Artwork from Arab and Israeli children proves that – Latest News
Kids know: Time for peace
Shalom. A one-word Hebrew prayer that means peace. That’s even when the adults can’t carry it about within the Middle East. Maybe some day — quickly day — it could come out of the mouth of babes.
Long back a first attempt to affix Arab and Israeli children — from either side of the border — resulted in 105 authentic work. It introduced in 105 authentic canvasses. All had one theme — brotherhood.
How do I do know? I reported on it in 1968. The then-international chairman of the Cultural Center for Youth in Jerusalem — named Dorothy Silverstein — defined it to me: “Arab and Israeli children had been thrown collectively in shelters during the Six-Day War. Immediately after, August 1967, Israel’s minister of schooling conceived the concept for these future world leaders to then sit aspect by aspect in an ambiance of love.
“Museums in Haifa, Nazareth, Tel Aviv opened doors to a thousand Jewish and Arabic youngsters — ages 7 to 14 — brought together for the first time in harmony in 20 years. They were given paint pots and invited to sketch, draw, paint on the subject of peace.”
Israel’s then Consul General Mike Arnon: “At the initial meeting there was no mention of communication through common language. But some inner impulse drove one little girl from the Jordanian village of Beit Safafa to place herself shyly next to another little girl who’d spent her whole eight years of life in a kibbutz.”
Tentative indicators of communication slowly started. Forms, designs, paint spots appeared aspect by aspect. Alongside some dome-capped Arab home appeared a red-roofed Jewish home with a smiling face on the window. The Tel Aviv Shalom Tower subsequent to a bedouin tent.
The works, at one time proven in NYC, included the portray “Friendship.” An Arab little one behind a palm tree, Hebrew little one behind one other — palms prolonged in friendship.
Another, an 11-year-old boy in Judea’s hills, barbed wire rolled up, weapons laid down, people exchanging flowers. Another, a teen in Arab headdress breaking bread along with his Jewish good friend wrapped in a prayer scarf.
When the gathering was proven in Jerusalem, Hebrew’s phrase “Shalom” on one wall, on one other the Arabic phrase for peace, “Salaam.”
And a blessing on their heads — mazel tov, mazel tov.
Listen, some of this peace might be used proper right here. What New York City may use proper now could be a slogan to our flesh pressers to remain sincere: “Make laws — not license plates.”
