Visits to Tali schools (public schools offering Judaic
enrichment classes), including the Sam and Jean
Frankel Elementary School started by the Bloomfield
Hills couple, were especially powerful because partici-
pants spoke directly with teachers and students.
One group went to a Tali school in Gilo, a
Jerusalem suburb of 40,000. One section of the
neighborhood has been a prime target for Palestinian
snipers across the valley in Beit Jalla.
As they walked toward Ha Anafa Street, with its
long concrete protective wall and its sandbagged win-
dows and balconies, the group was warned to lie flat
on the ground if shooting began.
"It's quiet, peaceful, surreal — you've got to pinch
yourself," Michael Jankelewitz of the Jewish Agency
for Israel said as he looked across the now-quiet val-
ley. "But they see us with binoculars and know we
are here."
This experience gave participants a taste of what
Gilo residents have lived with for several months.

.

Youthful Innocence

At the Gilo Tali school, they found enthusiastic chil-
dren full of hugs and smiles. A poised 10-year-old
girl told Frank Hoffman of Farmington Hills she
wasn't in an area where there was shooting, but had
friends who were. -
She said she wasn't afraid.
But, said one teacher, "You can see the stress in
their faces and bodies. They attend weekly medita-
tion classes to help them deal with stress."
At another Tali school, Rabbi Joseph Krakoff of
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield was
impressed by efforts to maintain relations with a
nearby Arab village.
Rather than canceling a soccer tournament, the
groups decided that sport can be a unifying factor.
"The school had sessions to deal with how they
would react if they won, or if they lost, and how they
should cheer their team," he said.
At the Ramat Moriah Tali Elementary School in
East Talipot, Terry Barclay, a representative of the
Southfield-based Hospice of Michigan, heard how
one man's efforts made an impact on his Arab neigh-
bors.
"A Jewish man started dialogues with the Arab
community when the violence began. He was killed
in the army three or four weeks ago," she said. "The
Arab leaders came to shiva and promised there would
be no incidents there.
"That has given me more hope than anything so
far," Barclay said. "If we can build the instinct for
dialogue on both sides at the grassroots level — that's
where it has to start and live and grow." CI

From top to bottom:
Rabbi Daniel Nevins
of Adat Shalom .
Synagogue in
Farmington Hills
stands by a concrete
wall placed in the
neighborhood of Gilo
in southern Jerusalem
by the Israeli army to
protect the houses from
Palestinian gunfire
from the neighboring
village of Beit Jalla
near Bethlehem. The
Gilo neighborhood has
been under attack since
the beginning of the
Palestinian uprising.

Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit
President Penny
Blumenstein greets for-
mer Israeli Prime
Minister Shimon Peres
at the Tel Aviv Hilton.

A student of the Tali
School in Gilo talks to
Stuart Sinai of
Birmingham, Rabbi
Harold Loss of Temple
Israel in West
Bloomfield, Bert Stein
of West Bloomfield and
Frank Hoffman of
Farmington Hills. The
Gilo neighborhood has
been under attack from
Palestinian gunmen
from the neighboring
village of Beit Jalla
near Bethlehem.

.

1/19
2001

27