Hundreds participated in a protest of Jewish and Arab parents and children from Jaffa in central Tel Aviv on Friday morning, March 11, to demand that the municipality provide them with an option to study in an integrated, bilingual school that treats Hebrew and Arabic cultures and the three monotheistic religions equally. The parents claim that the arrangement being offered to them by the city is not actually equal and does not satisfy their needs.
Jewish and Arab children at a protest demanding bilingual, integrated Jewish-Arab education in Jaffa, Tel Aviv, March 11, 2016 (Photo: Activestills)
The protest, which took place in the main square outside Israel’s national theater, “Habima,” included activities for children, dance and musical performances, and speeches from local Tel-Aviv and Jaffa activists: Assaf Ronel, Yousouf Asfour and Hassem Abou-Bakr. Among the participants: author Joshua Sobol, rap artist Tamer Nafar and System Ali performers.
The event was organized by the NGO “Hand in Hand – The Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel” which has already set up dual-language schools in a number of locations in Israel: Haifa, Jerusalem, Misgav in the Galilee, and Wadi Ara and two pre-school frameworks, in Jaffa and Tira-Kfar Saba.
On the night of November 30, 2014, the “Hand in Hand” school in Jerusalem was vandalized with racist graffiti and then torched by far-rightist extremists. The following Friday, morning, December 5, more than 2,000 people — students, teachers, and parents from “Hand in “Hand” schools throughout Israel — marched through the streets of Jerusalem to the Max Rayne Hebrew-Arab bilingual school, the target of the racist arson attack. Many others, among them activists from Hadash and the Communist Party of Israel, joined the march as an expression of solidarity with the school and against racism.
Related:
- Arab-Jewish Bilingual School Set Ablaze in Jerusalem
- Thousands March in Solidarity with Jerusalem’s Jewish-Arab School
- Jerusalem: Protest against Racist “Lehava” Organization
