How Do Mixed Jewish-Arab Schools Mark Memorial and Independence Days?

Naomi Zeveloff May 11, 2016 Debbie Hill

At most Israeli schools, Memorial Day is one of the most emotional days of the
year as students recall the soldiers who died for their nation in patriotic
ceremonies that mark the birth of the Israeli state.
But at Israels alternative Jewish-Arab schools, Memorial Day is difficult for
another reason: while half of the students are celebrating the founding of their
nation, the other half are mourning the loss of their own.
This week is the most complicated week of the whole year at Hand in Hand,
said Mohamad Marzouk, one of the founders of the bilingual Hand in Hand school
in Wadi Ara near Haifa, and also a parent at the school.
It touches the core issue of the conflict, he said. It is the creation of the
state in circumstances of war. Arabs and Jews are on two sides of this issue.
There are six public Hand in Hand schools across Israel, educating 1,320 Jewish
and Arab students in Hebrew and Arabic. The schools are a rarity in Israel,
where most Jews and Arabs learn in separate education systems with classes in
their native languages.

Debbie Hill
Students walk together at Jerusalems Hand in Hand school.

At Hand in Hand, teachers, administrators and parents devised a special dual

curriculum for Memorial Day that makes sure that no students are left out. It is
one of the only times of year when the students are separated as Jews and
Arabs.
Like in mainstream Israeli schools, the Jewish students and their parents have a
short ceremony to remember the soldiers who died in battle and to talk about
Israels founding. In the Arab ceremony, students talk about the Nakba, when
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes by
Israeli forces in 1948. Both groups are encouraged to wear white, an Israeli
school tradition for Memorial Day.
After the separation, which typically lasts no more than 30 minutes, the
students come back together for a final event to transition from the pain to
the hope, said Shuli Dichter, the director of the Hand in Hand schools. At some
of the schools, the students release balloons into the air as a symbol of hope for
a shared future.
The main thing is that after that we meet again, said Orly Noy, a parent to an
8th grader at the Jerusalem Hand in Hand school. We dont go home before we
stand together and become one community again.
The way Hand in Hand marks Memorial Day is a contrast to the ceremonies at
most Jewish schools, where students mourn fallen soldiers and celebrate Israeli
independence without reference to the states Arab minority. It is also
different from Arab schools inside Israel, where Memorial Day is typically not
acknowledged, said Marzouk.
Israeli schools that make the Nakba part of their curriculum can be fined,
according to a 2011 law that allows the state finance minister to pull funding
from public bodies that reject Israel as a Jewish and democratic state or mark
Israels founding as a day of mourning.
The dual ceremony at the Jerusalem Hand in Hand school was developed two
years ago. Before that, Jewish students were taken out of the classrooms for a
Memorial Day ceremony, leaving the Arab students at their desks. Afterward,
the two groups came together for a brief, shared event.

Debbie Hill
Children play at Jerusalems Hand in Hand school.
There was a feeling that [the Arab students] didnt know what to do for
themselves and there was no room for them on that day, said Gili Ri, a parent
of two children at the Jerusalem Hand in Hand school.
Rather than bring the Arab students into the Jewish ceremony, parents and
school administrators decided it was wiser to keep the two groups separate so
that each side could acknowledge its own national narrative on this most
sensitive day. The joint ceremony afterward was lengthened, becoming the focal
point of the afternoon.
The idea here was how do we make this a day of commemorating our national
pain on each side and finding ways to share that together, Ri said. It gives
room for each one to be with their own pain and not be in a position of comparing
how much space is being made to each side.
For Ri, celebrating Memorial Day at Hand in Hand is a relief from the
nationalistic ceremonies of her youth. Her father was killed in the 1973 Yom
Kippur War when several Arab states attacked Israel. As a member of a
bereaved family, she said she had a special role in her kibbutzs recollection of
the deceased soldiers.

If I had to send my kids to a regular school I would be worried that the

messages that they would hear would be either completely oblivious to the other
side, all the way to the extreme of justifying the war, justifying the violence
and making it part of the axis of our being here, she said.
At Hand in Hand schools, Memorial and Independence Days are part of an
intensely emotional six weeks of holidays for both Jews and Arabs. The period
starts with Land Day on March 30, the Palestinian holiday that marks the events
of 1976, when Palestinians protested the Israeli governments expropriation of
land and Israeli forces killed six unarmed people. It also includes the Jewish
holiday of Passover, Christian Easter and Nakba Day on May 15.
Marzouk said that it is not easy for the parents to explain the other sides
narrative to their kids. Sometimes children ask very basic but pure and
difficult questions, he said. He recalled his 8-year-old daughter asking him
about the fallen Israeli soldiers on Memorial Day. Are these bad guys? she
wanted to know.
Sometimes people fight, the same way that children can fight between each
other, he told her. But we believe that when there is a fight or a dispute we
should talk and try to solve our problems peacefully.
Noy also discussed the upcoming ceremony with her daughter. She asked, So if
I want can I go to the Palestinian ceremony instead of the Jewish one? said
Noy. On the one hand I wanted to tell her, just be with who you belong. But
then she told her daughter that it was also OK to hear from the other side.
Contact Naomi Zeveloff at zeveloff@forward.com or on

Twitter, @NaomiZeveloff

Read more: http://forward.com/news/israel/340340/how-do-mixed-jewisharab-schools-mark-memorial-and-independence-days/#ixzz48WIt8HU4