After the murder of Rami Haba, the boy from Elon Moreh who was abducted and murdered, there was great unrest. In my son's class, fifth grade, they talked about it for a few days, all the teachers talked to the students and let them express their feelings.
In the "Young Reporters" class that my son attended, under the guidance of author Naomi Frenkel, the children were asked to write. Each wrote an essay that was later published in the Inbal newspaper in Kiryat Arba. (The accuracy of the details is mine, Zvi Jr.) I really enjoyed my son's talent for expression, I did not know he was so talented in expression, but from the content of things I was completely shocked.
My son started the article with emotion, with the fact that he remembers the boy from his visits to Elon Moreh and that he once played with him. Feeling so terrible. Slowly, like a snowball, the article goes on to say that we should do justice to the murderers and the last sentence was that just as the Germans did to us, so should we be with the Arabs.
I told my son to take it off fast. It is bread for the media to publish that this is what a child from Kiryat Arba wrote. It is also terrible and horrible, but really out of a storm of emotions it is hard not to think such things and not feel it.
All this after I try ... well maybe it's not evidence because maybe I'm a bad educator, but still, I give an example that with all my efforts at home to separate very very very and explain that not all Arabs are bad, there are terrorists and should be judged, but there are also Simple Arabs and here in Hebron, which is not a city that is famous for its love of Israel in terms of the Arab population, and yet I see and know that the majority are not haters of Israel.
I am not involved in the life of the Arab community in Hebron, but you see that there are haters of Israel and there are many, many simple Arabs who really all they want is for there to be no curfew, so that they can sell their goods and go home to their family, to their television. It's with a very familial. They are not nationalistic by nature.
But after all this simple effort, noticing these simple distinctions, nonetheless out of a storm of emotions is something that is very difficult to educate to understand, especially as in stressful situations.
In general, in the people of Israel today, it is possible to exaggerate on the other side as well, like crazy people. There are lunatics who every time there is an attack, feel sorry for the poor Arabs. There is also such a reaction out of alienation from the people and the feelings of the people.
It is difficult to portray the character of Judah. It is difficult but to some extent it needs to be illuminated, when teaching children need to develop it a bit. One should constantly strive not to be nervous, not in confrontation with the children, but to always drip the love of man and the love of all man. Also the love of the Gentiles all.
I did not get upset about my son too much after this article because I understand it, he does not have that discretion, he is also in a lively atmosphere. This is the instinctive 'as if' response. I am not fighting frontally, only between us in the family I talk about it.
When a child begins to hate the Arabs, it is difficult for him to hear such a thing, however, one should be very much in love with the whole person.
Rabbi Eli Horowitz
Teaching instruction at Elon Moreh
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