JERUSALEM -- What is life like for children who experience fear, hate and war every day? What would happen if such kids could -- for a moment, a day or even a week -- be transported out of that tumult and learn about the people who are supposed to be their enemies?

Henry Carse, an American religion professor who has lived in Jerusalem on and off for 33 years -- watching his Israeli and Palestinian neighbors endure the violence of racial, political and religious strife -- is trying to answer these questions.

The result is the second annual Kids4Peace summer camp program, which has sent a dozen 11-year-old children from Jerusalem -- four Jewish, four Muslim and four Christian -- to Atlanta for two weeks. They will live and play with 12 children from the city's Episcopal diocese and explore what they have in common rather than in conflict.

"K4P is an educational program, not a political one," Carse said. "We are giving children whose families are committed to peace a chance to get together. The program focuses on our need to learn about each others' traditions and way of life as Jews, Christians and Muslims [and] how to use these differences as a bridge to live together."

The group Carse has cobbled together defies the stereotype of unbridgeable differences between Israelis and Palestinians. In a get-to-know-you session last Thursday, the room full of children, parents and grandparents was bubbling with tension -- not the angry sort but the nervous sort -- as they counted down the days to Sunday's departure for Atlanta. Among the kids, Capri-length cargo pants, ponytails and T-shirts seemed to transcend ethnic and religious differences, as did a love for pizza and soft drinks.

Nama'ana, a Jewish girl with curly blond hair, giggled over what to give her Atlanta buddy ("I don't know yet," she said). Aya, a Muslim, told the group that she would take a copy of the Islamic holy book, the Quran, to share with everyone. George, a bespectacled Palestinian Christian, and Ahmad, a Muslim boy who wears his hair in a buzz cut, discussed what would be better: to sleep on the plane during what will be many of the children's first airplane ride or watch the free movies.

(Organizers of the trip are identifying the children by first name only because of security concerns.)

The trip -- the children arrived in Atlanta on Monday -- will continue through July 18. It begins in Atlanta but will end at the Mikell Summer Camp, near Toccoa in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Georgia. The camp, run by the diocese, was established in 1941 by the Rev. Henry Judah Mikell, a former Episcopal bishop of Atlanta, as a setting for Christian education and recreation.

The first year's K4P program was a joint effort between St. George's College, part of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem and the Middle East, and Houston's St. Martin's Episcopal Church. After a summer camp experience in Texas, the group from Jerusalem returned home and stayed close through after-school and weekend outings.

Carse, the director of the Kids4Peace program and other special projects at Jerusalem's St. George's College, speaks of that inaugural group of kids with a mixture of pride and amazement over the relationships they forged with one another.

Atlanta was chosen for this year's program because of the interest expressed to Carse by Nancy Brockway and Ethel Wright, two members of St. Anne's Episcopal Church. The two met Carse during a trip to Israel and suggested Atlanta as a location, said Beth Royalty of All Saints' Episcopal Church in Atlanta.