Coexistence For Special Needs Soldiers

 Video Of The Week - SPECIAL NEEDS IN UNIFORM - https://tinyurl.com/nrypj3ts

Arutz Sheva Staff , Mar 26 , 2021 

For the full article go to; https://tinyurl.com/cbe98x88

Jews, Druze, Christians, and Muslims are joining together for a worthy cause Special in Uniform marks formation of new IDF unit made up of volunteer soldiers from mixed Druze, Muslim, and Christian town.

Just before Passover, the holy day of freedom and togetherness, Special in Uniform and JNF-USA hosted a heartwarming ceremony celebrate the founding of a new unit in the Ami’ad army base. The base is in the Upper Galilee region of northern Israel. The special story about this unit is that the volunteers are from the El-Basma High School in the Kisra-Sumei village, which is home to a mixed Druze, Muslim, and Christian population 

Military service is a rite of passage of sorts for Israeli high school graduates. It is also a gateway to a successful career and future. According to Ministry of Labor, Welfare and Social Services statistics, there are approximately 1,570 children and youth with disabilities in the Israeli Druze, Christian, and Muslim population. Many of their siblings serve in the IDF, yet these youths receive automatic military exemptions due to their disabilities despite their fierce desire to serve their country. Now Special in Uniform is offering these young people a chance to realize their dreams.

A revolutionary project of the Israel Defense Forces in conjunction with JNF-USA, Special in Uniform incorporates young people with mild physical and mental disabilities into Israel’s military. This offers them training and skills that empower them to integrate long-term into Israeli society and the workforce. The program accentuates the unique talents of each participant and places him or her into an appropriate setting within the IDF. Breaking down societal barriers and fostering widespread acceptance of social diversity, Special in Uniform focuses on the ability, not disability, of everyone. It encourages independence, inclusion, and full societal integration. Currently, the program integrates some 500 volunteers with special needs into 40 IDF aerial, marine and land units stretching from the northern Lebanese border south to Eilat.

JNF’s Special in Uniform is a two-year volunteer training program culminating in the graduating youths receiving their soldier’s IDs and being placed in military bases across Israel. There, they utilize the knowledge and skills acquired to perform important jobs on base. They can forget their disabilities and focus instead on their varied abilities and talents. At Special in Uniform, youngsters with low self-worth mature into independent, confident young men and women who believe in themselves and their abilities. Throughout their years of military service, they acquire important social and life skills that empower them to meld seamlessly into society and workforce. 

Basic training in the IDF culminates with a ‘Masa Kumta’, which translates as ‘beret journey.’ At the end of this march, fresh inductees mark their passage into becoming full-fledged soldiers and earn their corps beret. In the ceremony marking the founding of the new unit, commanders and soldiers from the unit hiked alongside their SIU comrades in an unforgettable Masa Kumta celebrating these young heroes and their personal and collective triumphs. At the end of the journey, the young volunteers were met by their proud families. Many had watched with tears in their eyes as their children were awarded their berets, dotages, and volunteer certificates.

Accompanied by the Special in Uniform team, the volunteers travel every week to the base. The day begins 8:30am sharp with lineup and a flag ceremony alongside the brigade soldiers. After this the volunteers join crews on base in the Teleprocessing, Logistics and Technology departments. Not only does the presence of soldiers with special needs on military bases increase their own quality of life, but it also benefits the entire army—and by extension, the nation. The genial natures of these volunteers, their capacity and desire to work hard and, above all, their perseverance contribute to a positive atmosphere on base that motivates their fellow soldiers.

At the ceremony, Munir Sayyad, father of volunteer soldier Hiadd, addressed the assembly. He expressed his heartfelt gratitude to Special in Uniform and the remarkable individuals who made it possible for his son and his friends to live their dream.

“At a very young age, my son suffered a trauma that left him with a severe speech impediment. He began in the special education school system, and we’ve continued there since. Since our extended family all serves our country in various capacities be it security, police, border patrol or the army, Hiadd always looked longingly upon his cousins and relatives, all who proudly wore their uniforms and served their country, and asked, ‘Why can’t I?’ Now, with this incredible opportunity, he finally feels like an equal, like everyone else,” the proud dad emotionally shared.

“We’re so impressed with this new unit from the Druze community, and especially the El-Basma volunteers who so deeply yearn to serve and contribute to our country,” said Kobi Malka, North coordinator of Special in Uniform. We launched the program here with an uplifting, emotional beret journey that left us all inspired. Throughout the journey, there was a unifying sentiment of being a soldier, of being an equal, of being part of a community. These kids are here for the community, here to give, here to contribute, here to accomplish. And today, they received their turquoise beret, testimony to their desire to do their utmost to benefit our country and people.”

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Student Events to Promote Coexistence

 Video Of The Week- Historic Abulafia Bakery Promotes Peace - https://tinyurl.com/2dnyka9x 

March 18, 2021,

 For the full article go to https://tinyurl.com/m3b9mx89

 A series of online discussions were held by students to celebrate coexistence between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and counter the movement to boycott the Jewish state.

 Three virtual events in StandWithUS UK’s Peace Week 2021 programme featured leading Israeli and gulf politicians and activists, students from across the UK and representatives from the world of sport.

 Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Fleur Hassan Nahoum, spoke alongside fellow co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council, Thani Al-Shirawi, and Ahdeya Al Sayed, who is president of the Bahrain Journalists Association. The trio reflected on the groundbreaking Abraham Accords and subsequent peace agreements between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE.

 Al Sayed said: “Fake news has led to hatred, curriculums that have melted Israel off the map has led to hatred. You cannot just not recognise a whole country and be in the year 2021 and say that state does not exist.”

 Student leaders also hosted Israeli-Arab influencer, Yoseph Haddad, who spoke about his work as CEO of Together –Vouch for Each Other. He discussed his time in the army, saying: “It’s not a Jewish Defence Force, it’s an Israeli Defence Force. When we say Israel Defence Force, we mean that it defends all of Israeli society.”

 The role of sport in building bridges also came into sharp focus, with high-profile guests discussing how football can be a force for good. Tamar Hay Sagiv, Director of the Peace Education Department at the Peres Centre spoke about coexistence and the significance of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. Tamar was joined by Rola Brentlin, Head of Special Projects at Chelsea Football Club, Ronit Glasman, the Head of Marketing at the Israel Football Association and the Peres Centre’s Field Director, an alum of their prestigious programme, Sa’ad Barhoum.

 Barhoum said: “To talk about difficult things, as an Arab, as a Palestinian, and as an Arab-Israeli, wherever. It was the place where we can sit and talk and get out and laugh and everything is okay. It was more than football and I knew I was going to do it till the last day of my life.”

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Teachers in Jerusalem coexistence experiment

Written by  Jessica Steinberg

For the full article go to THE TIMES OF ISRAEL http://tinyurl.com/j285nnj 

Teachers Haifa Alayan and Annie Kurland were standing outside the Jerusalem YMCA, looking at the photography exhibit of the Teachers’ Room Project, a coexistence project founded by organization This Is Jerusalem!

It was a tough day to talk about coexistence, both women admitted.

Yet it’s the most crucial time to think about one another, said Haifa Alayan, who is Muslim and teaches English at an Arab elementary school for girls in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor.

“I’m a person who believes that you have to look at things from a different perspective,” said Alayan. “Even before I joined this group, any time there was a chance to do something like this, to open the window, I would do it. I want my students to speak, I want to bring up a new generation.”

Kurland, who is Jewish and teaches drama and math at Keshet, a pluralistic, mixed elementary school of religious and secular children, could have spoken the same words.

The two women were looking at an exhibit of photos displaying their last six months of work with the Teachers’ Room Project, which was sponsored by several organizations, including Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Institute of Religion and Reshut Harabim — the Jerusalem Forum of Jewish Renewal Organizations, as well as the Jerusalem Foundation, New Israel Fund, ROI community and the Municipality’s Department of Education.

Dedicated to the memory of Shira Banki, the 16-year-old Jerusalemite who was killed during last year’s Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, the Teachers’ Room aims to have this group of teachers spend time together and gain an understanding of each other’s worlds and cultures. They’re then expected to bring those experiences and lessons back to their classrooms.

For many, it wasn’t the first time they were participating in some sort of coexistence organization. Both Kurland and Alayan have taken part in groups in which they met the “other.” Their children have as well.

Yet something about Teachers’ Room was different. The project’s first exercise, back in December, had each teacher map their daily routes, from home to school along with myriad other locations.

Although Alayan lives in the Arab neighborhood of Beit Safafa in southern Jerusalem and drives down Hebron Road, a major thoroughfare, to reach the girls’ elementary school in Abu Tor where she teaches, she never crossed paths with Kurland, who lives in the Jewish side of Abu Tor.

That was one memorable revelation.

Another was when each teacher showed photos of their homes, the interiors as well as the exteriors. Alayan couldn’t believe that Kurland lived in the same neighborhood as her students, mostly because none of her students’ homes overlook the verdant valley that is the view from Kurland’s balcony.

“Their houses are all stacked on top of each other, right?” asked Kurland.

When Alayan said she had never seen a house like Annie’s, it felt like a blow, said Kurland.

Another teacher, who is Muslim and wears a head covering, told the group that she had never been to Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market because she feared she wouldn’t be welcome. So Alayan and Kurland planned an outing to the market, with Kurland linking arms with the Muslim woman for the entire time they were there.

“I wanted everyone to know that we were there together,” she said.

There were gatherings where each teacher brought symbols of their religious practice, or photos of their classrooms. Even those meetings created fodder for the thoughtful teachers.

Considering how long Alayan has thought about coexistence and practiced it with her husband and five children ages 9 to 19, she was surprised how little she knew and how foreign certain aspects of Israelis’ lives could feel.

“We met and things happened,” said Kurland. She thought about the maps they made on that first day, and how she and Alayan “have parallel roads, and no way to meet,” she said. “Someone made sure we’d never meet.”

The teachers told stories about places and times when each of them had felt like they didn’t belong. Alayan recalled strolling around Rehavia, the historic Jewish neighborhood where her grandmother used to clean houses, while another teacher told about her soldier daughter in uniform getting attacked in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim.

“We’re always thinking of the ‘other’ as Arab, but there’s all kinds of ‘others,'” she said.

There were moments of discord as well, said the two teachers.

When one of the Arab teachers talked about a recent terrorist incident as an accident, Kurland corrected her, calling it an attack. She thought about how personal connections make a difference when a confrontation occurs.

“Haifa can say something really harsh to me, but I know her,” she said. “Even when she says something tough, and I think she can’t be saying that about me and my soldier son, the fact that I know her changes the discussion. It’s one that’s real and sheds light.”

It was those kinds of insights — and the more measured responses — that brought the organization to select a group teachers for this program.

“They chose us because we’re the passage from the outside into the classroom,” said Kurland. “We have the ability in our classrooms to open their minds and tell them about reality, to show them that it’s not black and white. We can show our students that the reality is very complicated.”

Their students, said the teachers, often have no idea how to process the events that take place around them,

Kurland recalled that when she first brought a program from the Teachers’ Room to her Jewish students, they were surprised to learn that Arabs weren’t just cleaners, as the only Arabs many knew worked on the cleaning staff of the school.

Alayan said that when the Sarona Market shooting attack came up in her classroom, some of the students said what happened “was okay,” while others said it wasn’t.

“I told them that I could have been there too, that it’s a public place,” she said. “That changed their minds a little but they still said ‘they do bad things to us,'” referring to Israeli Jews. “I didn’t go too far with them,” said Alayan.

As teachers, both Alayan and Kurland have similar approaches when it comes to discussing difficult events with their students, agreeing that the subject has to come up in conversation before they can broach the topic.

“I have around 25 kids in each class, and four different classes, but I have to try to get them to discuss it,” said Alayan. “In our school, these issues only get discussed if the teacher wants to, they don’t want us to interfere. But it’s not right to keep it all in, the kids have to let it out. They hear about things all the time.”

Kurland agreed.

“The kids don’t live in a bubble,” she said. “But we wait for them to bring it up and then we talk about it.”

For now, the group is taking the summer off, with plans to bring what they’ve learned back to their students in the fall.

“It’s not just activities,” said Kurland, “but the fact that we’ve met, that we’re a group, and to show ourselves to others out there. There are lots of groups like us, but you don’t always see them. We want people to know that this is happening.”

Video of the week – Israelis greet Muslims for a blessed Ramadan-http://tinyurl.com/glkwpgy 

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