Steve

Hannaton Educational Center – Activism Starts with Awareness

By Steve

Posted on February 2, 2016

At the Hannaton Educational Center, we aim to provide a rich connection to Judaism for Israelis and a dynamic experience of Israel for Diaspora Jews to help realize our vision of a more democratic and egalitarian Israel.

We believe that the future of Israeli society is in the hands of tomorrow’s Jewish leaders. In order to be a leading force in changing or improving the Jewish state, these young adults need to be provided safe spaces for serious dialogue about Zionism and ongoing opportunities to meaningfully connect to Israel’s land and people.

13.1

Our Mission
The Hannaton Educational Center is a formal learning community and leadership institute situated on Kibbutz Hannaton in the Lower Galilee, Israel. Our mission is to create an Israeli society that welcomes diversity – both political and religious – and embraces people regardless of beliefs, background, gender or sexual preference. We fulfill this mission through our four main educational leadership programs focused on informing, engaging, and nourishing tomorrow’s Jewish leaders: the Hannaton Mechina, the Mitzpeh BaGalil GAP year program, the Midrasha, and the Institute for Jewish Leadership for Rabbis and Lay Leaders. Affiliated with the Masorti Movement, the Center is a place where experiential, creative, and formal education intersect in life-changing ways.

Hannaton Educational Center – Activism Starts with Awareness

Hannaton Educational Center – Activism Starts with Awareness

Activism Starts with Awareness

For months at the beginning of their year-long program, the Hannaton Mechina participants live in a bit of a bubble – a protected, supportive and nurturing environment. This is intentional as a means of building community, of giving them the opportunity to first get to know each other before getting to know better the world around them.But, as in life, part of the growth process here at the mechina includes being exposed to truths elsewhere, to become aware of and alert to the hardships of many of Israel’s citizens. Recently, mechina students received a very real and often shocking introduction to the difficulties of others when they traveled to Tel Aviv for a social activism-focused trip. There, they met change makers and leaders who have dedicated their lives to fixing what they consider broken in our society.

The aim of the program, which started not in Tel Aviv, but in Ginossar, on the northern shore of the Kinneret, is not to shock, but rather to open up the students’ eyes. Indeed, as the group completed a two-day seminar on critical thinking at the Yigal Alon center in Ginossar and moved on to Tel Aviv, some Mechina students were truly startled by realities they’d only heard about before, but never seen.

“We were sitting outside of the Tel Aviv bus station, gathering to begin our day,” recalled Noam, a Mechina participant on the committee responsible for planning the program “Right next to us, two homeless men took out needles and shot themselves up with something. None of us had ever seen anything like that.”

Noam explained that the goal of the program, in the opinion of the committee, was to “change people’s awareness, to show them the outside world.” One way, he said, was to purposefully observe the problems that exist in society, learn what others are doing to improve the situation and then try to figure out what each of us has to contribute to fixing what’s wrong.

“This is a special project of the mechina,” says Itai Capsuto, director of the mechina. “At this point, they’ve successfully established themselves as a cohesive group, with all of the accompanying advantages and challenges living and studying in close quarters brings. Now, they’re ready for us to show them the larger world out there whose problems are bigger than they can imagine. This program gets them to think about what kind of contribution they’re ready to make as leaders in the larger community.”

In Tel Aviv, mechina participants spent time in the Givat Amal neighborhood, where they met with residents who are fighting to protect their homes from real estate giants who want to purchase land to build expensive high-rises, leaving the current residents with no place to live. Later, students met journalist and activist Tomer Avital, at left, who talked about his investigative project, “100 days of Transparency” which demands transparency and accountability from Knesset members. As the week continued, they heard from representatives from Hand in Hand (which promotes Arab-Jewish education and community life), and “Project Venus” (which creates an economy focused on technology and science in order to improve quality of life and the environment). Mechina students also explored the Tel Aviv bus station and its surroundings, meeting refugees from Africa seeking asylum, and others involved in helping fight drugs and prostitution.

Gal Uchovsky, a journalist and commentator on Israeli culture presented them with a history of the gay community in Israel and their struggle for equal rights. Ori Shnitzer took them on a tour of the Florentine neighborhood, where they studied graffiti, learning that it is not only an art form, but a means of coping with the many dilemmas facing Israeli society – security, racism, religion and state. Mechina students also met with representatives from the organization Shaharit, which is working to break down traditional barriers between groups and encourage and prepare 120 individuals from a variety of backgrounds to become members of Knesset.

Noam summed up the week: “It was emotionally challenging, but we leaned on each other for support. This is where we really understand ‘the group’ and working together. We finished the program, though, with a sense of hope – as if we might be able to solve some of the problems we were witness to. There are so many people already out there making a difference. We came away wanting to know more and do more.”

Teaching Judaism in Israel – Age of Mitzvah

In Israel, schools are often divided according to religion or ethnicity. Typically this means most children are sent to either a “religiously-observant” Jewish school (usually Orthodox), a non-religious Jewish school (secular), or an Arab school. As in other countries, Israel is also host to a number of private alternative schools such as democratic, Waldorf, or mixed Arab-Jewish schools.

Many outside of Israel are surprised to learn about the way religion is or is not incorporated into the educational curriculum in state-sponsored schools in the Jewish state. On the one hand, those used to a strict division between religion and state (as is the law in the U.S.) are surprised to discover how religiously-observant “public” schools in Israel incorporate prayer practices into daily school schedules and curriculum. Others, however, are taken aback to learn that students in the Jewish state who attend secular schools may indeed learn about Jewish holidays and traditions, but are not formally taught or given opportunities to practice prayer rituals.

Despite the availability of options, there is a challenge that arises here that the Hannaton Educational Center seeks to address with one of our programs: Age of Mitzvah. The Age of Mitzvah program, geared towards sixth graders approaching bar or bat mitzvah age is a rare opportunity for Jewish students who do not attend Orthodox schools to learn about and have access to meaningful opportunities for prayer practice and ritual.

Alona Rozenfeld, who heads the program, emphasizes the impacts she’s seen introducing otherwise-secular Jewish young people to a pluralistic, egalitarian approach to Jewish learning and practice. “It’s amazing what happens when these children recognize what’s available to
them through a deeper, closer understanding of the Torah and its commandments. Suddenly, they connect to their religion in a whole new, very personal way.” In particular, she notes, girls who did not realize they could and should read from Torah are emboldened and empowered once taught and given the opportunity. Boys, on the other hand, she says, particularly respond to the modern interpretations of the commandments and how they can be employed in our daily lives to better serve our local and global communities.

The Age of Mitzvah program, which began in 2012 (in cooperation with the TALI Educational Fund), is a two-day seminar implemented through a circuit of experiential classrooms and outdoor nature stations, which inform and engage the participants in egalitarian Jewish prayer, rituals, and values. The day typically kicks off and ends with a discussion on “what does it mean to be a Jew.” Not surprisingly, the answers shift from the beginning of the first day until the close of the second.

Interactive workshops include examination of Jewish symbols and ritual objects (such as the mezuzah, tefillin, the talliet, and tzitzit), ethics, and responsibility. The children – both girls and boys – have the opportunity to put on tefillin and make tztitzit for themselves. A community dinner is followed by a joyful mock-Kabbalat Shabbat experience with song and musical instruments. Storytelling is also incorporated, as well as an introduction to women leaders in Judaism. The experience ends with a hike up and tour of nearby Tel Hanaton for a concluding ceremony.