Weekly Report May 16th-20th, 2010

After last week's long and action packed report, I am happy to provide a much shorter and calmer summary of this week's activities:

• Students commemorate Nakbah Day "the Great Catastrophe of the Palestinian People"- One of the more difficult aspects of running a program where Palestinians and Israelis live together, is how to deal with national holidays and rememborance days. There is always a hightened level of tension around these events and every year, staff and students struggle to find the right balance of national pride and sensitivity to others. For a reminder of how the staff and students dealt with Israeli Memorial Day and Israeli Independence Day, please refer to my weekly report from April 11th to April 23rd, 2010. The following is a brief report by Yousre Odeh, one of our Program Associates and one of the staff who helped organize the Nakbah Day event this year.
• On Monday night, we met together on the campus (North American, Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian students) to commemorate the memorial day for Nakbah (Catastrophe). The commemoration was a student run activity which took place in 3 parts. We started with the screening of a documentary that shows the situation in Palestine from early 1984 untill 2007, shedding light on the human rights situation in the West Bank by interviewing civilians, politicians, Palestinian students, Israeli activist and Israeli professors. The second part of the activity was the telling of personal stories from selected students. We tried to have a diverse group of student speak. One student talked about her grandfather's experience as a refugee in the West Bank. Another spoke about his grandfather's experience as a refugee in Jerusalem. One student whose family were refugees in Jordan and another whose family is living in Haifa talked about their experiences. The last part of the activity was to divide up the group into smaller groups (family groups) where we reflected on what we heard and we tried to relate the personal stories and the movie to events in our lives. The impression about this session was difficult but positive and students stayed on the grass discussing their thoughts untill after midnight. - Yousre Odeh Student Life PA.
• The students and staff had a break this week as Shavuot, the festival of Weeks commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, started on Tuesday night. On Tuesday afternoon, the kibbutz members, children, residents and students gathered together for the ceremonial offering of the first fruits (Bikurim). The kibbutz holiday staff organized a Bikuriada, a contest between various branches of the kibbutz. The Arava Institute went up agains the Kibbutz Environmental Committee in the trash recycling contest, seeing who could recycle the most trash within the time limit. Our valiant team was led by PA Lauren Rauch, but victory was snatched from our grasp as the kibbutz team managed to take the trophy (we of course have lodged an appeal on the judges decision). In any case, this game seemed unfair as the opposing team captain was our own Yonatan Chessler, wearing his other hat as head of the Environmental Committee. We'll get you next time Red Barron!
• Finally, this week we celebrated Hannah Medaliah's 90th birthday. Hanah holds the world record as the oldest research intern at the institute. Hannah has been volunteering for years with Dr. Elaine Solowey in the Experimental Orchard. Born in Germany, Hannah made aliyah with her parents when she was a child. Hannah lived for more than 40 years on Moshav Bnei Zion near Rechovot, where she attended agricultural school. A number of years ago, Hannah moved to Kibbutz Ketura in order to be able to work with Dr. Solowey. Every morning after her coffee in the dinning room, Hannah walks down to the fields to spend the whole day, planting and taking care of trees, bushes and herbs. Clearly a recipe for a long life. The Arava Institute staff and some students threw a surprise birthday party for Hannah this morning at Keren Kolot.

Hannah Medaliah on the left, Dr. Elaine Solowey on the right.

David Lehrer