{"id":22960,"date":"2020-10-20T16:36:22","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T13:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dialogtogether.com\/yehoshua-ratz-active-in-education-for-shared-living-sharing-some-anecdotes\/"},"modified":"2020-12-30T11:35:36","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T09:35:36","slug":"yehoshua-ratz-active-in-education-for-shared-living-sharing-some-anecdotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/yehoshua-ratz-active-in-education-for-shared-living-sharing-some-anecdotes\/","title":{"rendered":"Yehoshua Ratz \u2013 active in education for coexistence \u2013 sharing some anecdotes"},"content":{"rendered":"

First anecdote: <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFalafel Liftawi\u201d is a small falafel stand on the side of the road connecting student housing at the French Hill neighborhood to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A little behind it is the grandiose and luxurious Hyatt Hotel.<\/span><\/p>\n

By its name, I assumed that its proprietor is probably a refugee from the Lifta village located at Jerusalem\u2019s western entrance, and old Liftawi responded to my question with an affirmative and a smile. Yes, he\u2019s a \u201cLiftawi\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWould you be willing to tell your story to Jewish and Arab high school students?\u201d I asked, and he agreed.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the time, I taught a unique program that was developed at Hebrew University\u2019s Gilo Center for Citizenship, Democracy and Civic Education. A group of high school students from all over Jerusalem, Jews and Arabs, religious and non-religious kids were studying together \u201cexpanded citizenship\u201d at a program called: \u201cLiving in Jerusalem \u2013 Citizenship and Multi Cultures in Jerusalem,\u201d and I was happy to have the opportunity to take my class to the small falafel place that they\u2019d pass by every week on their way to university and to hear the story behind it. I took another two teachers with me \u2013Aaladin from Abu Ghosh and Dudu who teaches at a religious high school. The three of us together led the classes in three languages, Arabic, Hebrew and \u2018religious\u2019\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Our day for going to see Liftawi had arrived, we sat close together in the small space immersed in the smell of frying, Liftawi sat next to his eldest son and he began his story about Lifta Village, its beauty and its inhabitants, and proceeded to 1948, the expulsion, becoming a refugee and his life since then.<\/span><\/p>\n

The fire was lit surprisingly quickly. On the one side there were the Arab students from Beit Safafa and Abu Ghosh who were mesmerized by the old man\u2019s story, some shedding tears, next to the Jewish students who\u2019s tension noticeably rose during the telling, and a few minutes after Liftawi finished his narrative, started to angrily object to his accusations about the \u2018Jews\u2019, the \u2018army\u2019, and \u2018Israel.\u2019 To add fuel to the fire, Liftawi\u2019s son joined the discussion, talking about his hardships at the barricades surrounding Jerusalem, and his rage at the confiscation of the village\u2019s lands and houses. The discussion deteriorated into shouts that just got louder, and finally the teachers exchanged a look that said, \u201cwe\u2019re done here and we\u2019re returning to class,\u201d not before old Liftawi handed us all servings of fresh falafel for the road that calmed things down a little while everyone was busy chewing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thankfully it was time for the students to go home, and there was a weeklong break until the next meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a week of indecision on how to handle the consequences of the previous charged meeting, it was time for class. We took our group outside and asked them to sit in an \u2018aquarium\u2019 formation: an inner circle of Jews and an outer circle of Arabs. The Jewish students would converse under my guidance and the Arab students would listen \u2018from the outside,\u2019 if anyone would want to ask anything or make a comment, they\u2019d enter the inner circle, have their say and return to their seat.<\/span><\/p>\n

I asked the Jewish students to describe their feelings from the meeting with Liftawi.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter he started his story, when he was talking about the expulsion and destruction of the village, I felt like he was attacking me personally. I felt I must defend the IDF and Israelis in general, like I was taught \u2013 the best defense is a good offense,\u201d said one of the students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another said, \u201cwe\u2019ve always been told to stand together against our attackers. I must never ever keep silent when there are accusations against my country, my army. If I don\u2019t respond immediately, it\u2019s like I agree with the Palestinian claims against Zionism, and it undermines my right to exist here.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the Abu Ghosh girls asked to enter the inner circle. \u201cThe man told you a true story,\u201d she said. \u201cCouldn\u2019t you identify with his words on a basic human level and understand the man who became a refugee, without turning the issue into a battle of life or death?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There was no answer for her.<\/span><\/p>\n

The circles switched. The Jewish students move to the outer circle and listened to their Arab cohorts guided by my colleague Aladin, who translated their words into Hebrew so that they could express themselves freely and eloquently in Arabic. \u201cI didn\u2019t know where to place myself, what side I was on,\u201d said one of the Arab students. We are called \u2018the internal Arabs,\u2019 those left in Palestine who did not become refugees. I am a citizen of this country and enjoy its existence, and the destroyed Lifta is five minutes away from my house by car, and old man Liftawi who\u2019s my grandfather\u2019s age, will never be able to return. At his falafel stand I\u2019m a Palestinian like him and feel his pain, and here at university I\u2019m an Israeli who has to go through a tougher security check at the entrance but sits with you in class on equal footing. I felt like I had to apologize to the Liftawi family, and to preserve and carry forward their legacy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The discussion continued, and the end of class was quiet like it has never been before. It seemed like the burden of all our thoughts and insights created the need for a long silence.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First anecdote: \u201cFalafel Liftawi\u201d is a small falafel stand on the side of the road connecting student housing at the French Hill neighborhood to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. A little behind it is the grandiose and luxurious Hyatt Hotel….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[69,73],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22960"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.dialogtogether.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}