Teachers ponder how to approach Israel in wartime

Thursday, January 29, 2009 | by stacey palevsky

Devra Aarons’ class at Berkeley Midrasha usually focuses on Jewish philosophy, ritual and thoughts on God.

But on Jan. 11, she departed from the typical curriculum and instead dedicated her one-hour class to a very different topic: Israelis, Palestinians and the war in Gaza.

Why the dramatic shift?

“It would be irresponsible for me not to open the floor and talk about it,” Aarons said. And since most of her students attend public school, where being Jewish makes them different, she wanted to provide the teenagers with at least one “safe space to explore questions without feeling like an idiot, or without feeling they had to be an expert.”

Bay Area Jewish educators, like Aarons, have spent this month asking themselves one very crucial question: How should they teach Israel in a time of crisis?

The question is a critical one in the Bay Area, home to some of the most visible pro-Palestinian groups in the country.

During Israel’s 22-day incursion in Gaza, lively debates sprouted up on educator message boards, mailing lists and in faculty meetings.

“As educators, we need to be constantly aware of what comes out of our mouths and how students ingest it,” said Aaron Hahn Tapper, co-director of Abraham’s Vision, a nonprofit that promotes dialogue between Jewish and Muslim teenagers in the U.S.

 

Hahn Tapper stressed this self-awareness during a panel discussion held Jan. 13 at the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation and organized by staff of the Israel Center’s education initiative. The event, attended by nearly 20 educators from across the Bay, sought to provide educators with resources and a wide variety of opinions about how to approach the issue of Gaza in their classrooms.

 

An Israeli education expert, speaking by video conference, encouraged the group to sit down with their colleagues before any lesson plans are created or any assemblies assembled.

“Start talking about Israel amongst yourselves, on an adult level, and do not be afraid of disagreements,” urged Rachel Korazim, an education expert with the Jewish Agency for Israel.

After Korazim’s presentation, teachers and administrators wrestled with how to talk about Israel and its military actions.

“I purposely don’t use the phrase ‘support Israel,’ ” said Igael Gurin-Malous, a Jewish studies teacher at Jewish Community High School of the Bay in San Francisco. “In my classroom, we say — and this not just mincing words — that we’re ‘forming a personal response to Israel.’ ”

Some educators said it was important for them to share their own opinions with their students, while others said it was more important to keep their personal philosophies out of the classroom.

“I tell them my background, that I served in the IDF, that my brother is in Gaza,” Gurin-Malous said. “For high school students, the only way they’ll meet me halfway is if I tell them where I am.”

In contrast, Batshir Torchio, who teaches Jewish studies to middle school students at Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco, said that “I think my students feel more comfortable sharing with me when they don’t know my perspective.”

Some educators said it was critical to look at the whole history of the state of the Middle East; others said it was more important to examine contemporary opinions and news reporting.

“I wouldn’t let my students talk about the conflict until we spent an entire day researching the history of the region because I wanted to create a safe environment,” Torchio said.

Many educators at congregational schools felt that with only a

once-a-week window with which to look at Israel, it was more difficult to contextualize conversations about Israel, compared to day school educators, who teach in an environment that often emphasizes an Israel-centric curriculum.

“We have the luxury of having the word ‘Israel’ in our mission statement,” said Mark Shinar, head of school at Oakland Hebrew Day School.

Susan Weintraub, head of school at Ronald C. Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City, echoed that sentiment.

“There is no question at this school that Israel has a right to exist, and therefore, our discussion begins at a different place,” Weintraub said.

All educators did agree on one thing: Any conversation or project needs to be developmentally appropriate, though that varies from school to school.

For instance, during the war in Gaza, Shinar and his staff decided not to talk about it with students younger than third grade, since they could not fully understand the conflict.

OHDS students grades three through eight created Israel solidarity posters, adorned bulletin boards with news clippings and wrote letters to children in Israel and local government officials.

At Wornick, Weintraub and her staff included even the school’s youngest students in a project aimed to connect students to Israel in a time of war.

For years, the school has partnered with the Reali School in Haifa. When the war in Gaza began, Reali families took in 200 families from Sderot.

So, Weintraub said, all of Wornick’s students got involved with a fundraising campaign to help the Reali students care for the Sderot families.

Middle school students — who understood that the war is bigger than Sderot children being unable to attend school — became involved in a pro-Israel letter-writing campaign to congressional and state representatives.

“This is one way to teach our students to be more politically active,” Weintraub said.

In contrast to day school educators, Aarons only sees her Berkeley Midrasha students once a week. She chose to use her limited time to focus on the many ways Israel is portrayed in the media, and how that affects the way we in the United States form our opinions of the conflict. She felt it was the best approach for her, since she used to work as a reporter for CNBC.

She and her students listened to NPR reporters interview Israeli author and peacenik Amos Oz, historian and IDF representative Michael Oren and Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh. She also showed her students world maps and numerous news articles.

“I work really hard to find a balance of perspective,” Aarons said. “It’s not my job to tell them how to think, but to help them develop what their opinions will to be.”