The Comings and Goings of September 2008
By Lydia Aisenberg
October 7, 2008
Pomegranate trees heavy with bright red and juicy fruit and majestic, tall and flower laden stalks of squills everywhere are Mother Nature’s colorful heralds of the autumn season – and with it, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and Succot.
Rosh Hashana is a time to give thought to the approaching New Year and to reflect upon that just gone. For the International Department staff members the passing year has been one of constant activity with seminars on and off campus, extending a different kind of Israel experience to thousands of visitors to the country.
Looking fast forward, we hope to see the new Arabic Language and Middle East Studies semester of MASA to the Middle East be inaugurated in January 2009 while at the same time continuing to work with diverse groups and individuals from many different countries coming to Givat Haviva.
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Bundeszentrale fur Politische Bildung, a German federal agency for civic education has been sending groups of German educators and journalists from the print and electronic medias for seminars at Givat Haviva for last few years.
Bundeszentrale organizes six groups every year, each of whom with a different subject to explore. The September group’s sojourn to Israel was entitled "Identities in Israel’s Multicultural Society." Givat Haviva is on the itinerary of the majority of the Bundeszentrale groups and the International Department is generally awarded high ratings from the participants. The program for the September group of 25 folks included an explanation of Givat Haviva projects by Torsten Reibold, a lecture by Mohammad Darawshe and in-depth guided tour of the Wadi Ara region with Lydia Aisenberg – all of which generated a high level of interest and deluge of questions.
In a summary of the day’s activities, the German educators – this time there was only one journalist – were extremely enthusiastic about the days activities and as one member of the group commented: “What a shame it’s only for one day!”
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The American Garin Tzabar spent an evening at Kibbutz Hazorea with Lydia, participating in a workshop dealing with the kibbutz movement, past and present. Over 20 young Americans, Canadians and one Brit, will be based at Kibbutz Hazorea in the Jezreel Valley for the duration of their Ulpan. The garin is made up of the sons and daughters of Diaspora Jews and Israelis living permanently abroad. They will be serving in the IDF together but Hazorea will continue to be their home away from home also during their army service.
Another workshop is planned with Lydia in the near future. The second Garin Tzabar encounter will deal with the Arab citizens of Israel, Palestinians and the A, B and Cs of the post-Oslo peace process.
A number of the Garin Tzabar participants had attended seminars at Givat Haviva through the International Department in recent years while participating in Jewish Agency youth education programs for North Americans.
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The next group we dealt with this month consisted of older folks from Germany traveling with the Elderhostel organization. Most of the group of retirees - including one gentleman in his mid-80s - came from the Berlin area. For many it was their first visit to Israel, for others not - but many years since they had last been in the country.
Elderhostel is a non-profit organization set up to allow people over the age of 55 to travel together with the appropriate conditions while imbuing in the older traveler a sense of security and well-being. Elderhostel caters to thousands of older folk still with wanderlust and insatiable appetites to see and learn more about place near and far from their homes.
The German group asked for a seminar dealing with the subject of kibbutz and after a visit to Haifa made their way to the Jezreel Valley kibbutz of Mishmar HaEmek to meet up with member and Givat Haviva staff member Lydia Aisenberg.
The visitors heard about the kibbutz movement, past and present, the ins and outs of kibbutz lifestyle and ideology, the drastic changes that were made along the way, and much more. After driving around the kibbutz perimeter, the participants also visited Pinat HaGolah, the kibbutz memorial to the victims of the Holocaust as well as the kibbutz cemetery where they heard about some of the past members buried there – founder members from Poland, Holocaust survivors, the community’s fallen soldiers, former farmers, pilots, educators, politicians, artists and more.
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Twenty students and a number of academics from the Geographic Institute at Bonn University, participated in a one-day seminar covering Israel’s Arab population, the Palestinians as well as the people and communities to be found in the region and the relationships between them.
The group was addressed by Torsten Reibold with regard the work of Givat Haviva and met with lecturer and present day co-director of the Abraham Fund, Mohammad Darawshe, before undertaking an extensive tour of the region with Lydia Aisenberg.
“This has been a most impressive day for us, the students and the academics, and we appreciate the opportunity of being able to see and hear for ourselves what we would normally only have contact with through the media in Germany,” said Astrid Mehmel, a lecturer in geography who is active in an organization supporting the standing exhibition dealing with residents of the city who were murdered in the Holocaust at the City Museum in Bonn.
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Nine students from the Berlin area involved in the youth movement Natur Freunde (Friends of Nature) organized their own visit to Israel. The students met with peace education organizations and representatives of Greenpeace and other environmental activist groups.
The Berliners tagged along with the Bonn students (following in their own hired vehicle) for the Wadi Ara tour. An extra couple of visitors to the department that day – students from Stuttgart who had heard about Givat Haviva from friends – also hopped aboard the accommodating Bonn group bus.
An added bonus for us was the positive interaction between the Berlin, Bonn and Stuttgart students. Excellent feedback was received from all the participants in a rather special day for both students and International Department staff who worked with them.
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This month we welcomed once more our old friend and colleague Rudi Pahnke of the German Institute New Impulses.
Rudi is chairman of the Potsdam based Institute running programs for youth leadership. The Institute ‘encourages youth to lobby for world openness, tolerance against prejudices, xenophobia and anti-Semitism,’ and has maintained a close relationship with the Israel Youth Council for many years and participates in youth exchange projects between the Germany and Israel.
Following a short explanation about the history of Givat Haviva the "New Impulses" took a Green Line tour with Lydia. The tour incorporated a visit to Harish, a community almost sitting on the pre-1967 border with the then Jordanian controlled West Bank; the Rehan Checkpoint and divided village of Barta’a.
Speaking on behalf of the group at the end of the tour, one of the students noted that they had no idea they would see, hear and learn so much in such a short period of time and promised that they would keep in touch through email – and visit again if and when they return to Israel.
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Shana Tova everybody. May the coming year bring you only good health, much happiness and be a peaceful one for us all.
The International Department Staff
Hilit, Uri, Lydia and David