Kids from different worlds connect
Heart to Heart summer camp helps Jewish, Palestinian Israelis become friends
Like many youngsters on a school break, Razan and Ori have spent two weeks chilling from the heat at a summer camp on an Ontario lake.
In multicultural Canada, that’s nothing unusual. But 14-year-old Razan Athamna and 15 year-old Ori Margolis are from two different worlds that exist side by side — but often isolated from each other — within Israel.
At the Heart to Heart camp near Ottawa, half a world away, they have become friends. And they are now friends with 18 other Palestinian and Jewish Israelis who also arrived at the camp this month.
“If I hadn’t come here, we’d never even have met,” says Ori, a tall, thoughtful Jewish teenager whose home is the kibbutz of Ramat HaShofet in northern Israel.
“When we all got together we shared our stories,” adds Razan, a quiet-spoken, slender teen from the small town of Kfar Qara, which boasts one of the highest levels of Palestinian university graduates. “Now we’ve come together as a family.”
That is the goal of Heart to Heart, a project that aims to build a better future for Israel through shared experience, and plant the seeds of cooperative leadership in a generation that has grown up in an increasingly divided and polarized environment.
It’s co-sponsored by the Israeli Givat Haviva Education Foundation, a winner of the UNESCO prize for peace education, and Toronto-based Hashomer Hatzair/Camp Shomria.
The project, which has hosted some 100 cross-cultural campers over five years, is working against difficult odds. And the deepening divisions and inequalities make the mission all the more urgent.
Palestinians who have Israeli citizenship or residency make up 20 per cent of Israel’s 8.5 million population.
But studies show they have greater poverty and lower expectations than Jewish Israelis who form the majority.
Even worse is the outlook for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Meanwhile, attacks on Jewish Israelis by Palestinians have raised tensions and mutual suspicion. Since October 2015 some 35 Israelis have been killed in stabbing, shooting and automobile attacks, and 200 Palestinians have died under Israeli fire, including the attackers.
But in the camp in tranquil Perth, Ont., the teens who came together for a brief respite from “the situation” felt light years away. They spoke in Toronto Tuesday, on the last leg of a trip that included a visit to Parliament Hill and a stay with host families.
“At first I thought it would be good to come here because I could miss school, but otherwise it was pointless,” admits Ori.
But when he set a goal of learning about his fellow campers, he was “surprised at how easy it was.” And he found, “they are just like us, except they speak a different language.”
Razan, who had spent three years in bicultural projects with Jewish children, said that she has gradually changed her views.
“I thought that Jewish people would never like Arabs. But I began to understand that nothing is black and white. Everyone has their ad- vantages and disadvantages. Only God is perfect.”
For Heart to Heart, that take-away is vital if the country is to live at peace. Its founders hope its alumni will become the next generation of leaders who can convey the message where current leaders have failed.
“I’d begin by building a school,” says Razan, referring to the separate Hebrew and Arabic-speaking public schools that add to the isolation of the two sides.
Ori wants to spread the message that people aren’t really so different. “They are our neighbours. They walk around saying they’re different, but it’s not so. And you can’t make peace with someone you don’t know.”
Will the campers who met in Canada remain friends in Israel? They both smile broadly.
“For sure,” they say, in chorus.