Shalam.org

We are in the Northern part of Israel, staying with some distant relatives of Hannah's. We were blessed with hospitatlity of Nova's family friends last night. We've been doing more thinking about what being in the land of Israel means to us. We are pondering how our identity as a Jewish Minnesotan/ Texan is linked to the state of Israel, what it means that our ancestors came from here thousands of years ago and their descendents then fled to Israel and displaced many people who had been living here since then. This is such a sacred place to so many people.

Today we talked about methods of coexistence with family and freinds, both social workers with very different perspectives. We discussed the importance of joining Jewish and Arab schools in Israel, which are now primarily seperate. In most Jewish schools they study Jewish history, hebrew and English and in Arab schools they study hebrew, Arabic and Arab history. How can true co-existance take place if people are not shown in the classroom how to respect and understand eachother? The default is for children to learn their own histories and regard the other based on what they see and hear, which is often negative and violent.