"Summary of Current Activities"

The Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva is one of the largest and veteran (established in1963) educational centers in Israel. It conducts an extensive range of educational activity in the fields of education for democracy, human values, peace and equality. Most of our experience and expertise is in joint Jewish-Arab educational and community activity in Israel. We recognize that the escalation and tension between the two societies threatens the cohesion, strength and values of Israeli society. The Jewish-Arab Center for Peace also offers Arabic and Middle Eastern studies programs for numerous organizations (Ministry of Education, Private Sector, etc.). The Center has a far-reaching and important tradition of education and has gained public awareness in Israel and the world. It was awarded the 2001 UNESCO Prize for Peace Education.

We are currently focusing on the following activities:

1. “Face to Face” – An educational program that facilitates encounters between high school students (11-12 grades) in a two-day seminar at Givat Haviva. The joint groups are led by a Jewish and Arab facilitator, and are designed to foster familiarity, break stereotypes and promote dialogue. In addition to the intensive seminar, in-depth activity is also conducted among the teaching staff at the schools, as is follow-up activity for students. In 2006-2007, approximately 4,000 students will participate in the Face-to-Face program. Expansion is a function of financing.

2. Northern Branch – The Jewish-Arab Center for Peace has a well-established northern branch, located in Sakhnin in the Galilee. The Northern Branch holds in-service training for teachers on democracy, equality, pluralism and active citizenship. All of the in-service training programs are recognized for salary increments by the Ministry of Education.

3. Children Teaching Children (CTC) – A unique educational program, offering in-depth two-year activity in grades 8 and 9, in both Jewish and Arab schools. The program focuses on accepting the other, equality, acquaintance and friendship. Over the past 20 years, about 30,000 students and teachers in Israel have participated in Children Teaching Children.

4. Crossing Borders – A program facilitating encounters between Jewish and Arab youth from Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority in a diverse array of settings (primarily workshops held outside of Israel) – where the youth focus on the task of publishing a joint magazine about coexistence, society and current events. The Crossing Borders magazine has been published bi-monthly for the past eight years, at the initiative of the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace and the Danish Crossing Borders Foundation.

5. Israeli Arab Empowerment – We conduct a wide variety of activities designed to empower the Arab population in Israel. Our focus is on fostering young leadership. This past year we organized the Student Councils program – which included leadership groups at 16 different schools. We also offered about 10 different courses for teachers, employees of local authorities and more.

6. Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies – The Jewish-Arab Center for Peace is one of the leading schools in Israel for study of Arabic and Arab culture. As part of this activity, year-long spoken/literary Arabic courses are offered, primarily to teachers. In addition, enrichment and study days are offered at schools, in which over 10,000 students participate each year.

7. The Institute for Peace Research – promotes research activity and publications. Over the past decade dozens of books and research papers have been written on Jewish-Arab relations, society, culture, government, constitution and economics.

8. The Peace Library – The Peace Library is the largest reference library between Haifa and Tel Aviv. The library houses close to 70,000 titles, hundreds of journals and unique and rare collections. The Solly Marcus collection includes the largest offering in Israel on Israeli Arabs, the Jewish-Arab conflict, the Palestinians, Arabic literature and language, teaching of Arabic and the Middle East in general. The collection includes a central archive of Palestinian press in pre-State Israel and in Israel from 1920 to the present.

New projects contingent upon funding:

9. Jewish-Arab volunteer year of service to the community project – a unique project as part of fostering young leadership. The project will establish a group of Jews and Israeli Arabs, aged 18 (13th grade), who will live together for one year, conduct community activity in local towns and study democracy, equality and education. This program will undoubtedly create an echelon of young leadership that is committed to Jewish-Arab partnership, community activity, democratic values and equality.

10. Peace Insight – A joint venture between “Peace Insight” based in Sussex, England, the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at Givat Haviva and “The Way” from Ramallah. At the heart of the venture – a long-term program designed to facilitate encounters between Israeli and Palestinian youth (between the ages of 16 and 18), with the goal of fostering acquaintance, promoting dialogue and ongoing relationships, as well as influencing the communities and schools from which the participants come. The program is based on an annual summer seminar in England and ongoing workshops in Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

11. A Song of Praise to Hope – An educational program for preschoolers that deals with a range of values: acceptance of the other, seeing the positive, friendship, equality and more. These issues are raised by using play, stories and music. The program is based on a book of children’s songs called No One Can Steal Your Rainbow plus an audiotape. The book is printed in Hebrew and Arabic, as a reflection of the bilingual educational philosophy. The target audience for our activity is the kindergarten teachers in both the Jewish and Arab sectors, and through them – the preschoolers.

12. Mauna Survey – A public/educational venture designed to bring together Jewish and Arab students and adults through joint archeological activity in the Galilee (Mauna). This is a joint venture between the Northern Region Antiquities Department and Givat Haviva - Northern Branch, to perform an archeological survey in the Mauna region (which has not been surveyed) by students and their parents, who are local residents. The archeological activity will provide an opportunity for encounters and familiarization and will be accompanied by an educational/study program.

13. Film Section at the Peace Library – A venture to establish a film section at the Peace Library (see details on previous page). In recent years, dozens of films (cinema and television) have been made about the Jewish-Arab issue, majority-minority relations and more. The purpose of the venture – to collect and organize the above-mentioned variety so that it will be accessible, especially for teachers who require these materials. A viewing area will be built, films on video will be digitized and sample lesson plans for each film will be written.