create conversations of meaning, depth, stability, clarity, and focus even while “going toward the heat.” Participants practice facilitation skills and receive immediate coaching and feedback.
These unique, non-prescriptive educational sessions present substantive information from a variety of points of view on core issues such as the Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Where Do We Go From Here in Israeli-Palestinian Relations: Five Jewish-Israeli Views. These classes can be stand-alones or part of a multi-session series. They are appropriate for knowledgeable participants and those with little to no background, and offer a chance for participants who have greater sympathy and solidarity with “one side” to stretch their thinking.
An input forum enables community members to deliberate together and contribute to potentially contentious communal decisions. This method has been demonstrated to promote greater goodwill, accountability, communal pride, and legitimacy around decision-making, even among segments of the community who disagree with decisions made. The process includes a presentation framing issues and choice points, deliberation among participants about possible courses of action, and written reflections from participants that are then collected by the organization. Hosts review the input and reference it in explaining their thinking and decisions.
RTT offers consultation to community leaders in the following areas: