by Rebecca Saliman
Jewish NewGround Fellow, 2010
Forty-seven eighth graders gathered at a hotel in Jerusalem to listen to a presenter from The David Project, an organization devoted to educating and inspiring strong voices for Israel. After an interactive Powerpoint presentation, discussions, analyzing video clips and news articles, the presenter’s message was unambiguous: Israel is your home. You must fight back. You must defend Israel.
As I sat there listening to this presentation, I felt extremely conflicted. On the one hand, I want my students to love Israel, to feel connected to Israel, and to care about Israel’s vitality and future. On the other hand, I want them to be critical. I want them to understand that Israel has violated human rights and that Israel is far from perfect. And I want them to understand the suffering that Israel has caused to Palestinians. I pictured my Muslim friends from NewGround listening to this presentation and I was horrified imagining their responses. While the goal of NewGround is to forge relationships between Muslims and Jews and facilitate learning about the “other,” the goal of this presentation was for students to learn to defend themselves against the “other.” NewGround advocates partnership; the David Project advocates opposition and defense.
The presenter showed a Palestinian children’s television show in which Palestinian kids were taught that the reason they got bad grades on a test was because of Israelis. The David Project presenter asked us, “what are the chances of peace when a Palestinian child grows up like this?”
But I would ask my Jewish students the same thing. I teach at a Jewish day school where five parents of seventh-grade students wouldn’t let their children go on the class field trip to the Islamic center because they were too scared for their children’s safety.
Jewish day schools teach kids to love Israel from the time they are in preschool. But now that my students are in eighth grade, they have not yet learned to criticize Israel, nor have they learned to empathize with the “other” side. Instead, we (and their parents) have taught them--albeit unintentionally--to fear and even hate.
I’m scared that we’ve gone too far; by focusing so much on teaching kids to love Israel, we have neglected to teach tolerance, respect, and empathy for Palestinians.
We may not be showing propaganda videos claiming that Palestinians are responsible for our students’ bad grades, but…are we really educating for peace?
Jewish NewGround Fellow, 2010
Forty-seven eighth graders gathered at a hotel in Jerusalem to listen to a presenter from The David Project, an organization devoted to educating and inspiring strong voices for Israel. After an interactive Powerpoint presentation, discussions, analyzing video clips and news articles, the presenter’s message was unambiguous: Israel is your home. You must fight back. You must defend Israel.
As I sat there listening to this presentation, I felt extremely conflicted. On the one hand, I want my students to love Israel, to feel connected to Israel, and to care about Israel’s vitality and future. On the other hand, I want them to be critical. I want them to understand that Israel has violated human rights and that Israel is far from perfect. And I want them to understand the suffering that Israel has caused to Palestinians. I pictured my Muslim friends from NewGround listening to this presentation and I was horrified imagining their responses. While the goal of NewGround is to forge relationships between Muslims and Jews and facilitate learning about the “other,” the goal of this presentation was for students to learn to defend themselves against the “other.” NewGround advocates partnership; the David Project advocates opposition and defense.
The presenter showed a Palestinian children’s television show in which Palestinian kids were taught that the reason they got bad grades on a test was because of Israelis. The David Project presenter asked us, “what are the chances of peace when a Palestinian child grows up like this?”
But I would ask my Jewish students the same thing. I teach at a Jewish day school where five parents of seventh-grade students wouldn’t let their children go on the class field trip to the Islamic center because they were too scared for their children’s safety.
Jewish day schools teach kids to love Israel from the time they are in preschool. But now that my students are in eighth grade, they have not yet learned to criticize Israel, nor have they learned to empathize with the “other” side. Instead, we (and their parents) have taught them--albeit unintentionally--to fear and even hate.
I’m scared that we’ve gone too far; by focusing so much on teaching kids to love Israel, we have neglected to teach tolerance, respect, and empathy for Palestinians.
We may not be showing propaganda videos claiming that Palestinians are responsible for our students’ bad grades, but…are we really educating for peace?
RSS Feed