Teaching Coexistence in Israel
By Yardena Schwartz
US News and World Report
JERUSALEM — Roaming the halls of a certain school in this city, one could easily mistake Jerusalem as the capital of the elusive coexistence that many have sought and failed to create in this crossroad of religion and conflict.
An Arab teacher and a Jewish teacher ask their fourth-grade students to take out their homework. The class project is “Identity” and the assignment is to research the various historical names of their city. What would be an explosive topic among adults is merely a simple history lesson among these 10-year-olds.
An Arab boy stands in front of the class and begins. “Thousands of years ago, before Palestine or Israel, Jerusalem was Ir Yabus,” he says, referring to the City of the Jebusites, the ancient tribe conquered by King David in the First Testament. A Jewish student adds that the City of David is one of Jerusalem’s nicknames. An Arab girl then tells the class that the Romans renamed Jerusalem “Aelia” after conquering the city and destroying of the Second Jewish Temple in 70 A.D.
The very existence of this temple, and the mosque that sits atop its ruins today, are why the Temple Mount is one of the world’s most disputed pieces of real estate. As the girl sits down, there is not a hint of tension in the room. Just outside, a group of Jewish and Arab high schoolers walk down the hallway, giggling.
It’s a scene that would be nearly impossible to find anywhere else in Israel, where Jewish and Arab children almost never learn together, and rarely form friendships. Although Arabs represent 20 percent of Israel’s population, Jews and Arabs grow up living separate lives – beginning with a divided education.
The school is run by Hand in Hand, a nonprofit organization that has established bilingual schools across the country. With more than 1,300 children at six schools throughout Israel, Hand in Hand is the country’s largest network of integrated education. Its classrooms serve an equal mix of Jewish and Arab students, with lessons taught simultaneously in Hebrew and Arabic by two Arab and Jewish teachers. The school’s curriculum is a mixture of government-directed core topics, such as math and science, and material that Hand in Hand develops.
Perhaps Hand in Hand’s crucial difference from Israel’s official curriculum is the two narratives it teaches. The Jewish narrative tells of 2,000 years in exile from the ancient land of Israel, the 1947 U.N. partition plan that divided British Mandate Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state, the declaration of Israeli independence in 1948, the immediate attacks on the new Jewish state from five surrounding Arab countries, and Israel’s surprise victory. Under the Arab narrative, this same event is the Nakba, the catastrophe, which led to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians losing their homes amid the fighting.
The belief is that knowing the two narratives will help young Jews and Arabs understand the other’s world view.
“It’s an opportunity to truly see the other side, not from afar, not from the news, and not from the rumors,'” says Lilach Rosenfeld, who graduated from Hand in Hand’s Galilee school in 2008 and remains friends with some of her Arab classmates. “You discover the culture, the religion, the traditions, the thoughts, and the world of the other side from up close.”
While there is no legally instituted segregation in the education system – Arabs can attend Jewish schools and vice versa — the vast majority of Arabs attend Arabic schools, as Jews attend Jewish schools. This dual system is not forced upon anyone, but rather reflects the divergent needs and characteristics of two segments of the Israeli population who have little in common beyond the country they live in.
Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens speak different languages, celebrate different holidays, observe different cultural norms, tell two distinct historical narratives, and typically live in different communities.
This system has been in place since the British Mandate for Palestine, before the U.N. Partition Plan led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Until recently, this division was barely questioned. Most parents, including Arabs, support it, according to Yousef Jabareen, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament and director of The Arab Center for Law and Policy.
But in recent years, as hope in peace negotiations has faded, demand has grown from parents who want their children to learn with and about what many here refer to as “the other side.”
Nadia Kinani is one of those parents. As an Arab mother of three, she helped to establish the Jerusalem Hand in Hand school with Arab and Jewish friends who envisioned a shared future for their children.
What began as a classroom of 20 students is now the only school in Israel where Arabs and Jews learn together from kindergarten through 12th grade. This year it had 650 students, with 150 on the waiting list.
“The more difficult and hopeless the situation is, the more people look for something that will give them hope,” says Kinani, who is now the school’s principal. Two of her daughters have graduated, the third is in 10th grade, and Kinani says they are all more open and tolerant than their peers who attended mainstream schools.
“Usually when something bad happens between Jews and Arabs, the city’s people divide along lines. Here, we come in and talk about it together,” Kinani says, adding that her daughters have close Jewish friends.
In a nation of 8 million people, some say there aren’t enough of these schools to go around. After all, aside from Jerusalem, no other Hand in Hand school runs through 12th grade. Rosenfeld’s school ends after the sixth grade.
Although Hand in Hand schools are public and receive government funding, that support is just enough to finance half of their operations, which require double the number of teachers compared to non-bilingual schools. With waiting lists at every school and dozens of parents requesting that Hand in Hand open schools in their communities, the organization hopes the Israeli government will eventually boost funding. Until then, half of their financing comes from donations, available through their website, and fees from parents.
That Hand in Hand thrives in a city like Jerusalem is proof that it can thrive anywhere, Kinani argues.
Still, the idea of co-educating Arabs and Jews is such a threat to some Israelis that last school year, two first-grade classrooms in Hand in Hand’s Jerusalem school were set on fire by Jewish extremists who painted the walls with this message: “There’s no coexisting with cancer.”
That didn’t stop Hand in Hand. In Kinani’s words, “It strengthened us.”
Ninety-eight percent of children came to school the next day, and their burned classrooms were rebuilt within weeks. Thousands marched through Jerusalem in solidarity. A month later, U.S. President Barack Obama invited students from the school to the White House to light Chanukah candles.
What the extremists failed to anticipate was that the media attention they sparked led thousands of Israelis to hear about an alternative school system they never knew existed. Calls from new parents skyrocketed, and Hand in Hand has more children on its waiting list than ever before.
Kinani and other parents hope that one day, with enough schools, they won’t need any more waiting lists.
Source: www.usnews.com