I worked in Gaza and The West Bank as a Jewish Woman AMA

[Wflwer]

I worked with an education charity making the journey to Gaza once in 2019 and to The West Bank in 2018 and 2022.
I speak Hebrew and Arabic and we were groups of educators working in schools (group were about 5/6 teachers ranging from primary to secondary educators from Europe)

I meant at primary level not HS - my experience of mainstream non religious primary school was that Judaism was not taught as in depth as Christianity or Islam (majority of students being from these religions I can understand why) however I went to a Jewish high school so would not be able to comment on other HS learning environments.

@Wflwer Did you teach in English or Arabic? If Arabic, where did you learn it?

I taught in a C of E primary school, that's where my experience lies. We were a multi faiths, multi cultural school.
I am, personally an agnostic, but with a keen interest in learning and teaching about the numerous faiths. Maybe my primary school was an exemption but I doubt it.

Did the Palestinian kids in Gaza and the West Bank know that you are Jewish/Israeli? How did they react to this?

You work in education and you think the reason the holocaust is taught in history rather than RE is because not all the victims are Jewish?

Wow

when working with teachers it was a mix as we helped teach English classes but for me primarily I worked in Arabic.
Arabic and Hebrew are both Semitic languages so have a lot of similarities which I found interesting I took classes as a teenager and it took about 3/4 years to learn. I am not fluent due to the different Arabic dialects but the class I took taught Gulf Arabic as the teacher was Saudi Arabian and there are some words in other dialects that are different but easily picked up along the way (even if I do mix them up sometimes)!

Yes there was another 2 teachers with us that were Jewish and the children had lots of questions. The younger children’s questions were more based on life like did any of us have children, what was where we are from like they were not overly bothered by religion. There was an older boy from the West Bank who immediately associated us with Israelis and took a bit of time to come around however speaking with teachers this was common year to year with his own teachers and it never amounted to anything.
The older children had lots of questions more regarding our thoughts and feelings on the occupation and you could tell they were frustrated when asking their opening questions but they were curious and most were 99% were open to listening to all of us including the non Jewish members of the groups thoughts and opinions it made for excellent discussion outwith the topic when the teachers would proceed to teach in the classrooms or if we ate with them.

Well in my experience it is taught separately but not in much detail. Perhaps it was just my area but I do think it’s something that could be improved.

I believe the Holocaust is a historical event and needs to be taught in details ( social/ political/historical context), This doesn't take away why Jewish people were targeted.
Teaching RE is about teaching the beliefs/Holy book/rites of passage/ festivals/celebrations of each and every faith. It is about teaching the communality between them. It is, anyway, at primary school level.
I am sorry if my previous post came across badly. I should have expressed myself better.
Finally, I have retired from teaching.

Very interesting read

How can Israel be demilitarised? They literally have the iron dome to stop the missives that rain down. What do you think of October 7 and Hamas. You do realise that Hamas pump all money given to them to help Palestinians into destroying Israel?

This is a very interesting read. Where can I read more about this? Is there any education currently being taught in Gaza since the ceasefire?