How Jewish and Arab college students at one in every of Israel’s few combined faculties put together for peace, by merely listening

Jerusalem — Each morning earlier than she goes to high school, 12-year-old Dariel Bardach-Goldstein tapes a quantity to her chest. It marks the times since her cousin was taken hostage by Hamas.

Dariel campaigns virtually every day together with her mom Rebecca, demanding a deal to deliver the handfuls of Israelis seized by Hamas in the course of the group’s Oct. 7 terrorist assault again dwelling. But it surely hasn’t been straightforward.

Within the days instantly after the assault, Rebecca thought her daughter wanted assist.

“I spoke together with her trainer straight away, and we agreed that she ought to meet with the college counselor — and the college counselor is Arab, and I do not know her,” recalled the mom. “Is that sophisticated? Will or not it’s sophisticated?”

Dariel goes to one in every of solely six faculties in Israel that isn’t segregated into Arab and Jewish college students.

“That night time, the college counselor wrote to me,” recalled Rebecca. “She mentioned: “My coronary heart is with you.'”

“It was like this wave of feeling felt and heard and seen, and fully safe and assured,” she mentioned.

On the Hand in Hand college in Jerusalem, kids be taught each Arabic and Hebrew. Historical past is taught by two lecturers — one Jewish and one Palestinian.

Hanin Dabash additionally sends her kids to the college. She informed CBS Information it provides them “the chance to say what they suppose — to speak about their fears, their future, their misunderstanding of what’s taking place… I believe the children are normalized to hear to one another.”

“We have now relations of scholars in Gaza that had been killed. We have now lecturers that ship their kids to the military in Gaza,” mentioned Principal Efrat Meyer. “And we take note of everybody.”

Meyer, who’s Jewish, is accountable for the outstanding experiment. She informed CBS Information that the laser concentrate on merely listening to 1 one other stems from a number of core targets.

“We would like our college students first to not be racists,” she mentioned. “To acknowledge the totally different histories and the sufferings of each cultures, and we all know that college students that graduate from right here behave in a different way in society later.”

To get them to that time, no subject could be taboo.

“We discuss our worry,” defined Deputy Principal Engie Wattad, “and after we see the opposite facet understanding and placing themselves in our footwear… it is deeply comforting.”

For college kids like Dariel, which means having troublesome conversations.

“I’ve discovered that it is laborious for us to talk, as a result of plenty of us are scared to share our ideas,” she admitted. “However we have to.”

Principal Meyer does not try and painting her college’s work — or any side of life within the coronary heart of the troubled Center East — as straightforward, however she mentioned it helps to know that she and her colleagues are working to create a brighter future.

“The scenario in Israel, it is not straightforward,” she mentioned. “I believe that it is simpler when that you’re a part of the answer… It is simpler that that what you do now impacts the lives and souls of scholars. It is simpler whenever you discuss it, whenever you broaden your information. I discover it tougher to be exterior of this college proper now.”

She is aware of peace could also be far-off for her nation and for all of her college students and their households. However they’re ready.

“When peace can be right here, for us, it is not going to be a giant change,” Meyer mentioned. “We have now the talents, we apply it. We’ll be capable of educate different folks find out how to do it.”

Till then, she and her colleagues at Hand in Hand will proceed arming their college students with a weapon extra highly effective than weapons or bombs: Empathy.