Peace Studies - How a Jerusalem school embraces three religions

Principals should have principles.
If Israel's striking teachers want a lesson in reconciliation, all they need do is look at Jerusalem's private bilingual Max Rayne Hand in Hand school. While elsewhere in the country, some 120,000 university students and 600,000 high-school students are locked out of classes because agreements on a proper teacher's wage have floundered, this learning institute for 410 younger children offers an unusual example of getting along.
Hand in Hand is no longer on a hand to mouth existence, given a big new grant from the Lord Rayne foundation and a shiny new $11m building. Jews, Christians and Muslims-- pupils and teachers alike-- are accepted here on equal terms. This is highly unusual. Israeli schools are almost always separated along linguistic lines and Arab neighbourhood schoolrooms tend to be sub-standard.

It is hard to overestimate the importance, pioneering rather than merely symbolic, of the Hand in Hand school in a city whose religious and ethnic divisions are at the absolute heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The multicultural school,funded by a combination of government money, fees and donations, is the only one of Israel's four bilingual schools in Jerusalem. It straddles the Jewish neighbourhood of Pat and the Arab neighbourhood of Beit Safaf. The three other bilingual schools - in Beersheva, Galilee and Wadi Ara - all part of the same organisation, Hand in Hand, which began ten years ago when Oslo peace accords inspired optimism. Jamie Einstein Bregman has been attending for a decade, and is fluent in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. He invited a woman priest, a rabbi and an imam to preside over his bar mitzvah earlier this year, and as his Arab friends tossed sweets inside the synagogue, no one was agog.

First graders play bilingual tag, with Jewish and Arab teachers cheering on the children by shouting Yalla yalla!, slang for "go, go" used by both Arabic and Hebrew speakers. One of the Muslim instructors recently started wearing a full veil; in this school where Orthodox Jewish clothing restrictions are accepted, this decision did not faze the children.

History lessons about the war of 1948, which Israelis describe as the war of independence and Palestinians refer to as al-naqba, the catastrophe, are tricky.

"We teach everything and we discuss the issues and we accept it is possible not to agree with each other," said Amin Khalaf, a co-founder of the Hand in Hand mixed education project. "But we have to know both sides."

Despite suspicion and resentment by some outsiders, the school has a growing waiting list and is a beacon of hope for Israel's future.

Christians Bring Iranian Jews to Israel

Evangelical Christians in the U.S. have helped convince dozens of Iranian Jews to move to Israel in recent months, offering cash incentives and claiming that Iran's tiny Jewish community is in grave danger, the Associated Press reports. It's the latest wrinkle in the demographic tug of war for numerical dominance between Jewish immigrants and Israeli Arabs.

The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a charity that funnels millions of dollars in evangelical donations to Israel every year, is promising $10,000 to every Iranian Jew who comes to Israel, said the group's director, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein.

The project is another example of the alliance between the Jewish state and evangelical American Christians, many of whom see the existence of Israel and the return of Jews to the Holy Land as a realization of biblical prophesy that will culminate with Christ's Second Coming.

But an Iran expert said the money would not be enough to draw Iranian Jews, who generally do not perceive themselves to be in great danger in the Islamic republic.

About 25,000 Jews are left in Iran—an overwhelmingly Muslim nation of 65 million—the remnants of a community with origins dating to biblical times. Most Iranian Jews left for Israel or the U.S. over the last 50 years.

Still, Iran's Jewish community is the largest in the Middle East outside Israel, and Iranian Jews have some legal protections. But Israel and Iran are staunch enemies and do not have diplomatic relations. Eckstein argued that calls by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for Israel's elimination, coupled with Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, represent danger.

"Is this not similar to the situation in Nazi Germany in the late '30s, where they (Jews) also felt they could weather the storm?" he asked. Instead, 6 million were killed in the Holocaust, which Ahmadinejad has called a "myth."

Eckstein said his group has helped bring 82 Jews to Israel from Iran since the project began this year, and hopes to bring 60 more by year's end.

The charity, based in Jerusalem and Chicago, has raised $1.4 million for the project, Eckstein said. The IFCJ initially offered $5,000 per immigrant, but doubled the amount when response was lower than expected, he said. Immigrants also receive government aid upon arriving in Israel.

One of the recent arrivals, a 31-year-old widow with three children, said she was not in danger in Iran but was concerned for her children's future.

"At the end of the day, this is the place for the Jewish people," she said, referring to Israel. She is living in the southern port city of Ashdod. Though she claimed to have felt safe in her hometown of Isfahan, she asked that her name be withheld to protect family remaining in Iran.

The grant from the IFCJ was what enabled her to come to Israel, she said. Most Jews in Iran have heard about the grant through word-of- mouth and Israel Radio's broadcasts in Farsi, she said.

Iranian government officials would not comment on the new project.

Iran's Jewish community is technically protected by the Islamic Republic's constitution, and has one representative in a 290-seat parliament.

In a speech at Columbia University in New York last month, the Iranian president insisted that Iranians "are friends of the Jewish people. There are many Jews in Iran living peacefully with security."

Nonetheless, the Jewish community has led an uneasy existence under Iran's Islamic government.

In 2000, Iranian authorities arrested 10 Jews, convicted them of spying for Israel and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from four to 13 years. An appeals court later reduced their sentences under international pressure and eventually freed them.

"Generally, Jews are free to practice Judaism inside Iran," said Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli analyst whose family emigrated from Iran in the Iranian Jews, however, are increasingly concerned about the intensity of attacks on Israel by the Iranian press, which they view as bordering on anti-Semitism, he said.

Such attacks have not led to a mass exodus from Iran, because the majority of Iranians are hospitable to the Jews and most Jews in Iran are economically comfortable, Javedanfar said. However, he noted, "the level of concern has increased" because of Ahmadinejad's statements.

This is not the first time evangelical Christians have taken part in bringing people to Israel. Eckstein's charity also played a role in funding the immigration to Israel of 7,000 members of the Bnei Menashe, a group in India claiming descent from one of the Biblical "lost tribes" of the Jews.

The charity's evangelical donors, who tend to have hardline political views, see encouraging Jewish immigration as a way of strengthening the country in the face of Arab threats.

The IFCJ is one of the most prominent examples of Israel's alliance with evangelical Christians, who have become among the country's most generous donors and most enthusiastic political supporters.

The ties have been welcomed by many Israelis but criticized by others.

Some Israelis believe the country should not align itself with a group seen as an extreme element of American society, while others have charged that the evangelicals' goal is ultimately to convert Jews to Christianity, a charge the evangelicals deny.

Habonim neo-Kibbutzniks hailed for nurturing Jewish talent in UK and Hollywood

A Zionist club that became a factory for creativity in the UK is highlighted by Jonathan Brown in the Independent today. Would you join a club that spawned Borat? It seems to be a secret recipe for success in London and Hollywood circles these days.

For decades, the Habonim movement, with its emphasis on high-minded ideals, collective decision making and outdoor activities, was the leisure activity of choice for the offspring of Britain's left-wing Jewish families. Committed to the ideals of socialism, collective strength and Zionism espoused at Sunday night meetings in London, Manchester Leeds and Glasgow, its aim was to found and inhabit Kibbutzim in Mandatory Palestine, later Israel, with people of unique and admirable qualities.

Today however, thanks to some very public praise from some of its old members, the Habo, as it is known among fellow chaverim or comrades, is being hailed as an unlikely talent factory for some of the hottest media talent to have emerged from these shores in recent times.

The recent relocation of the Habonim from its London headquarters has prompted an upsurge of interest and affection for the movement, founded in 1929 by Wellesley Aron and Norman Lourie along the lines of the Wandervogel groups of pre-Nazi Germany.
... [Its] "lefty boho" philosophy appealed to the children of naturally creative urban progressives who preferred their children to be rubbing shoulders with like-minded spirits at Habonim rather than some of the more conservative Jewish youth clubs.
Publicity comes at a welcome time for the movement as it relocates in the wake of declining popularity worldwide. In 1982 it merged with the Israeli Dror movement but ongoing disquiet among the left at the behaviour of the state of Israel and the decline of the Kibbutzim movement over the last two decades has raised concerns that it may no longer be relevant.

Not so, said Daniel Conn, a 22-year-old education worker from Hendon, north-west London and a current member. He says that despite falling numbers the movement gives the same moral and philosophical underpinning to young people as it ever did – a kind of confidence described by the journalist, broadcaster and former member Jonathan Freeland that you would normally only get from going to Eton.

The movement, which has headquarters in 21 countries, has also sought to refocus on new issues that emphasize a global social conscience, recently leading a delegation to the World Day of Action for Darfur. "It has given me my values and shaped the way I see the world. It has helped me become the person I would wish to be and learn how to work with people. At the end of the day it is all about trying to make the world a better place," said Mr Conn.

Filmmaker Lynch meditates on peace in the City of David and how to erase War

David Lynch, the noir film director best known for Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and the weird tv series Twin Peaks, has arrived in the Holy Land to instruct cinema students and Israeli leaders alike on how to banish war through thought vibes. He funds his own consciousness-raising institute to spread these uncommon notions, and was met by Israel's celebrity-obsessed President, Shimon Peres (first cousin of actress Lauren Bacall). Other audiences here, hardened from years of intifada violence, appeared rather less than convinced.

Journalists who were packed into Lynch's press conference in Jerusalem's Sam Spiegel Institute collectively rolled their eyes when he pooh-poohed peace mediation; Lynch advocates peace meditation instead. (Sorry, Condi. Assume the lotus position and cease the shuttle diplomacy. Now.)

With a staight face, the cinema guru of the grotesque told these hardboiled hacks that war could be banished if only 240 individuals would simultaneously practice transcendental meditation for 40 minutes every day. Each would need "total brain coherence" instead of using a mere 5-10 per cent of their gray matter, as us less-evolved mortals typically do. With that amount of effort, humankind could "say goodbye to the horror of hate." Lynch pointed to unified field theory as the way to achieve
"real peace, which is the absence of all negativity, not simply the absence of war", as all "dark horrors dissolve." The analogies shifted to the organic, and the human condition was likened to a diseased tree which needs root treatment, but then they segued to the surreal. If you don't want to "cramp your happiness", Lynch said helpfully, just shed the "suffocating rubber clownsuit" of hatred. "If you can think it, you can do it." Uh-huh.

This was pure LA-speak, honed after decades of meditation sessions. With wings of silver hair framing his pink face, Lynch showed all of his 61 years and appeared afflicted with Jerusalem Syndrome, or else jet lag had him speaking in tongues. He resembled the leading man from his baffling cult classic, Eraserhead, As for cinema, Lynch confirmed that "Film is dead, digital is here, and the director's manipulation of the image is now almost infinite."
He will be mentoring master classes of film students and Israeli directors in Jerusalem, Haifa, and Tel Aviv until the end of the week.

US spy-bugs raise a stir

A news story in the Washington Post about how America is innovating insect spies the size of dragonflies was dismissed in some quarters as a blatant bid for a circulation buzz, with very sparse sourcing. But readers of israelity bites will recognize the type of mini-robotics which the Israelis already have in development. These dragonflies are not much of a leap forward compared to the IDF's bionic wasps and other robot weapons. Don't underestimate the capabilities of spymasters and their canny technicians, which can make James Bond's arsenal look like something out of an antiquarian's window. These mini-gadgets are not necessarily the paranoid fantasies of tweaking methamphetamine addicts, particularly in a place threatened by sporadic terrorism.
What's that buzzing noise? That irritating click? It's possible you are being watched. You have been warned.

Hamas and Fatah back Palestinian Headcount

Amid the big brouhaha over Condoleezza Rice's seventh visit to the region this year, while expectations for the Bush administration's legacy-polishing Middle East summit planned in Annapolis next month are plummeting fast, there is a cooperative effort by Palestinians to get some "facts on the ground" of their own. Hence an official new census is underway. Oddly enough, officials are starting off by tallying buildings and only later doing a headcount. According to the Associated Press, the results should count for something:

Rapid Palestinian growth would bolster Palestinian territorial demands, while Israelis' fear of being outnumbered in areas they now control might make them more willing to consider a West Bank withdrawal.

Later this week, some 5,000 census-takers will fan out across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, first to count buildings, and, in December, to count people. Results are expected by February.

"We hope we can use these statistics in the negotiations," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, a supporter of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Ramallah-based administration. "It's not only important for the political process, but also for building the institutions of the state."

The militant group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, has also said the census results are important and that it will cooperate.

Present guesstimates suggest around 3.9 million Palestinians inhabit the occupied territories. Last December, government statistics revealed that the Israeli population comprises 5.4 million Jews, 1.4 million Arabs and 310,000 others (Christians and miscellaneous) Most of the million plus Russians emigres are tallied in with the Jews. The stumbling block is East Jerusalem. It is still unclear whether Israel will allow Palestinians to take a census in just a portion of Jerusalem when they are busy promoting a P.R. campaign that hails "40 years of Reunification." Israelity bites.

Bye-bye Ynet

Ynet, the spunky English language website of the Hebrew daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, will abruptly close down this week, after a two year run. It will be missed. They were quick off the mark to break stories and pulled few punches. Proprietors say that the website was not earning its keep, and most of its 11 journalists, who post news around the clock, are expected to be sacked rather than redeployed. It was known for its poisonous talkbacks, with dozens and sometimes hundreds of opinionated readers flaming one another over political or religious posturing. If you could wade through them, you'd get a cross section of the passion and delusion with which English-speakers around the world view this troubled region. Read it while you still can.