Given the long-standing conflict in Israel between the Arab and Jewish peoples, many wonder if peace is even possible. But according to two educators, one Jewish, the other Arab, who have teamed up to create integrated schools, at least part of the answer lies in Arab and Jewish children being educated together.
Lee Gordon, who ran a weekly Arab-Jewish dialogue group as a graduate student at Israel’s Hebrew University, and Amin Khalaf, who taught in both Jewish and Arab schools, founded Hand in Hand schools in Israel in 1997, creating one of the few places in Israel where Arabs and Jews interact daily.
The schools have a student body deliberately evenly split between Jews and Arabs, an Arab and Jewish teacher per classroom, and a Jewish and Arab co-principals.
Children learn both Hebrew and Arabic fluently, along with an awareness of both cultures. Hand in Hand had modest beginnings, starting with one kindergarten class in Jerusalem, and a first-grade class in northern Israel’s Galilee. Each year another grade level was added, and today more than 900 students are enrolled at Hand in Hand’s four schools — and the Jerusalem school has its first class of graduating seniors.
However, Hand in Hand had its critics in the beginning. “Even people who were very well intentioned and thought the idea was great, they just said, ‘Well, it’s not going to work,’” says Gordon. “You’re not going to get government support, you’re not going to get enough parents to register — we’ve surprised them, and even ourselves by the amount of support that we have. This is still not a model that every single person in Israel loves what we’re doing, [there are] people who would never send their kids to our schools on both the Jewish side and the Arab side. They are too fundamentalist in their religious outlook, or because they’re too right-wing, there’s too much animosity towards the other community, or because it’s just not for them.”
Although the first parents who enrolled their children tended to be sympathetic to the peace movement, each year Hand in Hand attracts more diverse populations. Now, parents are just as likely to enroll their children for a high-quality education, and a low student-to-teacher ratio. “So that’s our goal,” says Gordon. “We would love to reach out to people who would never think about being in a school that’s integrated, but are attracted to our school for other reasons. And that way we can reach out, and maybe hopefully win the hearts and minds of people who were more close minded about these issues beforehand.”
In 2004, a third school was established, in the Arab Village of Kfar Kara. An organization called
Bridge over the Wadi, formed of parents from neighboring Jewish and Arab villages, approached
Hand in Hand asking if they would help build a school in the area. A fourth school has since opened in the southern Israel city of Beersheva.
More than fostering friendships among children, Hand in Hand also brings together Arab and Jewish parents who wouldn’t otherwise meet, and one Jewish student recently invited around 15 Arab friends to his Bar Mitzvah. The schools also often feature events such as film viewings, or cultural evenings discussing Arab-Jewish relations.
The curriculum teaches about holidays of other cultures. Religious holidays, be it Yom Kippur,
Ramadan, Rosh Hashanah, or Christmas (a minority of Arab Israelis are Christians), are celebrated by all. Holidays having to do with modern Israeli history, such as Israeli Memorial and Independence Days, are vehicles for cross-cultural awareness.
“That’s a very interesting thing in our school, because these are holidays celebrated primarily by Jews, about Jewish soldiers fighting against Arabs,” says Gordon. “So in our schools, we try to help the kids understand on an age-appropriate level [that] there is this conflict, there are two communities, and there’s loss and suffering on both sides. But we also don’t want kids to have to forgo traditions that are important to their communities. So Memorial Day is commemorated and Arabs actually participate.”
Hand in Hand schools have also had to navigate the tricky terrain of the often-volatile regional happenings. During the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, some Hand in Hand students of the Galilee school were in range of missile attacks, forcing them into bomb shelters.
“In the beginning of the school year, we brought in facilitators to work with the teachers to help prepare them for how to talk about this in the classroom, especially with younger kids,” says Gordon. “[There was] a lot of discussion. Kids talked about these things, they asked kids to express their opinions. Generally, the kids can say what they want, but it’s got to be respectful, and people have to listen, and the goal is not to necessarily win the argument.”
Today, waiting lists exists for Hand in Hand, although with a slightly higher number of Arabs seeking admission than Jews. Hand in Hand has always been more easily able to attract Arabs than Jews, says Gordon, for such reasons as education being a path toward upward mobility, that Arabs generally have fewer education options than their Jewish counterparts, and that the dominant Jewish group tends to be more resistant to integration than the minority group.
“There’s a lot of racism in Israel,” says Gordon. “This is racism that is irrational, and some of it is racism that comes from people being in a war situation and just demonizing the other side, I mean, Jews who really feel that Arabs are killers. People who really think that Arab citizens in Israel should have fewer rights, and people on the Arab side [who] really just think that Jews should not be in [Israel], nor should there be a Jewish state. Part of it is because there is no real opportunity for people to get to know each other, so the kids grow up not knowing an Arab on the Jewish side, or Arab kids growing up not really knowing a Jew. It’s easy to develop these kinds of stereotypes and racialist views of the other community.”
In the near future, Hand in Hand is looking to build additional schools in Haifa and Tel Aviv, as well as helping Israel’s many integrated preschools develop into elementary schools. Ultimately, the hope of Hand in Hand’s founders is that their schools will plant seeds of peace to be sowed in future generations. “I think that our kids, by virtue of the fact that they’re studying in a mixed school come to understand the gray areas,” says Gordon, who would eventually like to see as many as 30 Hand in Hand schools. “And not just see things in black and white, but [as a] complex problem that does not have an easy solution, and there needs to be a lot of criticism on both sides.”
For more information, visit www.handinhandk12.org.