The Shi Jia school put on events over the last two years to teach the students about Israel, how to say \”Shalom,\” even had its students Skype with a school in Jerusalem. Of course, the school was following the progress of Israeli athletes along with China\’s.
The Arava Institute has about 40 students, including three Palestinians from the West Bank and 10 Jordanians. They all live and study at the kibbutz center on Kibbutz Ketura, about 25 miles north of Eilat. The institute is under construction to house up to 100 students in the near future. The 10-year-old institute has graduated more than 400 students from its yearlong program. It receives funding from the Jewish National Fund and other American Jewish groups and donors. Among the graduates is the son of Jordanian Prime Minister Ma\’roof Al-Bakeet.
Briefs
The goal is to give young, secular Israelis an education that will show them that they too have a rich culture to tap into and explore.
Community Briefs.
Gayle Gale started Kids for Peace after she returned to Los Angeles from a series of trips to Israel as a visiting artist at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba in 1994 and 1995. With assistance from the local Israeli consulate and a grant obtained with help from the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity from the Jewish Community Foundation, she set out to teach youth about Israel through artistic means. In the years since, Gale has found herself doing much more.
About six years ago at the University of Texas, I was asked to be the guest speaker for Shabbat 1,000, an event where 1,000 Jewish students are served full-course traditional Shabbat meals for free. There are no prayer services.
Peace Child Israel was founded in 1988 by the late Israeli actress Yael Drouyanoff and uses theater and other art forms to encourage dialogue between teens who might otherwise never meet. So far, seven groups have been formed, pairing Jewish and Arab towns throughout Israel, among them Misgav-Sakhnin, Raanana-Qalanswa, and East and West Jerusalem.
The Israeli-Palestinian issue is intensifying the fall-semester buzz at Duke University this year.
Disturbing new details began to emerge surrounding the death of a 25-year-old Israeli man at the hands of Burbank police June 25.
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