Dr. Susanne Kastner, Vice-President of the German Bundestag,

at the Givat Haviva Peace Pole

 

On her first visit to Israel Dr. Susanne Kastner, Vice-President of the German Bundestag – lower house of the German Parliament – requested that a visit to Givat Haviva be included in her very hectic schedule.

Although she may never have been to Israel before Dr. Kastner was introduced to the ‘Through Others' Eyes’ project of the Givat Haviva Arts Center and Peace Gallery in 2003 when she officially opened an exhibition of the project’s photography at the time showing in Berlin – an event she highly praised.

By chance her visit to Givat Haviva coincided with the latest ‘Through Other Eyes’ exhibition featuring photographs taken by Jewish and Arab women over the last few months and now mounted on the walls of the Art Center and viewed by Dr. Kastner during the visit.

Obviously delighted at the opportunity to visit Givat Haviva Dr. Kastner, who was accompanied by husband and retired church minister Helmut, members of her staff from the Bundestag and the German embassy in Tel Aviv, first took a short stroll around the campus grounds making a stop at the central lawn Peace Pole – hewn 4 years ago by Jewish, Arab and Druze youth participating in yet another of the Art Center’s innovative and extremely creative coexistence projects.

 

 

Seated in the colorful and attractive ‘madaffi’ of the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace, Givat Haviva spokesperson and director of the Yad Yaari Center Dudu Amitai explained to Dr. Kastner that a ‘madaffi’ was the traditional guest room in an Arab home.  He welcomed her on behalf of Givat Haviva - a home away from home for many of the Jewish and Arab educators involved in peace and coexistence projects both on and off campus.

“Founded in 1949 Givat Haviva’s agenda of dialogue strives to bring different sections of Israeli society together to give a face to the other, to go behind the stigmas and stereotypes people hold of each other,” explained Amitai.

“The mission of Givat Haviva, the most consistent institute to be dealing with important basic issues that need to be addressed within our society, is to tackle in an educational manner sensitive and complicated issues many just push aside, only adding to the already existing deep rifts in Israeli society,” Executive Director Haggai Halevi explained to Dr. Kastner, her personal assistant Anette Verheyen, Head of Protocol of the Bundestag Guido Large and German embassy political attaché Gregory Bledjian.

“This is our responsibility in Israeli society, a humanistic active approach to building a different society set by young people in the Hashomer Hatzair movement many years ago and to which we still adhere to in our struggle to achieve democracy within the state and society as we envision it should be,” added Halevi. 

“We do not abide by the attitude that not wanting to deal with sensitive issues means they can be ignored.”

 

Dr. Susanne Kastner and husband Helmut at the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace, Givat Haviva

 

Shachar Yanai, who co-directs with Farhat Agbaria the FACE TO FACE encounters program involving

Jewish and Arab 11th graders, spoke of the 5,000 of pupils who attended 2-day seminars on campus where - working in small groups with professionally trained facilitators - the youngsters talk on a personal level about complicated issues dealing with their identity and other dilemmas, hopes and fears and the recognition that there are vastly differing narratives to be dealt with.

“The young Arab citizens of Israel when sitting in a circle with their Jewish peers are often asked to define their identity and when they say they are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship as opposed to the often used phrase ‘Israeli Arab’ then Jewish Israelis translate this as ‘I belong to the enemy,’” explained Yanai.

“Historically, emotionally we are having to deal with an extremely problematic situation when discussing the different narratives and we are working toward involving 30,000 pupils in the program in the future – meaning one third of the 11th graders countrywide. If we succeed with this goal we will create a significant change,” said Yanai.

Listening intently to the explanations and comments fielded by Givat Haviva staff members, including Ahmad Bdair, director of the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace, Dr. Kastner admitted to being impressed by the various projects undertaken by Givat Haviva but also said she was somewhat confused about the terms Israeli Arab, Palestinian with Israeli citizenship and Palestinian!

“So am I,” laughed Ahmad Bdair, “and I am one of them, a Palestinian who is part of Israel.  Confusing we know and the root of our conflict.”

Dr. Kastner asked if and when a Palestinian state be founded would the Arab population inside Israel want

to relocate to that state Ahmad Bdair answered that in surveys carried out with regard her question, 90% of the Arab citizens of Israel wished to remain inside the State of Israel.

 

“The goal of Givat Haviva is to bring about a more equal and sharing society and civic life for all.  We, the Israeli Arab population, want to feel part of Israel,” Bdair emphasized.

Dr. Kastner said she was most impressed by Givat Haviva’s efforts in the field of fostering better relations, understanding and tolerance between the Jewish and Arab citizens in Israel.

 “These few hours have been extremely interesting, exciting and you can rest assured that you will now have a few more people telling others in Germany about the fantastic work undertaken here at Givat Haviva,” the Vice-President of the Bundestag summarized at the end of – and hopefully not her last – visit to Givat Haviva.

 

Dr. Susanne Kastner and Robert Buchler, a Holocaust survivor and director of archives at Moreshet, The Mordechai Anielewicz Holocaust Study and Research Center.

 

Text & Photos: Lydia Aisenberg