Many have tried and failed to bring about peaceful coexistence in the Middle East.

Manchester Bidwell President and CEO Bill Strickland has embarked on the same lofty goal, and he is determined to succeed.

Mr. Strickland returned to Pittsburgh yesterday after a successful five-day trip to Israel in which he laid the groundwork for building a facility in northern Israel that will use the same highly acclaimed model for improving the lives of at-risk youth and unemployed and underemployed adults that has helped people in Manchester for four decades.

The center in Pittsburgh and others that Mr. Strickland has established in San Francisco, Cincinnati and Grand Rapids, Mich., bring together people of all races and religions to practice the arts and learn vocations.

The first international replication will target a diverse group of Jewish and Arab children and adults as well as immigrants to Israel from Russia, Ethiopia and around the world.

Asked in Jerusalem about the seemingly insurmountable goal of helping Jews and Arabs reconcile their differences, Mr. Strickland seemed unfazed.

Describing himself as "not very ideological," he said the way to build understanding was to create opportunities for people to get to know one another and to learn to live together by illustration.

"It's quite a challenge but I view it as a very humbling opportunity," Mr. Strickland said. "The value of my being here is that there's a larger contribution that can be made in Israel to the reconciliation of different groups. People are built about the same and they have the same needs for belonging, meaning, hope, self-respect and recognition of both their original and collective value to each other. We need to build examples of people affirming their original and collective value to each other."

Mr. Strickland chose the northern Israeli city of Karmiel and the surrounding Misgav communities as the site for his first center abroad because of the region's large population of at-risk youth and unemployed and underemployed adults and because of its official Sister City relationship with Pittsburgh and its partnership with the local United Jewish Federation.

He was accompanied on the trip by Jeffrey Finkelstein, UJF's president and chief executive officer; Mark Frank, chairman of the UJF's community and public affairs council; Jeffrey Cohan, the organization's director of community and public affairs; and Tsipy Gur, director of advanced education for the Agency for Jewish Learning.

Together, they visited Jewish, Arab and Bedouin schools, met with the mayors of Jewish and Arab communities and consulted with two of Israel's most successful entrepreneurs: Israel Discount Bank CEO and board chairman Nochi Danker and industrialist Stef Wertheimer, who sold his Iscar Metalworking company to Warren Buffett two years ago for $4 billion.

Mr. Strickland described the meetings as very positive and said he saw that the Israeli entrepreneurs and politicians immediately understood what he wanted to do. He said he would now begin a six- to eight-month process of deciding on a location for a center and how it should be run.

"I was touched by the communities' sincerity to do something extraordinary for Israel and the region," Mr. Strickland said.

Mr. Cohan said the success of the meetings persuaded the UJF delegation to undertake a larger project than they had initially intended in order to help more people.

Mr. Strickland intends to return to Israel in a few months to advance the project. If it goes well, his eventual goal is to build 100 facilities in the United States and 100 abroad.