Cultivating Respect in Teaching the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Daniel Rosenthal is the chair of the Jewish History Department at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School where he is also part of the Center for Excellence and Engagement in Jewish History. He received his Ph.D. in History in 2014 from the University of Toronto and has previously taught at Western University (Ontario) and the University of Haifa.
Being a Jewish History teacher in a pluralistic Jewish day school, I often find myself up against the question of how we apply the principles of pluralism to the teaching of Israel, and especially the teaching of the “Conflict.” Given that Jewish identity and religious expression are tied to Israel, it is important to help guide students through the fraught path of figuring out the relationship between their emotional connections and the political and social responses to the academic study of Israel. But, just as we set out guideposts for the limits of pluralism, it is important to craft boundaries of what is acceptable within our classroom environment. Key to this challenge is helping students understand their identities and how this sense of self shapes the way that student views the historical realities behind these conflicts.
In the wake of October 7th, this role became tremendously important and there was an urgent need for a sensitive approach to the teaching of Israel (and Jewish History) that fully contended with the profound trauma to the Jewish people that we were feeling while also maintaining our academic approach and rigorous investigation of history. Students were given opportunities in every one of the department’s classes to process in whatever way made sense. Conversations were sometimes raw and emotional, but the ability to be vulnerable while processing the traumas of the current moment allowed students to be open to hearing the diversity of perspectives among their peers.
Our students were also confronting another conflict regarding Israel in the digital realm to which many adults were not fully privy. The war sparked by the October 7th attack created a real-time crisis for them because they were bombarded with posts and claims from all corners, and it seemed like they all had an obligation to identify truth among manipulation and falsehood. On top of this, students needed to process their own emotions in the midst of war and a constant stream of disturbing imagery. The challenges of the moment have reinforced this critical notion: that there is often a tension between the narratives that we tell—and which help shape our emotional connections—and the evidence from history.
I find myself wondering how to teach this complexity and nuance, and how to address the tension that exists—even if it only exists in students’ subconscious. It is a surprise for many students that both Israeli and Palestinian narratives derive from one set of historical realities; I often hear from students the assumption that the “opposing side” relies on a set of historical facts cut from whole cloth. This perspective is a natural product of the way in which narratives are formed from an early age through emotional, social, and cultural connections, whether in youth groups, family, religious, or community settings. The establishment of narratives that connect with a young person’s identity means that there is a palpable tension or discomfort when enrolling in a class on Israel, Zionism, or the Arab-Israeli Conflict that takes a purely academic approach, even if that class is taught within the auspices of a Jewish day school.
Yet, confronting the realities of the past and assessing how historians ascertain facts is crucial in their process of forming emotional connections that are robust and authentic. In the teaching of these topics in an emotionally fraught time, a presentation of history that is as impartial as possible is important to create a foundation for understanding how beliefs, including one’s own, develop. As Sivan Zakai has written, this approach is necessary when conducted in an age-appropriate way. She asserts that “talking to kids about difficult current events—things that are happening in the world that are confusing or troubling or disturbing—doesn’t traumatize them. It makes them more equipped to deal with a world in which that is happening.” It is heartbreaking that pedagogues have to consider these types of trauma-informed approaches when covering something that is so close to the hearts of Diaspora Jews.
These questions have reshaped my teaching over this past academic year. In a course on the Arab-Israeli Conflict—one of the most popular electives that we teach—I ask students to confront how they make sense of this divergence in narratives that emerge from the same historical truths as a means of fostering an authentic connection to Israel. The “dual narrative” approach (leaving aside whether or not this term still has any saliency) still remains the best means of confronting these challenges. Students learn to think more about how history is used in addition to learning what the history is.
The semester begins with a study of 1947-1949 and the creation of narratives about the foundation of the State of Israel. We are fortunate in our curriculum that this semester comes after the semester-long survey where they studied an academic history of Israel and Zionism. Given this basis, students in the Conflict course confront the question of how this conflict is viewed through different lenses and how the same history can be framed as both Milhemet Haatzma’ut (War of Independence) and Nakba (Catastrophe). This fact is novel to many students who had only learned of the fighting as a war of liberation from invasion after the declaration of the state.
One key resource in teaching this material has been Side by Side: Parallel Histories of Israel-Palestine, a textbook that literally lays out the narratives side-by-side. While the text is deficient in some regards, the visual is powerful to students in having them see how an event like the November 1947 UN vote on the Partition of Palestine is viewed through starkly different lenses. Students see how the Israeli perspective views this event as conveying legitimacy for the Zionist movement and Jewish self-determination, while Palestinians see the vote as a type of colonial fiat for the carving up of land that was never willingly relinquished.
My focus is often helping students learn how to accept that many things can be true all at the same time: yes, the war in 1948 was liberatory for the Jewish people, and yes, that war displaced the majority of the non-Jewish Palestinian population. One fact does not invalidate the other, nor does it lessen the emotional impact of this history. Nevertheless, these revelations can be challenging for students in Jewish day schools where they are continuously reevaluating identity, belonging, and their understanding of historical realities.
At the end of this year’s Arab-Israeli Conflict course, I challenged students to put their thoughts from the semester into words in order to take up the challenge of how to process the tensions between emotional narratives and historical realities. They were asked to respond to the following prompt: How do you make sense of the disagreements between Palestinian and Israeli (Jewish?) narratives given the fact that these are based on the same history? After this unprecedented and emotionally devastating year, one student responded that “[b]oth sides have their own narratives, each with valid points . . . acknowledging the historical and territorial claims of both Israelis and Palestinians is crucial for any kind of progress to be made.”
While it is emotionally fraught for some to contend with disconnects between emotion and history, this discomfort is, as my student so clearly articulated, necessary for the type of accounting that can bring about dialogue and resolution. An intellectual understanding of how history is used by a people is a potent means of humanization. In the wake of the horrors of October 7th, these tools are more important than ever before. One of our school’s core values is a helpful guide: “we unite through our shared values and cultivate respect and knowledge inspired by our differences.”
FROM THE EDITOR: Fall 2024
It feels pretentious and premature to be talking about retooling education about Israel. The war is not over, the wounds are still fresh, barely a year has passed since that awful day, there are thousands of children-parents-loved ones still in active combat and separated from their families for months at a time, many of the hostages are still in captivity, the campuses are reeling, the internal divisions in Israel are deepening rather than abating, and the landscape of the Jewish world is muddled at best as the aftershocks of the earthquake still rattle us. And yet, we dare to think that we have something meaningful to contribute as to how to teach about Israel. It is fair to say that everything written in this journal is written with the awareness that when the dust settles, we may need to re-examine everything all over again.
The Story of the Ever-Living People
As a preface, I believe that we are all experiencing a revolutionary moment in the evolution of the Jewish people. By that, I mean that while the evolution of the Jewish people remains a constant, we are nonetheless at the forefront of a moment of awareness—of what in Judaism is known as she’at ratzon—a moment of willingness among Jews that is unprecedented in modern Jewish history. That, in and of itself, should raise for us a great call for action as educators and as people who work on behalf of the Jewish community in charting a path for our envisioned trajectory.
Knowledge and Identity: An Interview with Natan Kapustin
I would identify two very different kinds of Israel education that we do. The one that I will not speak about much is what I might call the reactive component. When things happen in or related to Israel, we need to address them. And we do that in a variety of ways. We have speakers come in, debriefing sessions with our students, Town Halls dedicated to open discussions about Israel, special tefillot, etc. This past year, post-October 7th, we were particularly intense in the reactive programming, and it is hard to know what this next year will bring. But none of this has affected what we have been doing in our core Israel education programming.
The Times They Are A’changin…
When I began my work in Jewish education at the Park Avenue Synagogue High School in September of 1967 it was, as some will remember, a tumultuous time. In the Jewish world, the Six-Day War gave a sense of elation (albeit very temporary as we have seen for many decades) and America was filled with social and political crises. Our afterschool and weekend program quickly became a magnet for Jewish and even non-Jewish teenagers from across the Upper East and West sides of Manhattan. Feeling the absence of the “international” (Jewish and beyond) in my own education and seeking to emphasize and expand it in that of my students, we quickly added international travel during summer and mid-year vacations as a key part of our curriculum, and within a decade we were traveling into the Arab world.
Developing Students’ Capacity to Engage in Productive Dialog about Israel
In April 2023, David Bryfman and Barry Chazan wrote: “Today the issues of identity and Jewish identity not only have lots to do with Israel, but also the connection between Israel and Jewish identity may be one of the most significant developments for Jewish identity, life, and education that we have known.” In other words, Jewish identity is intertwined with Israel in ways that have never before been true. This sentiment and understanding have shaped and guided our school’s recent thinking about Israel education.
Israel Front and Center: Developing a Curriculum on Am and Medinat Yisrael
Sitting in my 12th grade Modern Israel class, one of my students raised her hand and asked “why haven’t we learned anything about Israel in History classes since 10th grade?” While I began to explain the sequence of the History curriculum, where students learn Zionism and the history of Israel in 10th and 12th grade, I realized that students learn about Israel in multiple subjects and in co-curricular activities throughout their four years of high school. I pointed out that the 11th grade Hebrew curriculum offers a range of readings and discussions on early Zionist thinkers and Israeli literary figures, many of whom students engaged with, albeit from a historical perspective, in their 10th grade History classes.
Learning from Children’s Ideas about October 7th and the Israel-Hamas War
Day school teacher Mr. Berkman is a proud long-time Jewish educator, but only recently has he also come to see himself as an Israel educator. “In October,” he explains, “I joined every other Jewish educator in the world in realizing, wait, I have to teach Israel now. But how?” Ms. Baghai, a general studies teacher at a different Jewish day school, has also had to rethink her teaching in the wake of October 7th. “How much do we talk about it and learn about it? How deep do we go? How much do I share?” she wonders.
Finding the Balance: The Synergy of Nuance, Critical Thinking, and Ahavat Yisrael
We get off the bus for a quick stop on our first day of Derech l’Lev, our 8th-grade Israel experience. There is an electric energy as our two busloads of students and chaperones embark on this much-anticipated, two-week journey to Israel. I turn to one of my students: “So Sarah, what do you think? What are your first impressions of Israel?” Her face lights up. “I can’t explain it,” she says. “It’s all so familiar even though it’s my first time here. I just feel like I belong, like I’m home. I love this country!”
Teaching about Israel’s Many Complexities with Confidence, Competence, and Courage
Jewish educators have long been successful at instilling a love of Israel in their learners by providing opportunities to engage with the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and vibrancy of the country and its people in an ongoing way. Many settings culminate their Israel educational programs by visiting Israel, an experience designed to further deepen learners’ relationships with the people, land, and State of Israel. These varied modalities and content areas all are critical tools for achieving our collective goal of fostering a deep connection and commitment to Israel and the Jewish people.
“History of Israel” as History
As the years continue, Israel education now necessarily includes the history of Medinat Yisrael as a larger component than it has in the past. Young students have no memories of the major events in the history of the state, and as time passes, more information, stories, and significant events must be learned in order for students to be able to understand deeply what Israel represents and how its past informs its present. Language, culture, and geography are no longer sufficient for a well-crafted Israel education program.
Israel Education in a Post October 7th World
Is being pro-Israel the same as being Zionist? Is the call of the hour advocacy training or education? As Israel educators with decades of experience between us, October 7th forced us to take a hard look at what we teach, and how we teach it. We’ve taught American high school students, Masa gap year and Yeshiva/Seminary students, and visiting college students. We certainly weren’t prepared for this traumatic war, but we will argue that an authentic, classic Zionist approach to Israel education makes more sense now than ever.
Israel Education For Today’s Generation
For many educators, teaching about Israel has never been so challenging. The emotionally charged nature of the discussion, attitudes on Israel dovetailing with political affiliations, and educators’ fears of facing backlash from parents and the community, are all reasons for why teachers are reluctant to address Israel in the classroom. This is further complicated when considering the generational gap surrounding Israel in our communities. While previous generations saw Israel as the country of miracles and the underdog in the Arab-Israeli conflict, many in the younger generation see Israel as the aggressor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and feel conflicted over support for Israel.
Middle School Israel Advocacy
Yavneh Academy, in Paramus, New Jersey, is a Modern Orthodox, staunchly Zionist, preK-8 Jewish day school. Its mission statement includes: “Establishing the centrality of the State of Israel in the life of our school and in the lives of our children and imbuing each child with a connection to the State of Israel as an essential part of his/her identity.” Yavneh has always held true to its mission statement. It has seamlessly woven the study of Israel into much of its curriculum. Students learn Hebrew in every grade, including pre-K. They are exposed to Judaic texts and maps to connect history to the present-day land.
A Shared Student and Teacher Approach at Learning About Israel
The first aspect of helping my students this year was to create a safe, open, and accepting environment in the classroom to allow students to share their fears, questions, and thoughts. I have learned over many years of teaching that students desire to be heard and validated. They are seeking to be heard, much more than they are seeking actual answers to their thoughts and (philosophical) questions. I have learned over the years to listen and understand them.
Preparing Students For Their Encounter With Broader Society
Long before October 7th, as a teacher with a Social Studies background, I have been working with my administration team and the Center for Israel Education to revamp our Israel curriculum. My instinct was to bring Israel education from a place of chronological progression of events to finding touch points with other historical events outside of our people and land, helping to anchor historical periods in students’ minds. This approach mixed with modern culture and current events, should give students a broad and basic foundation of understanding that culminates in our annual 8th grade trip to Israel.
Reach 10,000 Jewish educational professionals. Advertise in the upcoming issue of Jewish Educational Leadership.
