The "We Choose To Be Here Together" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a newspaper story titled "We choose to be here together," which was written by Talya Mimsberg, a New York Times columnist.  The story's origin was Israel and the article's sub-head read...Arab and Jewish students share classrooms and feelings.  Article had to do with a class of third graders who shared a classroom that was decorated with Hebrew and Arabic letters.  The students, a mix of Jews and Arabs, attended the school that was one of six bilingual institutions in Israel dedicated to the proposition that Israelis and Palestinians can learn and live together in peace.  One day this past December, soon after a temporary ceasefire in the Gaza Strip collapsed and the prospect for peace seemed more distant than ever, the students were meditating.  Even thought peace seemed lost, the students could still try for inner calm in their school.  At Hand in Hand school, where each class has two teachers - a Hebrew speaker and an Arabic speaker - the conversation about the recent attack sounds markedly different from other schools.  "We might have different languages, religions and cultures, but we choose to be here together," a Palestinian citizen of Israel and the third graders' Arabic-speaking teacher told her students.  The faculty and families who make up the Hand in Hand schools are doing the difficult work of trying to overcome many differences.  No one at the school is far from the war.  Some Arab students have family members who have been killed in Gaza, while some Jewish students have relatives who were killed or kidnapped or who are currently serving in the military.  It's possible to be together,  it's preferable to be together, and it's also the right thing to do," said Gezeel Jarroush Absawy, the Principal of the Hand in Hand school in Haifa.  To that end, the schools emphasize processing individual and generational trauma.  They present history through the lenses of both Israelis an Palestinians, and foster relationships between Arabs and Jews in childhood in the hope that they can extend into adulthood.  "We need to be friends with each other and not fight." one student at the Jerusalem school said in Arabic.  "We can live in peace," said another in Hebrew.  "Even older people and children can accept each other so we can be safe," said another Arabic-speaking student.  "It's a very happy school.  It's not always. 'We're Jews and Arabs!'" a student named Salim said with a laugh. "But...we can be a happy school."  If only all Arabs and Palestinians could share the same thoughts of the children who share the same school, life could be so much better for all citizens!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.