Children show the way

Toronto Star, May 12,2002.

As Israeli activists fight for their dream of peaceful coexistence, young Jews and Muslims are living it

OLIVIA WARD EUROPEAN BUREAU, JERUSALEM

Would you like to meet my friend?" says 9-year-old Noa Weiss-Simon, summoning her classmate, Ama Haik, who is watching her shyly from across the room.The two schoolgirls one Jewish and the other Muslim, one Israeli and the other Arab show no signs of political zeal. But by standing hand in hand in a suburb of Jerusalem, they are committing a revolutionary act.

Their school is also called Hand In Hand, one of only two bilingual and bicultural Israeli elementary schools operating as islands of normality in a dark Mideast sea of bloodshed and hatred. And at a time when peace between Israelis and Palestinians has become a bitter joke, and the voices of revenge drown out the voices of co-existence, the school's motto "learning together, living together" is a utopian dream come true. "I feel that Arabs and Jews are like a big family," Noa says. "Ama and I think of ourselves as cousins. " If a magic wand could be waved over this bruised land, the results might look like this: two communities living autonomously, side by side, in mutual respect and even friendship.

The school was founded under the auspices of the Centre for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel by Amin Khalaf, an Israeli Arab who has taught in Jewish and Arab public schools, and Jewish American educator Lee Gordon. They also created a similar school in the northern Galilee region. Both are built on an activist philosophy that is rare in today’s Israel..… At Hand In Hand, pupils celebrate each others' holidays, eat each others' food, learn first about each others' cultures and study under two-person teams of teachers representing both languages and societies.

It is a microcosm of what Israel and the Palestinian territories could become if they struggled out of their vortex of despair.…Reproduced with permission - Torstar Syndication Services