Israel? It shouldn't.

Sometimes, at lunch, I get tired of pretending to be a grown-up, and sit with my kids. They’re always having fascinating deep philosophical conversations about the nature of being, and I’m inevitably greeted with a few cries of “dank, Miss” when I plop down at the table. It also lets me see who’s not eating enough, who’s sitting alone, who’s unexpectedly got a whole posse of friends that aren’t in my classes with her, etc.

So a few days ago I sat in the middle of a fascinating conversation. The Culture Club is planning an evening of international culture, and was trying to sort out where the kid from Sri Lanka would go. Not with the Chinese, Cambodians, and Vietnamese, of course—everyone could agree that was weird. The Turkish kid interjected that his country was equally lost—Europe, or Asia? Both, the students decided. But where to put Sri Lanka? Maybe he could do a dance with the one Indian kid? Decidedly not, he responded in clipped British tones.

Then somebody mentioned Israel. It didn’t fit in the Arab bloc—where should we put it?

“We shouldn’t,” answered a student. She takes Arabic as her first language instead of English, so I don’t teach her. I peered around curiously at her, while the Turkish student frantically made cutting motions across his neck at her.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It shouldn’t exist at all. Do you know originally, it was supposed to be in Madagascar?”

“Uganda,” I answered feebly, and left to turn my tray in. I couldn't think of a single response-- all of my thoughts were running around the treadmill of "wow, there's an actual person who wishes I didn't exist and told me so to my face." I had so many other thoughts I couldn't sift them-- obviously, there are Israelis who don't want Palestine to exist, and does this girl's level of anger justify the way she just tried to erase my identity, and what would have existed in this area without Israel-- Syrian Civil War? ISIS? Who knows.

As the highest-level English teacher in a school where the only other native-level languages provided are Chinese and Arabic, I tend to miss these demographics in my classes. I don’t often get to hear what they think. In both of my English classes, in grades 11 and 12, I only have one Palestinian/Arab-Israeli student each, while several Israelis share their opinions regularly. When we inevitably come up against issues relating to the conflict, theirs is a lone voice, or sometimes, a silent one.

While reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings this week, we started to talk about racial profiling. None of the kids were American, and so inevitably, they began to talk about their experiences in Israel. The Italian kid has trouble in airport security because of his passport stamps, while the Swedish girls said the blond sails straight through, the brunette gets stopped.

“It’s not great to say, but we really need racial profiling, because—“ the Israeli kids trailed off uncomfortably, wondering if they sounded racist. I wanted them to finish the sentence, and asked, “does it work? Have terrorist attacks, suicide bombs, vehicular rammings, and stabbings, gone down since it’s been implemented?” There’s too much the Israelis never say in our hyper-liberal environment.

The internationals were torn. “It’s a bad thing. But sometimes, for security, you need it,” was what they generally responded with.

The Arab-Israeli spoke once, but emphatically, against it. Racial profiling was harmful and unjustified, and just as in the book we could see evidence of Maya's complicated racial identity, it had repercussions in real life.

We moved on to the question of whether people of color can be racist, and the kids got embroiled in an exploration of systemic vs. personal racism.

While the discussion was interesting and the students passionate, I kept thinking how safe it felt. At the start of reading the book I’d asked the students whether it would make a difference that there were no students of African descent in that particular classroom. While it’s full of students of various ethnicities and who would be identified as “of color” in the greater world, nobody relates to this book as Maya’s race. The kids thought it was both a good and a bad thing, and didn’t seem to mind my asking them to be conscious of it as we read in class.

But in a week, we will all go up to Jerusalem, for three days of exploring the local conflict, and while I’m curious about how it will go, I feel deep anxiety about my role as a mediator and mentor.

On the second day there, we’re to split into investigative groups and tour on our own, preparing a presentation for the school at the end. I’ve been assigned to the group exploring “The Civic Status of East Jerusalem.” Predictably, all but one Israeli student has switched out, while Palestinians and Israeli Arabs have joined in large numbers. In our planning meeting, the other teacher leading pointed out to me how those same students who spoke so eagerly about the deprivations in East Jerusalem completely shut down when a Vietnamese kid asked about bias in our visits.

I have a lot of concerns going in:

·      I don’t really know anything about what civic status means in any city.

·      The Arab kids will feel uncomfortable sharing their true thoughts with a Jewish-American and an Israeli teacher leading.

·      The Arab kids will share some of their hatred for Israel, and spread it among the international students.

·      The one Israeli kid will sit as silently as he did in our planning meeting, for the entire trip.

·      The international kids will see only East Jerusalem, and hear only from Palestinians or Arab-Israelis.

·      While I will learn a whole lot, rarely having been in East Jerusalem, the kids from East Jerusalem who are so excited to show us their city will see nothing new and nothing that challenges their viewpoint.

·      Will I be able to emotionally care for my students? I’m worried that since I myself am unsure what my beliefs are, I will be busy processing, rather than able to watch out for them. Open-mindedness on my part will call for a lot of intentional thinking, and I’m worried that my choices are between actually processing and thinking about what I’m learning, and being there for my students.

·      Safety. Is it better for us to all speak English and pretend we’re all internationals or Arab locals, or for us to get a proper security guard who walks around with us? The Israeli kid and the Israeli teacher are both very Sefardi in appearance, and my accent and dress makes me seem American—will we be safe?

·      And so unfair that in the other groups, who will probably split their time between the two Jerusalems, the Arab kids don’t have to worry about safety with the same intensity that Jewish Israelis venturing into East Jerusalem do. I keep thinking of the questions that I'll never be able to ask if I want to let the Arab kids feel like they can share in our discussion group, and of how I can't truly investigate the question of one country supporting people within it that don't want it to exist or actively want to cause harm to its population. That's certainly not something they'll bring up on their own, but if I ask about it, will they close off completely?

I rode home with the Hungarian Global Politics teacher, who told me that it’s only natural I feel anxious—now I’m about to see the flipside of Israel that I ignored when I made aliyah, and as a religious Jew, everyone is going to assume certain things about my viewpoint. But I shouldn’t feel too anxious—I did not come to oppress, and in fact, in teaching at our school, I’m helping.

I left the bus uncertain what to do with what he’d told me. He said it as though these were things I already know and agree with, but I think my wide-eyed pondering is a foretaste of what I can expect in our Jerusalem trip.