Where Did My School Go?

In Amman now, I feel I should be reflecting on the entirety of the past two months, its scope, impact, personal meaning. But at the moment, sleep-deprived and sun-stroked, I feel that all I can muster is to describe a small but significant moment that happened to me a few days before leaving.

I had met an old school friend, someone I hadn’t seen in over seven years. We both used to live in Haifa and commuted daily to the American International School in Kfar Shemaryahu, right outside Herzliya and near Tel Aviv. Before I left Israel in 2002, AIS administration was in the process of purchasing land for a new school near Netanya. Recently completed and now fully operational, the new AIS is supposed to be quite a grand campus, dotted with tennis courts and a swimming pool in addition to other academic and recreational facilities. I was not able to visit, but from an old math teacher I heard that while the physical amenities are new and expansive, the old spirit is missing. Of course, this is the sad byproduct of change – what you gain in appearance and efficacy, sometimes you loose in ambiance and warmth.

Still, it was not the new school that concerned me, but the old. I asked my friend if we could drive by the old campus in Kfar Shemaryahu, for old time’s sake. She warned me I would be shocked. She warned me what to expect, but still I was unprepared for the sting.

Everything, every building, bench and bathroom had been completely removed. All that remained of the old AIS were the two rusty blue gates, one leading in from the bus lot, the other leading to the main entrance. The rest was overgrown weeds, a few trees, dirt piles, brambles. “That was the North Field, remember?” my friend pointed sadly. “And that was where the Kiosk was, where we used to eat lunch.”

As we sat in her car, we conjured the school as we had known it. Before our eyes, we saw the squished classrooms, the added trailers where no new classrooms could be erected, the gymnasium where I had captained the Middle School Hockey Marathon, the High School corridor, the open-air quad…

Suddenly, in the midst of our reveries and recollections, I turned to my friend and said, “So, now I know what it feels to be Palestinian.” My friend, an Israeli citizen, laughed at first, but let me go on with my extrapolation. For me, seeing the place where so many memories, good and bad, had been made, where I had spent three incredible, growth-laden years – seeing that place destroyed was to me a revelation. And it was only three years of my life! My old math teacher had taught there for 30 years. Palestinians have been in Israel for generations. The twinge I felt was an intimation, albeit slight, of what must have been the shocking devastation of being violently uprooted and then subsequently erased.

I must note, however, that this realization not only applies to my greater empathy for the Palestinians, but also for the Jews. By the end of this trip, I have shored up my initial assertion of balance with reading, observation and analysis. I now feel compelled to include both Israelis and Palestinians in statements of support but also of critique. Perhaps by this subtle interposition, I can somehow contribute to the imperative of rapprochement.