In Blessed Unrest, referenced by the opening quotation and several essay authors, Paul Hawken uses the metaphor of the immune system to describe the connectivity of organizations and activists across the world fiercely working to realize local and global social, economic, political, and environmental justice. Just as the invisible but interconnected parts of the body’s immune system jump into concerted action to restore health to an ill body, this social-change movement is organizing from the bottom up and emerging as an extraordinary and creative expression of people’s unstoppable need to reimagine their relationships to the environment and to one another. The leaders and organizations participating in the Boston–Haifa transnational learning exchange are actors in this powerful movement with “no name, no leader.” The transformational interplay between personal, collective, and social-change processes, nourished by our relationships with each other across and within national borders, is apparent throughout the journal essays and the Learning Exchange overall. We have collectively built knowledge to feed and inform our future actions and directions while simultaneously acting in our present worlds. Our reflection processes focus on matters of importance. Transformational change happens as we see ourselves and each others’ worlds through the others’ eyes. We privilege and grow from the interplay of many ways of knowing. In the process, transformation happens — changes of self, our organizations, and our communities. A connective web of relationships grows across borders, advancing social justice
