We began with a Siur, a study tour in Jaffa. This was not a site-seeing tour - we had a Jewish and an Israeli Arab guide, each providing a different perspective on the history of Jaffa.
Ben and Fahdi, our Jaffa guides
"Narrative" and "multiple narratives" tend to be overused words in characterizing the Middle East conflict. Yet, much of the work of education is in the telling and the understanding of stories - collective stories and individual stories. Hearing the rich multitude of stories here and making sense of them in the context of our educational goals is part of our task as educators.
The clash of narratives, and the different reactions to them among forum participants, created some discomfort in the group. Makom, our educator partners in the Jewish Agency, use the metaphor of "hugging and wrestling" in describing Israel education in the diaspora. "Hugging" - meaning we embrace Israel in a loving way, and "wrestling" - meaning that we confront some of the troubling complexities inherent in Israel's situation. This morning was definitely a wrestling morning, as participants figuratively wrestled with the narratives, and with each other. After the tour, we split into affinity groups (school leaders, Jewish studies teachers, general studies teachers, lay leaders) to process the experience and its relation to our educational work. To provide context, we studied a paper by Michael Rosenak and Arnold Eisen - "Israel in our Lives - Basic Issues & Philosophical Guidelines." We discussed if, why, and how addressing some of Israel's difficult issues would be relevant to our teaching our students.
BASIS participants listening to our guides and "wrestling"
with difficult issues in Jaffa
We spent the afternoon at the Museum of the Diaspora discussing the concept of "Jewish Peoplehood" and its relevance to Israel studies. We studied 4 seminal Jewish thinkers of a century ago - Theodore Herzl, Ahad Ha-Am, Nahum Syrkin, and Simon Dubnov. Each school received a packet of curricular materials related to Israel and Jewish Peoplehood.
"Peoplehood" has been a recurring theme during the Forum, with varying interpretations. In part, it underscores the partnership in and responsibility for the project of Israel, among those who live here and we who live elsewhere. It also offers a context in which a school community in California can understand and rationalize a deep connection with Israel.
After dinner, we had an "encounter" with Israeli comic artist Shay Charka. Born in 1967, Shay, a prominent comic artist and satirist in Israeli newspapers and books, lives in the West Bank and provides a very different perspective and narrative than those we heard this morning in Jaffa. Shay, an Orthodox Jew, expresses his perspective through his art, which he displayed and demonstrated.
Shay Charka's comic in Ydiot Aharanot newspaper
depicting President Obama acting like a landlord
(thus putting his feet on the table, representing Judea
and Samaria, the territories on the West Bank of the Jordan River).
Shay, whose politics were 180 degrees from our guides in Jaffa, spoke softly but his art spoke loudly. When asked his opinion of diaspora Jews, he drew a picture of a mouse...
Today was a day in which everyone's perspectives and assumptions were challenged, a day outside people's comfort zones. Which is a part of the Israel experience. Cracks were detected, in the group and in people's previous assumptions.
As Leonard Cohen says, there is a crack in everything - that's where the light gets in...
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