HAGAR

NOVANEWS

Dear, All

We are writing you because we need your help to enable our unique community of Arabs and Jews in Israel’s desert to thrive. It all began five years ago, when a group of local residents of Beer Sheva among them, Neve Gordon, Amal Elsana Alh’jooj, Yusef Al’atawneh and Yifat Hillel founded HAGAR, a bilingual Jewish-Arab school.

You might not be aware, but in Israel segregation in the educational system is the rule and Hagar, which we have been creating, against all odds, is the only non-segregated school in the Negev, a region where over 700,000 people live, 25 percent of whom are Palestinian citizens, mostly Bedouins. 

Over the years we have managed to create an educational space where Jewish and Palestinian children not only mix (each ethnic group makes up 50 percent of the student body) but they learn together in a bilingual atmosphere of mutual respect. In 2011-12, 200 children, from nursery through fourth grade (growing a grade each year) attend this bilingual school, whose commitment to equality informs every aspect of our educational agenda.  To ensure that Hebrew and Arabic are awarded equal status two teachers, one Jewish and the other Arab, are present in every classroom. But language is only one aspect of our pedagogical endeavor. Within this bilingual space HAGAR encourages direct contactwith the heritage, customs and historical narrative of the different ethnic groups.

By the age of two, children are already celebrating the holidays and memorial days of both people. On Israeli Independence Day, for example, Hagar emphasizes the notion of independence and its relation to responsibility. On Nakba Day and Holocaust Day the school emphasizes the idea of loss and suffering and accentuates the importance of empathy, and that everyone has experienced some kind of pain and grief. By the time the children are old enough to learn that there are two conflicting national narratives, both of which will be taught in the higher grades, they already have the necessary emotional and intellectual tools to deal with conflict through dialogue.

None of this is obvious within the Israeli context, particularly when one takes into account the new spur of anti-democratic legislation, some of which have direct implications on our work (like the Nakba law). Moreover, to sustain such a project is extremely expensive as the Ministry of Education funds only one teacher in each classroom, providing only the Jewish narrative, with the library filled with books in Hebrew. We need your help to continue developing our Palestinian narrative program, to buy books and educational materials in Arabic for our children, and to pay the extra salary for a teacher in each class. We must ensure that all voices are heard.

Five dollars in the cost of one book in Arabic, five hundred to bring in a Palestinian puppet theatre troupe. Whether the gift is small or large, every dollar makes a difference.

Please make a contribution to support this incredible initiative where the next generation will advocate for equality, human rights and peace.

Click here to donate now.

Thank you for supporting our community. Mah Salaame,

Anwar Alh’jooj and Akiva Leibowitz
Co-chairs of Hagar

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