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COURTESY P2G TEEN LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

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Purposeful
Pathway

Bicycle trail promoted
by Michigan Jewry links
Jews and Arabs in
Central Galilee.

ROBERT SKLAR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Migdal HaEmek, Israel

TOP: Central Galilee
11th-graders comingle on
the Naim BeYahad trail: P2G
Teen Leadership Program’s
Yotam Nakar of the Jezreel
Valley; Yafia High School Teen
Leadership’s Yamen Hatib,
Anuar Sharif, Marah Hatib and
Ragad Amru; and P2G Teen
Leadership Program’s Omer
Zarbib, Aviv Aizen and Or
Nakar, all of the Jezreel Valley.

38

March 16 • 2017

I

magine a ruggedly natural
trail for bicyclists that not
only attracts riders of all
ages, but also heightens pros-
pects for bringing Jews and
Arabs, notably younger genera-
tions, closer together in a quest
to stem prejudice.
Imagine no more.
Such a trail exists. It’s seg-
mented now, but ultimately
will traverse 34 miles of woods,
fields and population centers in
Israel’s Central Galilee.
The trail links Michigan
Jewry’s Partnership2Gether
(P2G) communities of Migdal
HaEmek, Nazareth Illit and the

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Jezreel Valley with the Arab
towns of Yafia and Nazareth —
a sprawling region of 185,000
people.
The trail’s name, Naim
BeYahad, not only is a Hebrew
acronym for the local authori-
ties through which it passes,
but also means “Moving
Along Together” or “Pleasant
Together.”
The trail isn’t yet part of
Israel’s national discussion
about Jewish-Arab relations.
But it could be.

TEAMING UP

Jewish and Arab adults and
teens are working in concert to
give form to this trail of oppor-

tunity. Trail rides also have
been multicultural — a time to
nurture a larger sense of com-
munity. Trail organizers offer
inexpensive mountain bikes for
rent, negating
the cost factor.
“When you
go to ride on
the trail, you
forget all the
problems fac-
ing Arabs and
Jews in Israel,”
Hesham Bsharat
says Israeli
Arab Hesham
Bsharat, Yafia’s sports director.
“Yes, we have problems
between each other — political
problems. But when we ride
together, Jews and Arabs, we
forget everything. We talk only
about the bicycle. Everybody
tells the latest story about their
bicycle and the trail and its ben-
efits. We talk
together and,
more impor-
tant, we have
friendships.”
Michael
Mensky, a
Jewish resident
of the Jezreel
Michael Mensky
Valley and a
bigtime trail
rider and coexistence propo-
nent, says, “In the past, there
wasn’t much of a connection
between the Jewish and Arab
areas. The trail has changed
that.”
The push is on by Jewish and
Arab community leaders to
involve more teens in cycling
and, equally significant, have
more of them meet on the path,

as some of their parents now do.
As my daughter, Dr. Elyse
Thakur, and I had lunch with
Hesham Bsharat and Arda Ribo,
P2G’s Nazareth
Illit-based
program coor-
dinator, last
fall at Humus
Eliyahu,
a Midgal
HaEmek
restaurant,
Arda Ribo
I began to
understand
exactly how unique this trail
for cyclists as well as hikers and
walkers truly is — and can be.
Israel provides many chances
for Jews and Arabs to coexist,
but this grassroots example
powered by two-wheelers is
something special.
Two years in planning, the
trail, part dirt, part single track
and part paved, is about 90 per-
cent open. It boasts boundless
potential. Parts are open in all
five communities; urban link-
ages are under development.
Use of the public trail is free.
The trail is a collaborative
effort of not just the three
Jewish and two Arab communi-
ties involved via P2G, but also
of two smaller Jewish villages as
well as the Jewish National Fund
(JNF), the Jewish Federations
of Metropolitan Detroit and
Greater Ann Arbor, the Cross
Israel Bike Trail and, more
recently, Marching Together for
Peace, a foundation.
Cycling through nature is at
the core of what the JNF is all
about. The JNF not only has
donated much of the trail land,

