Written by Rebecca Bardach // Published in Haaretz on February 4, 2024. Jews and Palestinians are experiencing the horrifying violence engulfing us in different ways. But at my daughter's school, where some families lost relatives living in Gaza, others to October 7, every morning kids and teachers show up, committed…

Written by Eleanor Beardsley // Heard on National Public Radio on January 24, 2024. JERUSALEM — When the bell rings at Jerusalem's Hand in Hand school, you hear something that's not common in Israel: the sound of young people's voices rising together in laughter and conversation in both Hebrew and…

Written by Eleanor Beardsley // Heard on National Public Radio on December 31, 2023. ROB SCHMITZ, HOST: We now take you to a school in Jerusalem where teachers try to keep Palestinian and Jewish students focused on their studies and maybe learn to understand each other a little more. They…

Written by Talya Minsberg // Published in the New York Times on December 31, 2023. In a classroom decorated with Hebrew and Arabic letters, a group of third graders — their eyes closed, their hands placed facing up on their laps — took a deep breath in unison. “And exhale,”…

Written by Simon Schama // Published in the Financial Times on November 10, 2023. History’s default setting is tragic: the plague in Athens; slave ships; Passchendaele; the Gulag; Hiroshima. But while the norm is carnage and suffering, it would be equally unhistorical to let the darkness entirely eclipse small points…

Written by Sally Weale // Published in the Guardian on November 4, 2023. A school in Jerusalem where students from Jewish and Arab backgrounds learn alongside one another has been awarded an international education prize for its success in “overcoming adversity”. The Max Rayne Hand in Hand school, founded in…

Written by Kylie Ora Lobell // Published in the Jewish Journal on February 16, 2023. "Twenty-five years ago, an American Jew named Lee Gordon and a Palestinian citizen of Israel named Amin Khalaf came up with an idea. Though it seemed crazy, they thought it might work to foster peace…

Palestinian-Israeli internet sensation and vlogger 'Nas Daily' recently visited Hand in Hand's Max Rayne Jerusalem school, and spent the day interviewing and filming our students, teachers, and staff. The result is this wonderful video which tells the story of Hand in Hand's unlikely inception, the many obstacles it has faced,…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDqFu8PzPYE Principal of the Kfar Saba school, Mohammad Kundos, spoke with Lucy Aharish and MK Ali Salalha on Israeli channel DemocraTV. Mohammad spoke of the pressures placed on an indigeneous minority such as Arab-Palestinians in Israel to succeed under challenging circumstances, wherein their culture and language are not properly represented…

(Written by Fauzi Abu Toama, published in hadera.mynet.co.il on 9.1.22) Noga Shitrit and Yasmeen Abu-Ful run an integrated Jewish-Arab preschool within the Hand in Hand “Bridge over the Wadi” school. “Students here are taught to treat one another equally, and with tolerance and respect,” they say. Noga Shitrit, a resident…

(Written by Michal Gruber, published on Haipo.co.il, 7.31.22) Over the past 11 years, the Hand in Hand Haifa community has been living out a vision of true coexistence. Haifa is often considered a prime example of coexistence, but is there a real connection between the Muslim, Christian and Jewish residents…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtA3E8dmMNQ Principal of the Hand in Hand Kfar Saba School, Mohamad Kundos, appeared on the Kan11 program “Culture Agent” to discuss some of the differences between Arab and Jewish public schools, and how Hand in Hand schools deal with conflict by leaning into tension, and never shying away from uncomfortable conversations…