Current Project

Building Together Date Honey

Our current initiative is working with two date farming communities, one Palestinian and one Israeli. These two communities have agreed to partner to develop a joint product, “Building Together Date Honey.” Honey from dates is honey referred to when describing the “land of milk and honey.”

We are developing two factories on both sides of the green line — one Palestinian and one Israeli. These factories will produce honey from dates by boiling down the delicious dates in water. It’s a staple in many Israeli and Palestinian kitchens, and we hope it will be used across the USA for:
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Christmas (as a message of hope)
Rosh Hashana (apple in honey)
Passover (used charoset)
Ramadan (used for break-fast)

We hope to engage a variety of faith institutions, especially Christian, Muslim, and Jewish places of worship, in order to increase awareness, promote kinship, and explore common ground among people of sundry backgrounds. Our hope is that by building ground-level working relationships in the Middle East and by creating a diverse global network invested in said relationships, we can amplify and achieve our core goals of dignity, empowerment, and peace.

ORDER

Past Projects

building farming capacity

Throughout the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, the Red Weevil insects attack date trees in farming villages, reducing farming capacity and output. This problem can be solved with environmentally friendly pesticides. However, the villages lack trucks to spray their crops. Building Together is raising funds for the trucks, to fight the pests, increase crop yields and improve the lives of these farmers and their village.

COMPLETED SOLAR PROJECT

Completed solar project in West Bank town of Auja, financed by American Muslims and Jews with a Palestinian-Israeli operating team.

Genesis Generation Challenge

Received major award from Mayor Bloomberg’s Genesis Prize of $100,000 for ideas that can change the world.

CREATED THE “BUILD SNACK BAR”

Dates grown by Palestinian and Israeli farmers, the BUILD snack bar is a delicious and tangible symbol of cooperation, shared missions and economic development.

ENGAGEMENT

Over 1,000 school children in the U.S. support BUILD learning about dignity Youth and coexistence through a curriculum developed at Harvard University and MIT.