292 · Ben Mollov
Furthermore, the very fact that this e-mail dialogue took place was a
major accomplishment, as these efforts had to take place in an unstable
political environment, given the ups and downs of Israeli-Palestinian re-
lations in the post–Oslo agreement era, and required the ability and will
to cross and solve various technical barriers by both sides.
The frequency of exchanges between participants varied, but clearly
the interreligious dimension helped encourage the communication pro-
cess, which the participants reported upon in favorable terms.
The Second CMC Dialogue
The first dialogue, although limited in scope, established the infrastruc-
ture for further contacts and indicated that such virtual communication
could be successful across the Israeli-Palestinian divide. Encouraged by
this first success and in cooperation with Muhammad Awad, the Pales-
tinian student who had graduated from Bar-Ilan’s business administra-
tion program and remained on the school’s staff as a teaching assistant, a
research assistant, Naomi Slotki, and myself, plans were made to initiate
a new e-mail cycle. These plans were developed in conjunction with Dr.
David Schwartz of the Business School, under whose auspices the earlier
dialogue was conducted, and Prof. Gerald Steinberg, director of the Pro-
gram in Conflict Resolution at Bar-Ilan University. We sought, however,
to create a more sophisticated framework that would focus communica-
tions on a more specific topic and generate quantitative data concerning
the impact of such communications on both cognitive acquisition and
mutual perceptions.
To that end Awad, Slotki, and I agreed that content exchanges should
once again focus on the interreligious dimension of Israeli and Palestin-
ian culture, but be specifically directed to two holidays, Ramadan and
Rosh Hashanah, in order to make the dialogue less open-ended. Such fo-
cus was important as the e-mail effort was meant to explore possibilities
for precise data transmission and comprehension across the Israeli-Pal-
estinian divide in order to serve business activity, as well as to facilitate
positive relationships necessary for both conflict resolution efforts and
effective commercial activity. To test cognitive acquisition we prepared
short examinations on both Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah that would
be taken by the participants both before and after the activity. We also
decided to have the participants fill out the perception questionnaires of