LIFE IN ISRAEL
Shulamith -
Katznelson,
nominated
for the
Nobel
Peace
Prize, is
coping
with her
new fame.
Katznelson: Living with fame.
Caus
LARRY DERFNER
Special to The Jewish News
etanya — Shulamith
Katznelson, nomi-
nated at the beginning
of last month for the Nobel
Peace Prize, is in a panic.
Rationally, she doesn't think
she can win — her many ri-
vals reportedly include Nel-
son Mandela, George Bush
and the Pope — but the
dreamer in her is beginning to
get the lofty, frightening idea
`that she can.
It is the morning staff
meeting at Ulpan Akiva, the
Hebrew-Arabic language
school and multicultural en-
counter group Ms. Katz-
nelson started 41 years ago.
She asks nicely for quiet.
When that doesn't work, she
-) hollers and smacks the table.
"Quiet!"
Satisfied finally, she con-
, fides in her teachers: "We're
at a very dangerous moment.
I have a very ominous feeling,
maybe the worst I've ever had
N
since being here. As high as
we've climbed, that's just how
far we could fall."
What the danger is, nobody
knows. But Ms. Katznelson is
taking no chances. She im-
plores her two dozen teachers
and aides not to talk to the
press. (They do anyway.) She's
begun tape recording all her
interviews.
A single woman in her 60s,
Ms. Katznelson needs one of
the teachers, Shoshana (an
Israeli Jew) or Samira (a
Muslim from Gaza), to be
with her at home during
these first nervous nights
after the nomination.
"I've never felt so protected
by all of you," she says, her
eyes crinkling up into a smile.
The teachers are gazing at
Ms. Katznelson now, wrapped
up in the urgency of their
leader's message. They look
about ready to walk through
fire for her.
Shulamith Katznelson has
worked her charisma on the
52,000 or so students from
about 125 countries who have
studied at Ulpan Akiva, now
housed in a former seaside
hotel in the city of Natanya,
north of Tel Aviv. They've in-
cluded new immigrants, Pal-
estinian doctors, Israeli
soldiers, Christian pilgrims
and Japanese Zionists.
Arabs and Jews, fearful and
hateful toward each other at
first, room together and lose
their hatred and fear — at
least for each other, at least
for the time being. They learn
a new language, they learn
the Torah and the Koran.
They sleep in an Arab villa-
ger's home, in a Bedouin tent,
in a kibbutz. They learn each
other's songs, dances, greet-
ings, taboos. They live to-
gether from anywhere from a
week to five months, then go
back to their own people.
Often they stay in touch. Very
often they return to Ulpan
Akiva.
Anecdotes abound, such as
the one about the professor
from Gaza who thought "all
Jews were Nazis," and the
Holocaust survivor who
wouldn't sit next to him be-
cause he was an Arab, and
how they hugged each other
before they went home.
Ms. Katznelson is not the
first Israeli citizen or Israeli
enterprise trying to bridge
the Jewish-Arab divide to be
nominated for the Nobel
Peace Prize. Neve Shalom, the
Jewish-Arab settlement near
Jerusalem, was one; the lef-
tist magazine New Outlook
was another; Mordechai Va-
nunu, who thought he could
make peace by divulging Is-
rael's nuclear secrets, and
who is now serving life im-
prisonment for it, was
another.
But Ms. Katznelson is fun-
damentally different from
any of theln. She seems to
bear a much closer affinity to
the one Israeli who actually
won the Peace Prize, Me-
nachem Begin.
She doesn't talk about pol-
itics; it's like a dirty word
with her. But inadvertently,
she hints at her views. "Ju-
dea, Samaria, Gaza, the
Golan Heights — they're my
heart," she says at the staff
meeting. Talking over the
phone about how to accom-
modate more students, she
says, "I can call up Arik
Sharon and get all the mobile
homes I want:' Later, she ad-
mits this was wishful
thinking.
All Katznelson will say is
that she has voted for parties
across the political spectrum,
and "the idea that if you love
Arabs you're a dove, and if
you love Eretz Yisrael you're
a hawk — it's nonsense."
The school has very close
ties to the armed forces,
which sends soldiers and of-
ficers to learn Arabic, and to
Israel's civil administration
in the West Bank and Gaza,
which sends Palestinian em-
ployees to learn Hebrew. Staff
members and students hold
opinions ranging from Gush
Emunim to PLO, but for the
sake of shalom bayit —
"peace in the home" — they
check their politics at the
front door.
In her office, Nobel fever is
running high. Alumni are
calling in congratulations
from around the country. A
Russian immigrant alumna,
whose blind son began emerg-
ing from his shell only after
Ms. Katznelson turned her af-
fection on him, comes in to
share a long, misty embrace
with the nominee.
A secretary announced ex-
citedly, "It's Abdallah on the
phone from South Lebanon:'
Ms. Katznelson calls out,
"Photo, photo," and a volun-
teer snaps her in animated
conversation.
She hopes all of this Nobel
notoriety will bring the
school some financial support
— to provide more scholar-
ships for students, for a li-
brary, a language laboratory,
a music room. Ulpan Akiva
can't afford them on the
funds it gets from student
fees, the Israeli government,
two American Jewish founda-
tions (the Meyerhoff and the
Dorot) and a Norwegian one
(called "Help Jews Home").
Ms. Katznelson's 1986 Israel
Prize for Education — the na-
tional equivalent of the Nobel
— helped. Now she has en-
tered a much bigger arena.
It was a large band of pro-
Israel Norwegian organiza-
tions, dominated by Christian
ones, which convinced a trio
of Norwegian parliamentari-
ans to nominate Ms. Katz-
nelson before the Nobel
committee, says Bjarne Schir-
mer of Norway. This was done
without Ms. Katznelson's
knowledge. Now, with the
prize winners to be an-
nounced in October, endorse-
ments are being sought from
international personalities
familiar with Ulpan Akiva.
"I tried to keep a low pro-
file before," Ms. Katznelson
says, "but I'm not a virgin
anymore. Now that I've been
nominated, we're on a whole
different level, and I have to
try to win."
Walking out of her office,
she passes an American stu-
dent. "How are you doing?"
the student asks.
"Learning to live with be-
ing a Nobel nominee," Ms.
Katznelson replies, without
breaking stride. 0
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