Stops on the Australian Educators Study Tour to the Negev: Black Arrow Memorial, Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and the bombproof Sha’ar HaNegev School in the Gaza envelope; the Bedouin city of Rahat; and Beersheba, the capital of Israel’s south.
Australian Educators Study Tour 2020 group photo at the Shaar HaNegev Primary School.
Photo: Yoav Devir
The Australian Educators Study Tour devoted its sixth day in Israel to visiting communities in the Negev to gain an understanding of the complex geographical and security challenges of living in this region.
Life under fire
As they made their way along Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, the Australian delegates paused at the Black Arrow Memorial to look across at the buildings on the other side of the border, just several hundred meters away from homes on the Israeli side of the fence.
The Shaar HaNegev Regional Council’s chief security officer Eyal Hajbi gave the visitors a brief review of the security situation on Israel’s southwestern border, and described how local residents cope with constant attacks from Gaza via incendiary kites and balloons that set fields, woodlands and communities ablaze and cause serious environmental damage.
Their next stop was Kibbutz Kfar Aza, just a couple of kilometers away from the border with Gaza. There kibbutz member and former MK Shai Hermesh described the wonderful regional cooperation with KKL-JNF, most notably where “security plantings” around the periphery of local communities is concerned. These trees planted by KKL-JNF help to camouflage the communities and provide protection from snipers on the other side of the border. Later the delegates visited the kibbutz itself and observed at first hand how local families cope with the daily threat of fire from the Gaza Strip.
“It’s impressive that there are Jewish pioneers who are willing to live here. They are doing this for the sake of all of us,” said Rabbi Yossi Friedman of Sydney’s Mount Sinai College and Maroubra Synagogue. “They sacrifice so much so that Israel can have secure borders and people can live safely in Tel Aviv.”
Keep Calm and Study On
When residents of the Gaza Periphery are asked what motivates them to live where they do, they cite ideology and a good education system as being among the main reasons. The visiting delegates split up into three groups along professional lines to visit three different educational institutions in the area: a kindergarten on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, Shaar HaNegev Primary School and Shaar HaNegev High School. There they met teachers, visited classrooms, talked to students and obtained a first-hand impression of the local education system.
The high school’s impressively leafy yard has a quiet, pastoral air, and the mobile bomb shelters scattered here and there are the only reminder that the situation is liable to change drastically at any moment. The school buildings are fortified to enable students to carry on studying as usual even when a red alert sounds, but the Australian educators found it hard to fathom all this as just normal routine.
In the primary school’s open outdoor classroom, which was built with the support of JNF Australia, the pupils proudly displayed their knowledge of Australia with pictures and maps. Young members of the Green Leadership Student Council also greeted the Australian guests, and spoke about their activities to educate fellow schoolmates on the importance of protecting the environment.
The visiting educators had not arrived empty-handed, and before leaving, they presented the youngsters with cute toy koala bears and written greetings from students in Australia to their Israeli peers.
Andrew Braiding, who teaches at Waverly Public School in Sydney, was part of the group visiting Shaar HaNegev Primary School. “Not only has this school managed to survive as rocket salvos are fired at the area – it is also a really active and flourishing educational institution. It’s impressive to observe how educational activities are maintained in such a difficult situation,” he said.
Educating for values across different cultures in Israel
At the new sustainability center in Rahat, Israel’s largest Bedouin town, the visiting teachers experienced a different aspect of Israeli education.
“Rahat is the city of the future,” declared primary school Principal Mahmud Abu Abed. “24,000 of its 70,000 residents are students. These youngsters will transform our future. We all understand that high-quality education is the way to progress.”
To acquaint themselves with the realities of Israeli education today, the Australian teachers attended discussion groups with Bedouin and Jewish teachers from Beersheba. The theme of the debate was the challenges presented by a school attended by students from differing cultural backgrounds who speak different languages (Hebrew and Arabic).
“When you see how Jewish and Arab students can study together and Arab and Jewish teachers can work side by side, you feel a great deal of hope for the future,” said Philippa Allen of Sydney’s Vaucluse Public School.
How the ANZACs paved the way for the birth of Israel
The feats of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) soldiers, which played a seminal role in the conquering Beersheba for the British in World War I, are commemorated at the city’s ANZAC Memorial Center. This museum, which was established by KKL-JNF with the support of JNF Australia, includes an exhibition of photographs, films, documents, personal effects and soldiers’ letters that tell the combatants’ individual stories.
As they watched a film about the ANZAC soldiers, the teachers were borne aloft by a slowly rising elevator. As the film ended, its doors opened on to a veranda overlooking the British military cemetery, where 174 Australians, 31 New Zealanders and over 1000 British combatants are buried. The visitors conducted a brief ceremony at the cemetery, during which they sang the national anthems of both Australia and Israel.
“My parents are involved in KKL-JNF activities, as my grandparents were before them,” said Louise Lowinger of Melbourne’s King David School. “I’m so proud and excited every time I visit a project that my family is involved in. I regard my educational work as another link in the chain of continuity that connects us to Israel.”