What is the difference between a child living in East Jerusalem who learns Hebrew and one who doesn’t? Opportunities. The language opens doors and paves paths forward. A child who learns Hebrew increases his or her chance of finding employment in the Western half of the city as a teenager or an adult, and he or she will be able to go on to universities and colleges upon finishing school. And even before then, in activities and trips to the shopping mall, a child who has learned Hebrew will have access to the language that surrounds them. That is what guides us when we talk about learning Hebrew in East Jerusalem.
For this reason, the Ministry of Education and the Jerusalem Municipality are working to implement a comprehensive program to teach Hebrew in East Jerusalem. It’s a complex and sensitive mission.
Do the children want it? The parents? Is there a price to learning Hebrew for the children of East Jerusalem? And how do you bridge the gaps and overcome the obstacles? Is there any way to know if it’s being done right?
Behind the scenes are two separate organizations charged with this mission, which include a number of Network members among their ranks: Yaffa Yashar, Regional Coordinator for the Jerusalem District at the Ministry of Education; Lara Mbariki, Head of the Arab Education System in the Jerusalem Municipality’s Education Department;
Yoav (Zimi) Zimran, Deputy Director Jerusalem Education Authority, and Zion Regev, Head of the East Jerusalem Five-Year Education Plan.
In August, the Ministry of Education and the Jerusalem Municipality set out on a joint trip to begin work on two missions: the first was to identify solutions for teaching Hebrew in East Jerusalem, and the second was to create a successful working infrastructure for the two different yet complementary organizations so that they could work together.
One of the participants on the trip spoke about the complexity of learning the language and using it as an adult: “When I came to Tel Aviv, I worked in a restaurant on the ground floor of the shared apartment I lived in. Someone asked me for a keisam (a toothpick). I remember standing in the kitchen of the restaurant, looking up, down and to the sides. I felt lost. What is a keisam? I learned Hebrew standardly, and yet still when it came to the moment of truth – I was helpless. What is a keisam?”
At a consultation meeting with education officials from the community, one educator made a request that doubled as a statement: “You have a responsibility to find ways to improve on the way things have been done so far.”
“We see how other languages are taught, and what the motivations, challenges and opportunities are. We need to take it back upon ourselves so that we can see what we’re doing wrong, as well as right,” another participant added.
“If we learn to harness the power of working together on the challenge of teaching Hebrew, it might serve as a pilot for other programs that we’re working on together,” one of the trip’s participants concluded.
Following the trip, the participants set out to plan a series of experiments and trials in language teaching, with each taking charge of a different aspect in order to better understand the needs of the education system and the students and how best to teach the language.