Jewish West Jerusalemites object to Arab-Jewish school

More difficult than Noah's Ark
Ned, Ramallah, 22 October 2007
In Jerusalem, a mixed Arab-Jewish school is causing discomfort in the conservative Jewish neighbourhood of Pat. The School, which was built by an organisation with the name Hand in Hand, is the third school built and managed by this organisation. The schools allow Arabs and Jews to grow up together paving the way for a better understanding of each other.

However, the problem is not with the children, who, if left alone, would create a generation of people who are willing to live peacefully and put aside the petty differences and racism that roam this place. It is with the older generations who have these racist tendencies entrenched in their mindsets.

One woman from the neighbourhood where the school is built tells Ha'aretz "I've got nothing against Arabs, but why do they have to go to school with Jews?"

Another resident says "It's the mixing between Jews and Arabs that's the problem. The rest pales in comparison."

Hebrew, Arabic mix upsets neighbors
Or Kashti, Ha'aretz, 22 October 2007
The new building that will soon house the Arab-Jewish bilingual school Hand in Hand sticks out against the rest of the houses in the Pat neighborhood in Jerusalem. The roomy halls and spacious lawns are not very characteristic of the nearby streets. Neither is the multicultural atmosphere which many of the religious Jewish neighbors don't care for.

Brighter future for Arabs and Jews in the school that teaches peace
Rory McCarthy, The Guardian, Monday, 22 October 2007

Projected coexistence
Ahinoam Pollack, Jerusalem Post, August 23, 2007
Rabbi Shalom Dov Lifshitz, who heads the anti-missionary group Yad L'Achim, says that Pat is a religious neighborhood, and as such opposes the pluralistic school. Lifshitz says the school will encourage intermarriage, and that its Jewish students are too young to study with Arabs - he advises waiting until college to encounter and understand Arabs.

A Higher Grade
Peggy Cidor, Jerusalem Post, April 6, 2006
'There is a particular day that we have to struggle through every year', Josy Mendelssohn, co-chair of 'Hand in Hand' explained to the assembled guests. Explaining the philosophy and workings of the Hand-in-Hand Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Jerusalem to the representatives of the Rayne Foundation and other dignitaries, Mendelssohn was referring to Israeli Independence Day.

'It is perceived in a totally different manner by the Arab population of Israel. The Arabs call it Nakba, meaning catastrophe. For the Jews, it is the major event in the modern history of Israel. We face the issue each and every year - and we do not try to run away from it, though it is not easy', she said

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Peace studies: Children of Israel
Donald Macintyre, The Independent, 18 October 2007
In a city marked by division, the Max Rayne school is unique – the only one in Jerusalem where pupils, principals and teachers are from Jewish and Arab communities.
One of the school's newest pupils is Maria Amin, a six-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza who is confined to a wheelchair which she navigates with a joystick operated by her chin. A patient at Jerusalem's remarkable rehabilitation hospital, the Alyn, she was paralysed from the neck down when the car she was travelling in was caught in an Israeli missile strike on an Islamic Jihad commander which killed her mother, uncle, grandmother and elder brother.

She wasn't at the school yesterday because of medical problems, but Mrs Peretz hopes she will be at the school for several years to come.

You can't miss, fixed to the door of her classroom, under inscriptions of greeting in Arabic, a colourful painting – a house a flower, a tortoise, a vivid rainbow – by her new classmates. In large letters on the painting are written the words "Welcome Maria". In Hebrew.