Hand-in-Hand School

Children visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, April 17, 2012. (Noam Moskowitz/Flash 90)

Teaching about the Holocaust in an Arab-Jewish school

How do you teach the universal lessons from national disasters throughout history, while preserving their uniqueness and respecting the pain of those connected to them? By Guy Aloni The tension leading up to Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Hand in Hand bilingual school in Jerusalem, where I teach, is the same every year. Teaching about Holocaust…

By +972 Magazine April 24, 2017

Israeli policemen search a Palestinian man at Damascus gate, in Jerusalem's old city, October 18, 2015. (Yotam Ronen/Activestills.org)

There is no reason to trust Israel’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy

While the government claims to take a ‘zero tolerance’ stance on terrorism — whether Palestinian or Jewish — the reality on the ground paints a very different picture. The phrase “zero tolerance” is doing brisk business in Israel-Palestine. Public figures like to talk tough in violent times and 2015 has been a particularly bloody year…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland November 3, 2015

Palestinian workers with Israeli work permit stand in a line to broad a Israel bus line only for Palestinians, after they crossed the Eyal checkpoint, near the West Bank city of Qalqilya, March 4, 2012.

Majority of Israeli Jews support bus segregation, survey finds

Surveys by Israeli Democracy Index and Tel Aviv University find that most Israeli Jews prefer separate buses for Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank; one-quarter of Arab respondents support the torching of Jerusalem’s only mixed Jewish-Arab school. As Israel heads into election cycle, a shower of political punditry will yet again distract everyone from…

By Dahlia Scheindlin December 11, 2014

Latest

Thousands of people march through Jerusalem in support and solidarity with the Max Rayne “Hand in Hand” bilingual school, which was the target of a racist arson attack a week earlier, Jerusalem, December 5, 2014. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

PHOTOS: Following arson, thousands march with integrated J’lem school

Two first-grade classrooms were targeted by arsonists who left racist graffiti at one of the country’s only mixed Jewish-Arab schools. Roughly 2,000 people — students, teachers and parents from “Hand in “Hand” schools from across Israel — marched through the streets of Jerusalem Friday morning to the Max Rayne bilingual school, which was the target…

By Activestills December 5, 2014

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing the cease fire between Israel and Hamas (photo: Koby Gidon/ Government Press Office)

Like school arsonists, Netanyahu rejects Arab-Jewish coexistence

The prime minister’s reaction — or lack thereof — to the arson attack against Jerusalem’s bilingual school reflects what can only be understood as contempt for Palestinian-Israeli partnership. The arsonists who set fire to the Arab-Jewish bilingual school in Jerusalem Saturday night decided to pile up the first graders’ books and burn them in the…

By Mairav Zonszein December 1, 2014

A teacher inspects the damage from an arson attack that targeted first-grade classrooms at a Jewish-Arab school near the Palestinian neighborhood of Beit Safafa in southern Jerusalem, November 30, 2014. Spray painted on the walls were racist slogans in Hebrew reading: "Death to Arabs" and "There's no coexistence with cancer". (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Why is Jewish violence always a reaction to Palestinian violence?

The arson attack against the bilingual school in Jerusalem was committed within a broader political framework: it is an extension of institutionalized violence and ought to be traced back to incitement by right-wing Israeli politicians preaching for blind patriotism and hatred of the ‘other.’ By Fady Khoury After every act of violence perpetrated by Palestinians…

By +972 Magazine November 30, 2014

A burned first-grade classroom at Jerusalem’s bilingual school after it was the target of an arson attack, November 30, 2014. (Photo by Activestills.org)

‘We will overcome’: Arson and mourning at Jerusalem’s bilingual school

The mixed Jewish-Arab school has been the target of racist attacks in the past, but for the parents, students and teachers of the ‘Hand in Hand’ school, this feels different. ‘This time, the fire was ignited inside our home.’ The timing couldn’t have been more “perfect”: while I was still at a demonstration against the…

By Orly Noy November 30, 2014