Arab and Jewish kids learn together at a Hand in Hand School. Courtesy/Hand in Hand

In Israel, most Arabs and Jews lead separate lives. They live in separate neighborhoods and attend separate schools, and of course, they speak different languages.

Surrounded by conflict, it’s hard to bridge the gap, but 1,200 students at five Israeli schools are doing just that. Hand in Hand was founded with the idea that by educating Arab and Jewish children together, a community of neighbors could be built where before, there were only perpetual strangers.

Lee Gordon, one of the founders of Hand in Hand, is in Los Alamos today and Thursday to explain Hand in Hand’s mission and spread its message. He will speak at 6:30 p.m. today at the White Rock  Presbyterian Church and at 6:30 p.m., Thursday at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church. Both presentations are free and open to the public. There also is an interview at 7:30 a.m., Thursday on KRSN.

Gordon and Amin Khalaf founded Hand in Hand in 1997. Gordon now lives in the United States, but he regularly returns to Israel and is still very involved with the schools.

Hand in Hand Schools run from kindergarten through high school and are as much a community as school. The schools are public and anyone can choose to apply. The school maintains a balance of boys and girls as well as Jews and Arabs.

“Our mission is to create a strong and inclusive shared society in Israel through a network of Jewish-Arab integrated bilingual schools and organized communities,” Gordon said.

There are two teachers for each class, one Jewish and one Arab and the entire day is bilingual. Pupils learn about each other’s cultures and build friendships.

“One of our students summed it up when she told me ‘she’s not my ‘Jewish’ friend, she’s my friend,’ Gordon said.

It was a hard summer for Israelis who want to build community between Arabs and Jews. Three Israeli teens were kidnapped and murdered. Then an Arab teen was murdered in retaliation. City workers had to clean off “death to the Arabs” graffiti from walls and entrance to one campus. The parents and kids who make up the Hand in Hand community spent the summer taking night strolls together to spread the message, “we refuse to be enemies,” Gordon said.

“It wasn’t a protest or a political statement, just a statement of neighbors living in peace,” he said.

The conflict is never far away from students and they are encouraged to discuss Israeli-Palestinian relations from their own points of view, but also to listen to what others have to say. Hand in Hand hopes to double the number of its schools in the next 10 years. There is growing interest in the program and it is Gordon’s dream that every student who wants to, can attend a Hand in Hand school.

 It’s a process that builds peace,” Gordon said.

Learn more about Hand in Hand at https:////www.handinhandk12.org/.