Kadima El Amam

My main purposes in coming to Israel were to gain more international experience and to develop a stronger and more nuanced understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict before starting an international conflict management degree program in the fall. To this end, I really wanted to work with a coexistence initiative, something with Israelis and Jews together. This is why my program placed me in Ramla. As a mixed city, there would be more opportunities for this kind of project.

Well, not so much it turned out. Despite research before my program suggesting otherwise, my coordinator could not find a coexistence program for me to join as a volunteer. So she developed a relationship with an Arab community center. Kadima is a nationwide program providing a full meal, tutoring, and a safe environment after school to at-risk children from low-income families. There are two of these centers in Ramla--one for Jews and one for Arabs. This is a function of the incredible need in the community, and the incredible divide. Ramla isn't a salad bowl, or a melting pot. It's a tv dinner--it doesn't smell very good, the contents look like someone didn't put a lot of effort into them, and each food is in its own space.

Two girls in my program volunteer at Kadima Ramla Yehudi (the Jewish Kadima). The kids there are pretty tough, which is fully expected given the circumstances they're surviving. I expected the same from the arab kids, only worse, since I'd be representing Jewish America. I was totally and completely wrong. These kids are amazing. They are thrilled to have us volunteering, and are incredibly sweet and kind. There's a major language barrier, because their English is very weak. Arabic to English dictionaries have been a huge asset.

The experience at Kadima El Amam reminds me a lot of working with Hispanics in the US. There's a culture that I can only experience as a tourist, regardless of my language skills. There's incredible need. But there's also the same problem of the predominant languge spoken at home and socially not being the language of majority in the nation (The kids at Kadima speak Arabic with weak Hebrew the same way some Hispanics speak Spanish with weak English and the way older Russians in Israel speak Russian but almost no Hebrew.).  They're natives of the country but they have been enclaved.

So I go to the center 4 days a week. Tahani, the center coordinator, is amazing and so welcoming. Working with these kids is eye-opening in so many ways. The poorest people in Israel are the Arabs and the Ultra-Orthodox (which seems semi-ironic). These kids will face substantial racism, as well as extraordinarily limits to their future as a result of their Arabic-heavy education. Volunteering at Kadima allows us to have substantial impact, which is wonderful.