Sometimes a place evokes a memory, I recently attended a ceremony to commemorate the 46th anniversary of the peace agreement with Egypt – on the same week that the historic agreement was signed, March 26, 1979. It was a civilian ceremony at Paris Square in Jerusalem, a place that also holds a deep personal memory for me as a Jerusalem native.
I was a 9-year-old girl at the time.
I remember how we stood, all the students of the “Beit Hayeled” elementary school, on the the sidewalk – close to the Prime Minister’s Mansion and the President’s Mansion . And there in front of us, with tearful excitement, we watched Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin pass in official cars accompanied by a motorcade, and the streets were filled with boys and girls and neighbors, all with festive smiles waving small flags.
It was a holiday celebration – a holiday for peace.
That morning we left the classroom proudly, got ready, dressed festively (I think we wore blue and white and ‘tembel’ hats, remember those?) – it was a seminal event in the education system, we learned about peace and celebrated the agreement that would bring an end to wars, that’s what we believed as children. We were excited and we believed.
I tried to recreate the experience through AI, I hope it conveys the message
And here I am returning to the same place, this time as a woman with multiple hats and roles, as an educator, as a researcher and as the founder of the blog/website Dialog Together – participating in the ceremony marking the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, a sustainable peace that has lasted 46 years.
The ceremony, led by the “Teach Peace” initiative, was attended by representatives from various organizations; the Standing Together movement, the Mizrahi Civic Collective, the Time is Now initiative, Women Wage Peace and more.
Speaker Shira Vizel, a leader of the Time is Now Initiative
The messages about partnership – Jewish-Arab, civic, educational – and about educating for taking responsibility, stood out particularly among the moving speeches.
I met teachers from the activist pedagogy community that I lead at the ceremony, and I was so happy.
Ofra Leibowitz, a respected Jerusalem teacher and member of the activist pedagogy community, spoke at the ceremony about education in an intimidating time, and chose to look anew at the events of the Book of Esther. She pointed to King Ahasuerus’ moments of hesitation regarding Haman’s proposal to destroy an entire people – at first the king did not agree, but Haman convinced him with ten thousand units of silver that would go to the king’s treasury. The agreement to destroy the Jews was accepted, but it is written, “And the city of Shushan was embarrassed.” That is, this embarrassment, she said, belongs to anyone who lives in a shared city, multi-cultural, and does not understand the mechanisms of hatred and destruction.
In the same breath, Ofra suggested channeling pain into partnering for moral action.
The speech by Aya Khatib from the “Standing Together” movement touched me in particular. Aya shared her experience on this special day as an Arab in Israel and the hope that marking this event creates for her. All this echoed for me the notion of educating for an alternative option – important voices connecting identity, values, and action to the perception of partnership and a future for life.
Aya Khatib
This experience sharpened my understanding that ceremonies to commemorate peace agreements are a moral, educational, pedagogical, activist action.
I don’t think we should compare types of ceremonies. Each of them has a time and place. But in political education we ask questions about the obvious, for example, which ceremonies are held regularly in the education system, and which ceremonies are not held? For example, is a ceremony to mark a peace agreement different from teaching a lesson about the peace agreement? Is it possible to add ceremonies in school to mark important days like the one we experienced together here in the square, alongside those already part of our calendar?
In light of my experience with this public civilian ceremony, and in my educational role, I’d suggest:
Find out about adding ceremonies to the classroom, such as ceremonies to mark peace agreements.
If it is not possible to hold a ceremony in a structured and school-based manner, you can have even a short moment of discourse or a brief ceremony that the class itself sets up. You don’t need much. Just the desire to see this as another part of the educational process and most importantly, to involve the students by selecting ceremonies together, and deciding on how to organize them.
Conclusion Image
I will end with the words of Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1977 in his welcoming speech to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in Jerusalem:
“Many nations have waged war against one another, and sometimes they have made use of the foolish term “eternal enemy.” There are no eternal enemies. After all wars comes the inevitable – peace.”
And with the image from the newspaper “Ha’olam Hazeh” issue 2169, from 1979, “Here comes peace” was written on this special day and brings tears to my eyes and the yearning for being a 9 year-old in Jerusalem… waving my little flag with great excitement and hope…
An Image from Ha’olam Hazeh Archive, Issue 2169
