How Jewish and Arab students at one of Israel’s few mixed schools prepare for peace, by simply listening
Jerusalem — Every morning before she goes to school, 12-year-old Dariel Bardach-Goldstein tapes a number to her chest. It marks the days since her cousin was taken hostage by Hamas.
Dariel campaigns almost daily with her mother Rebecca, demanding a deal to bring the dozens of Israelis seized by Hamas during the group’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack back home. But it hasn’t been easy.
In the days immediately after the attack, Rebecca thought her daughter needed help.
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“I spoke with her teacher right away, and we agreed that she should meet with the school counselor — and the school counselor is Arab, and I don’t know her,” recalled the mother. “Is that complicated? Will it be complicated?”
Dariel goes to one of only six schools in Israel that is not segregated into Arab and Jewish students.
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Principal Meyer doesn’t attempt to portray her school’s work — or any aspect of life in the heart of the troubled Middle East — as easy, but she said it helps to know that she and her colleagues are working to create a brighter future.
“The situation in Israel, it’s not easy,” she said. “I think that it’s easier when you know that you are part of the solution… It’s easier that you know that what you do now affects the lives and souls of students. It’s easier when you talk about it, when you expand your knowledge. I find it harder to be outside of this school right now.”
She knows peace may be far away for her country and for all of her students and their families. But they are prepared.
“When peace will be here, for us, it’s not going to be a big change,” Meyer said. “We have the skills, we practice it. We’ll be able to teach other people how to do it.”
Until then, she and her colleagues at Hand in Hand will continue arming their students with a weapon more powerful than guns or bombs: Empathy.
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Source: cbsnews.com