B’nai B’rith Women’s Organization Supporting Teaching Project for Arabs

B’nai B’rith Women’s organization is supporting an experimental teaching project in three Arab villages in Israel where joint Arab-Jewish teams of student instructors are providing remedial classes and social services for youngsters of elementary and high school ages. The workings of the experiment were described by Mrs. Arthur G. Rosenbluth, BBW chairman of international affairs, in a report to the organization’s executive board here.

The villages are Um-Al Fahm, Ara and Ararat. The teaching teams were recruited by the B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The teams consist of two Arab and two Jewish students who spend a month at a time in the villages in the Wadi Ara area. The schools in the villages had no extra-curricula reading material or teaching aids. The students are helping the Arab youngsters in such subjects as physics, chemistry and English which are the most difficult in Israeli schools, Mrs. Rosenbluth said. They are also establishing libraries and discuss educational subjects with adult villagers.

The program grew out of Arab-Jewish student dialogues instituted by the Hillel director on the Hebrew University campus, Dr. Jack Cohen. It was approved by the BBW at its triennial convention last March. A young Moslem graduate of the Hebrew University is assisting Dr. Cohen and serves as an advisor of programing for Arab students, Mrs. Rosenbluth reported. One of the major goals of the project is to strengthen the feeling among Arabs that they belong in Israel by right and can and should share in its development on equal terms with Jews, she said.