Me
My father migrated from Germany to the Netherlands in the late 1930’s in his childhood, whereas my mother is Dutch by origin. Both my parents are Holocaust survivors. I was born in 1963 in a maternity clinic in The Hague in the Netherlands. I am the oldest of their five children. I lived most of my childhood in a small village in the East of the Netherlands, where I obtained a reform Jewish upbringing. I did not experience pressure from my family as regarding my plans for life, but I was expected to excel in whatever I chose. In my environment, it was customary to follow higher education and I did not consider otherwise. At age 17, I moved to Israel on my own in order to study and get some more Jewish education. Since then my nuclear family dispersed; my parents and siblings moved to different parts of the Netherlands, while some lived for substantial periods in other countries. I started my first job at age twenty as research assistant, while studying psychology, having before been completely dependent on my parents. I obtained first a Bachelor’s degree and then a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and many years later a Master’s degree in Business Administration as well; both from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Presently studying for a Doctoral degree, I have the highest academic education in my extended family in the generations of my parents and me.
After finishing my degrees in Psychology I was drafted into the Israel Defense Force and worked for several years as a Mental Health Officer; a function in which I do reserve duty until today. I have worked in other mental health and social work settings as well. In recent years, I am self-employed as psychotherapist and organizational consultant. I enjoy working with groups and teach group work at a university-level ultra-orthodox Jewish institute. I live in French Hill, a neighborhood in Jerusalem. I perceive of myself as a global citizen, which led me to volunteer in a range of nongovernmental organizations, for social justice and otherwise. I currently fulfill leadership roles in Amnesty International and the Israeli Association for Group Facilitation and Psychotherapy. Within the realm of the friendship with Bashar, I have taken groups of people to visit the Jahalin Bedouins. I also made a small – emotional, instrumental and financial – investment in his garage.
The entire dissertation is available as a download below: Weishut, D.J.N. (2012) My friend is a Palestinian Bedouin: Challenges and opportunities in intercultural friendship. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Professional School of Psychology, Sacramento, California, USA.
