EPISODE NOTES

Herds of goats, pomegranate trees in bloom, and ancient architecture are just some of the things you might witness while walking The Abraham Path, a collection of walking trails established in the past fifteen years through parts of Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq. But the trail is also engineered to promote meaningful human interactions. Connecting cities and villages, it offers the opportunity to make one-on-one connections in a contested region. It's a kind of subtle peace-building project, but it's also an economic development project, an education project, a tourist attraction, and more. The path's development, spurred by American peacebuilders, has been met with some skepticism by journalists. But as locals have taken ownership of the trail, a number of stories have been published that convey a sense of hope, including a cover story in The New York Times Magazine in April 2022. 

Our guests for this episode are Joshua Weiss, a peacebuilder and co-founder of The Abraham Path Initiative, and Anisa Mehdi, the Executive Director of the project and a veteran broadcast journalist. 

This episode originally published in June 2022. 

Donate to help Abraham Path homestay hosts and guides rebuild in Southeast Turkey and Syria.