By Idan Yedid, Horace Greeley High School senior
When Yali, a Jewish-Israeli teenager, entered this system Through Others’ Eyes (TOE) to study pictures alongside Arab teenagers, he had some doubts about assembly the opposite facet. The feeling was mutual.
But even within the context of a painful, ongoing struggle, these Jewish and Arab teenagers grew shut and have become buddies. As they bonded, their pictures expertise blossomed into ultimate initiatives that, collectively, shaped a robust exhibit.
On Thursday evening, the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center bustled with dialog as greater than 200 group members considered the exhibit. Yali and three of his Jewish and Arab friends watched as individuals poured into the middle to expertise their work and listen to their tales.
“I came in with stereotypes about the other side,” Yali admitted. “When I met them in person,” he continued, “it was like a shift of my opinions, my stereotypes. I realized they are humans like I am; we are actually very similar.”
TOE is related to Givat Haviva, a college in northern Israel. It’s one of many few Israeli colleges the place Jews and Arabs study collectively, totally built-in in a single setting. TOE’s curator, Jenan Halabi—a Druze Muslim girl and expert photographer herself—was on the occasion with the kids, her college students.
“Photography allows teenagers to connect because it gives them a shared language beyond words,” Halabi defined. “When they look at each other’s photos, they don’t just see an image, they see a story, a perspective, a piece of someone’s life.”
Over a dozen images embellished the partitions of the exhibit, together with three by Noor, one of many two Arab teenagers. “I wanted to show the idea of hope,” she stated, pointing to her {photograph}. “The red flower symbolizes beauty in the dark. I wanted to make the person understand the feeling without explaining it.”
Shir, one other Jewish teen and Noor’s shut good friend, had an identical thought course of. “It was taken in darkness, just after the war started,” Shir stated of her {photograph}. “I wanted to show how the reality is really dark, but our vision is possible—our vision of peace.”
Forming Friendships
Spectators rigorously explored the exhibit, admiring the images and studying their hooked up quotations. Next to Noor’s {photograph} lay a quote from the late Mahmoud Darwish, an acclaimed Palestinian poet: “We have on this land that which makes life worth living.”
Westchester resident Pamela Faith Lerman and her husband, Bob Gluck, have been organizing this occasion since 2022. One of her targets in bringing TOE to Westchester was “for people to be able to understand that it is indeed possible to learn to not only know people with different religions, culture and experiences, but to become friends with them.”
The planning course of was not straightforward and confronted a significant setback on Oct. 7, 2023, when the fear assaults in Israel struck. Lerman had been scheduled to fulfill with the Shaliach of Westchester (an Israeli emissary) on Oct. 9, 2023. “Of course, that meeting did not happen,” she stated. The occasion took nearly one other two years to come back to fruition.
Givat Haviva’s bridge-building packages had been additionally impacted, together with TOE. According to Halabi, when Givat Haviva resumed programming, leaders initially saved Jewish and Arab teenagers aside earlier than reuniting them. TOE was the exception, the one program that saved individuals collectively from the beginning.
Now in Chappaqua, the kids from Israel bought to fulfill native Westchester teenagers, having fun with pizza, ice cream, and a spherical of icebreakers. Then, everybody moved to the theater for a Q&A session with the kids and Halabi.
The crowd was extremely curious and engaged, asking a wide range of questions and repeatedly breaking into thunderous applause.
Hopefulness
When requested how the struggle impacted the kids’ relationships with each other, Yali stated it allowed him to know the Arab teenagers’ views in a a lot deeper method. “I know the other side much better,” he stated.
“At first, we were mad,” Shir added. “But after a few weeks we understood we have a responsibility to the future of Israel. Jews will stay and Arabs will stay. We have to find a way to talk.”
Similarly, Noor was initially hesitant about this system, however she ended up gaining hope and highly effective friendships.
Another major level of debate was how the kids’ households reacted to their participation in TOE. The teenagers stated they obtained a variety of help from their households, particularly as they realized extra about this system. However, the local weather in Israel just isn’t all the time so encouraging.
Yali shared that a few of his buddies thought he was loopy. Shir recounted explaining TOE to a few of her prejudiced buddies and really managed to vary their minds about Arabs. In a battle the place dehumanization persists on each side, packages like TOE are essential.
“Why wait for the change when you can be the change?” requested Sami, an Arab teen, of the viewers. “I’m telling my Arab community friends about it. They’re very excited about what I’m doing here, so [TOE] is expanding its influence.”
“One photo is worth a thousand words,” Shir remarked—a really becoming expression. “It’s a way to express ourselves, what we experience and feel.”
As we close to two years of brutal struggle, it’s exhausting to see previous the human struggling and despair. But assembly teenagers like these generates hope for the potential for a peaceable future.
Idan Yedid is president of Teens for Peace within the Middle East, a student-led group connecting Israeli and Palestinian youth by means of peacebuilding.
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