Early in July, the JCRC (Jewish Community Relations Committee) of the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor brought to Israel a group of five prominent educators from Washtenaw County, including three principals from local public schools. With this short four-day trip, we hoped for participants to see Israel up close, explore how the country addresses diversity, understand the trauma in Israel after October 7, and to experience first-hand the vibrancy and resilience of Israeli society by visiting Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Ashkelon, Sdeirot and other cities and towns around the country.
During our trip, the group was fortunate to meet up with the Jewish Federation’s Israel and Overseas Programs Manager, Amichay Findling, who happened to be in Israel for an unrelated conference. With Findling, himself a teacher, we learned about Israel’s diverse population – and the challenges that go along with it – in multiple educational settings. At one stop, we paid a visit to Ono Academic College and its Ethiopian Studies Center, where we learned about the ancient Ethiopian Jews, their present-day stories, and the nearly 180,000 Jews who have immigrated from Ethiopia in the past 40 years.
Another organization, the Ethiopian National Project (ENP), works to meet the needs of this significant immigrant population in Israel. We were impressed by the ENP’s leaders who described how, when the Israeli government noticed the alarming number of Ethiopian immigrants in Israeli jails, they declared, “Nothing is wrong with them, it’s wrong with us.” With this acknowledgement, the ENP was created as a not-for-profit group that works to ensure the full and successful integration of Ethiopian-Israelis into Israeli society. The organization is a unique partnership with the government of Israel and the Ethiopian-Israeli community itself.
At an ENP school in Ashkelon, we were so inspired by some young Ethiopian girls we met, who spoke fluent English (not to mention Hebrew) after just arriving from Ethiopia five years ago, that our Ann Arbor-based school principals made a pledge to return to Israel for their graduations.
Of course we couldn’t talk about the diversity of Israel without seeing an Arab-Jewish school, and the one we visited was called Kulna Yahad, in the integrated Jewish-Arab town of Yaffo. Our Washtenaw principals felt the weight of integrating students from very different religious, economic and social groups at this school. They got to share some of their own educational philosophies with the Jewish, Arab, and Ethiopian-Israeli teachers we met, and they left inspired by our hosts’ efforts on behalf of all children in Israel.
Other aspects of Israel’s diversity were on display during our full day in Jerusalem, absorbing life in the city outside the classroom. We visited the city’s Christian, Muslim and Jewish holy sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa (a Jewish-Muslim holy site), the Western Wall, and the Tower of David. We did a great deal of walking all over the Old City of Jerusalem, entering the city from the Jaffa Gate – after walking through the posh Mamilla Mall, where we heard Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and French spoken – and walked from the glorious Damascus Gate (the entrance to the Arab shuk where the locals shop) out through the Dung Gate, and all around Jerusalem to Lion’s Gate, the gate the Israelis entered to re-unite Jerusalem in June 1967.
Even our accommodations revealed a diverse tapestry of Israeli culture: Each night, exhausted and exhilarated from the intense activity, we slept at the beautiful, but simple, Notre Dame Jerusalem Center run by Father David.
“Co-existence and harmony,” observed members of our group as they watched the streets of Jerusalem. (Notre Dame offered rooms with air conditioning, but not TVs.)
The educators, always aware of the children in our midst, were constantly asking, “Who is watching those children?” as young Arab and Jewish kids of five or six years old freely roamed the winding pedestrian-only streets of the Old City. The children were in reality being watched by… everyone around. Members of our group remarked that they had “never felt safer. Everybody is looking out for everybody else.” Not only were the kids riding their bikes and running around freely, but, as a note for children back in Wasthenaw: “Cell phones stayed away.” We saw with our own eyes how the Jewish state was a safe place for all ages, and how people of a variety of backgrounds – Jews, Christians and Muslims – felt comfortable to be themselves.
Beyond Israel’s diversity, we hoped the trip would demonstrate to our educators the profound trauma Israelis experienced on October 7, which we did primarily through a morning at the powerful Nova Festival Forest. The Forest has been turned into a memorial dedicated to the hundreds of young people murdered by Hamas on October 7 as they were enjoying a music festival in southern Israel.
We also heard about the Nova Festival massacre from Rabbi Ari Katz, whose Yeshiva in Sdeirot experienced the attack directly. When Rabbi Katz shared how his students ran from services to try to save lives, one of the trip participants remarked upon a new understanding of “the trauma in the Jewish experience [on October 7], and also the resilience.”
Interestingly, there was pressure on some of the group not to go to Israel because there are strong feelings in Washtenaw County that disagree with Israel’s policies in fighting the current war, which started with the Hamas attack on October 7 that killed nearly 1200 people, targeting mostly civilians who lived in small communities, kibbutzim and moshavim, near Gaza. However, our educators said that they wanted to come on this trip to experience Israel for themselves to gain, “real world, authentic perspective sharing.”
As a group they urge others in Ann Arbor: “See for yourself!”
While so much of the trip was seeing the diversity of Israel and how civil society in the Jewish state was meeting current challenges, many in the group had no idea about the vibrancy and beauty of Israel. We saw the stunning Haas Promenade overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem. And we experienced the gorgeous beaches of Ashkelon and Tel Aviv. Just as in Jerusalem, Arabs and Jews together were enjoying the city and the soothing waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Together they could unwind from a stressful world with beach volleyball, in the shadows of the huge skyscrapers of Tel Aviv’s hotels and business centers. In fact, the beach became a spiritual moment for many in the group – bathing in the waters of the Holy Land, where all human beings could come together, in their complexity and nuance.
This was the ultimate message and challenge of this mission, which brought hope and strength to our wonderful educators who work with diverse groups of students right here in Washtenaw County. If Arabs and Jews can learn together in Israel, if the sounds of churches and mosques can be heard at the Western Wall while Jews are praying, then our community here can come together in peace and appreciation for all of our own diversity.