WZPS/Martin Bu ber Institute

LIFE IN ISRAEL

"I shop to relax; Shopping on The Boardwalk is
very relaxing because I get personal attention. I
love to shop on The Boardwalk."
Becky Wellnitz
Radio account executive

"It's better on The Boardwalk."

th e lto m db u lk

Orchard Lake Road • West Bloomfield

Jews studying Arabic at Buber.

Riots Don't Keep Palestinians
From Hebrew-Arabic Ulpan

YAACOV BAR-NATAN

Special to The Jewish News

K

Grow with us in a
tradition of
excellence as we
continue to offer
the finest in elderly
health care.
For further
information:
6950 Farmington Rd.
West Bloomfield,
MI 48322
661-1700

38

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1989

alman Yaron was
worried as the new
trimester of his
Hebrew-Arabic ulpan —
language school — opened.
He feared that this time
Palestinian students would
not turn up for the Hebrew
classes, due to the riots in the
administered territories and
the curfews, searches, road
blocks and other measures
adopted by the Israeli army
and police.
"In these times, it is not
always easy for an Arab to
make his way from Ramallah
or Bethlehem after dark, at 6
in the evening, to Jerusalem,"
Yaron explained. "Yet over
200 came from Hebron alone.
There has been virtually no
drop in enrollment of Arabs,
and the number of Jews is
increasing.
Yaron is director of the Mar-
tin Buber Institute at the
Hebrew University 'of
Jerusalem. The Hebrew-
Arabic ulpan, which has just
celebrated its 21st anniver-
sary, wa set up after the Six-
Day War by Yaron and .
Mother Aline, head of the
Ecce Homo convent of the
Sisters of Zion in the Old Ci-
ty of Jerusalem.
Yaron hoped that a Catholic
convent run by French nuns
would be seen by Arabs —
Moslem and Christian alike
— as neutral ground where

they could come to study
Hebrew without compromis-
ing themselves, and he prov-
ed to be right. The news of the
language school in the Via
Dolorosa spread like wildfire
through the Old City. The
convent was soon packed with
Arabs from East Jerusalem,
Judea and Samaria, as well
as foreign residents and
Christian clerty of all
deonominations, anxious to
learn the two semitic
languages. Within a year, 400
Jews and Arabs were
attending.
"The Jews came mostly for
ideological reasons," Yaron
recalls. "They wished to be
able to communicate with
Arabs, to understand Arab
culture to forge friendships
with Arabs.
"The Arabs were more
pragmatic," he said. "They
felt they needed Hebrew to be
able to deal with the Israeli
authorities on a more advan-
tageous footing, to improve
their job opportunities or to
engage in commerce with
Israelis.

The Jewish students are
predominantly university
graduates. The Arabs include
manual workers as well as
intellectuals.
At the suggestion of Mother
Aline, a tea-break was in-
troduced, so that Jewish and
Arab students could get to
know each other. This led to
other forms of social activity:
folklore evenings, a workshop

in graphic and plastic arts,
and study sessions on subjects
of interest to both sides. There
were bus trips to the Dead
Sea, the Red Sea, to Arab
towns and to kibbutzim.
Mother Aline appointed
Sister Rose Therese Sant,
herself one of the first
students in the Hebrew
course, to organize the ex-
tracurricular activities. Sister

At the suggestion
of Mother Aline, a
tea-break was
introduced, so that
Jewish and Arab
students could get
to know each
other.

Rose is still doing the job
today.
Mother Aline was dedicated
to correcting the historic in-
justice of Christianity
towards the Jews and to pro-
moting Jewish Arab recon-
ciliation. She encountered
severe criticism in the
Catholic Church and even in
her own order, the Sisters of
Zion, for allowing the
Hebrew-Arabic ulpan to
operate in the convent.
Palestinian Christian circles
in Rome complained to
Laurice, Mother-General of
the order, that the Sisters in
Jerusalem had now
repudiated Palestinian in-