Prevention Experience
Kesher Shalom Projects is a mental health education and training organization focused on the intersection of Jewish identity, antisemitism, trauma, resilience, radicalization, and indoctrination. Our targeted violence prevention work brings a psychological and educational lens to understanding the processes that can increase susceptibility to extremist and hate-based narratives, including dehumanization, moral disengagement, echo chambers, cognitive rigidity, identity dynamics, and the erosion of critical thinking.
A central component of this work is the BRIDGE Protocol, a psychologically informed, non-debate intervention framework for engaging individuals who have become influenced by radicalized or indoctrinated belief systems. BRIDGE focuses on maintaining appropriate boundaries while using reflection and reframing, cognitive dissonance, deconstruction of barriers, alternative perspectives, and critical thinking to create opportunities for movement without reinforcing defensiveness or ideological entrenchment.
Kesher Shalom Projects provides training and consultation to mental health professionals, educators, legal and healthcare professionals, organizational leaders, parents, and community organizations. Our work focuses on early recognition of radicalization and indoctrination dynamics, strengthening resilience and protective factors, developing critical thinking, and improving communication and intervention when individuals are becoming entrenched in extremist or dehumanizing narratives.
Our expertise complements formal behavioral threat assessment and law-enforcement functions by bringing a clinical, psychosocial, and prevention-focused perspective to multidisciplinary efforts addressing hate, radicalization, and targeted violence.
Certifications
No formal certification specifically in behavioral threat assessment or targeted violence prevention. Relevant professional qualifications include licensed clinical social work credentials and advanced training in trauma-informed clinical practice, with professional expertise in trauma, antisemitism, radicalization and indoctrination, identity-based threat, resilience, and psychologically informed prevention and intervention.
Cultural Competencies
Kesher Shalom Projects specializes in Jewish cultural competency, including the diversity of Jewish identity, culture, religion, peoplehood, history, and connection to Israel, as well as the psychological impact of antisemitism and identity-based threat. Our work also includes trauma-informed practice, resilience, radicalization and indoctrination, and the ways propaganda and extremist narratives affect individuals, families, and communities. We have experience serving and training mental health professionals, educators, legal and healthcare professionals, organizational leaders, parents, adolescents, clergy, and Jewish communal organizations.
