Operators 'ISRAEL EXPERIENCE' see seminar as important component of tour

 

Student Mathew Belous, on tour of Israel with Birthright-Taglit's BRUK 5 checking out where he is

 

GIVAT HAVIVA seminars dealing with Jewish-Arab relations and tours of the Wadi Ara region are for many short and long term visitors to Israel one of the highlights of their stay in the country.

This year, as in previous years, a large number of the 1,500 or so teens and young adults who have participated in an INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT seminar during July or August, hailed from the British Isles, or like American Mathew Belous above, were studying or working in Britain and therefore eligible to participate.

The 'British Connection' has strengthened with each passing year, much of it due to the success of the seminars themselves but also the readiness of the International Department to be available, generally through email contact - but not only - to help out with extra material or ideas for activities to be organized either by a youth movement, synagogue or student Israel interest groups in Britain. 

The ties with individual organizations have deepened as teenage seminar participants have returned to Israel for a gap year, during which time once again coming to Givat Haviva for another of the popular seminars on offer.  Many of those same first and second timers then 'reappear' on campus at a later stage as tour leaders of students or youth movement groups on their Israel Tour – and there have been those among them who have become leaders of student bodies or influential elements in Israel programming for various educational, communal and commercial bodies.

In many ways, the ties that have developed have far surpassed those of just working relations, have gone far beyond the pale of one-off educational components during a visit to Israel, becoming almost a visit 'home' when away from home - and seen as a solid learning curve toward better understanding of relationships between Jews and Arabs, Israeli Arabs and the Palestinians down the road and around the corner from each other in our region. 

The one-of-a-kind tours to the "other side of the mountain" have generated special interest in the Wadi Ara area and the divided by the Green Line village of Barta'a, a village that was off the beaten track and almost anonymous until 20 years ago when the International Department began to include a visit to the unique Israeli Arab-West Bank Palestinian community tucked away on the slopes of the Amir mountain range as a central component of specialized tours of the area.  The village these days

 

British teens make their way through West Barta'a toward the Green Line

 

rambles across a depression – actually a ditch - that became a border, splitting an extended Muslim family in 1949, that divide still present in the new millennium as part in the State of Israel, and part nowadays under the Palestinian Authority, a designated Area B as a result of the Oslo Peace Accords.

Over the last two months we have been delighted to welcome many groups whose program in Israel has been organized by the educational tour operators, ISRAEL EXPERIENCE – a company we have enjoyed being associated with for many years and hopefully, the much appreciated relationship will continue to develop even more.

The hundreds of teens and young adults who participated in our seminars this summer came through 3 groups of Birthright-Taglit; 3 groups of NOAM and another three from RSY-Netzer.  We also had the privilege of working with a group in Israel under the auspices of the Union of Jewish Students, and another of the youth movements we have had a long relationship with and greatly value, that of the Liberal Judaism Youth, as well as that of BBYO.

Apart from the youth and students groups, we have had visitors from Britain who came to see and hear from themselves what GIVAT HAVIVA activities accomplished in the field of shared citizenship projects organized by the departments of the Wadi Ara campus and of the northern branch at Sakhnin in the Galilee.

 

 

  

In the left picture, Birthright-Taglit BRUK 5 tour leader Nicky Kelvin.  In the other picture are four young ladies from Liberal Jewish Youth movement.  For the girls it was their first visit to Givat Haviva, for Nicky his third or fourth.

 

Among those individual visitors were members of the British Parliament, academics and folks from the world of business who had either heard about Givat Haviva from friends or family, or had heard a staff member giving talks out and about in Britain.

This summer exposure in the local Jewish press in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Scotland emanated from the fact that many of the youngsters hailed from those areas – although not necessarily studying in the north – with photographs and descriptions of seminar content published almost every week for the summer period.  This has also brought reactions from readers who are curious as to what we have to offer and wish to include such an experience when they next visit Israel.

 

  

Left: Labor Member of Parliament for Liverpool Riverside, Louise Ellman, checking out old newspapers in the Peace Library, and twin sisters from Scotland with a group of NOAM waiting for an International Department workshop to begin

 

All are welcome and we look forward to meeting more Brits on campus in the near future.

 

INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT,

GIVAT HAVIVA

 

August 2009