Shouts of “We don’t want Arabs in our school” accompanied the return to studies last week of a seventh-grader from the Zilberman High School in Be’er Sheva, leaving no room for any doubt. Nothing has changed since the geography lesson in mid-September, when the girl in question pointed out that innocent people were being killed in Gaza, including children. Even the IDF spokesman would not disagree with that statement – admittedly using the more euphemistic “noncombatants” – but when a 12-year-old girl who wears a hijab says it, and does so in a predominantly right-wing city like Be’er Sheva, anyone involved in the Israeli education system knows that it could quickly lead to disaster. But the teacher left the classroom, leaving the girl alone with dozens of inflamed youths, who surrounded her and chanted “May your village burn,” accused her of supporting Hamas and hurled curses at her. According to her father, it wasn’t until a different teacher heard the commotion and took his daughter to the principal’s office.

The Zilberman High School, which primarily serves children whose parents moved into new apartments with generous government subsidies, also failed in its handling of the aftermath of the incident. When the girl returned to school, after a week of suspension that was “designed to prevent friction between her and the other students,” she was greeted by the same hurtful chants. If teachers had been working during the week-long suspension on a plan to keep the girl safe, as the school claimed in its response to the Education Ministry, it did not appear to have been successful. If teachers worked to educate the other students about their behavior, as the spokesperson for the Education Ministry’s Southern District told the media, it did not have the desired effect. Only one student was suspended for his behavior – and that was only after the second incident. The victim, as mentioned, was suspended immediately.

Given this atmosphere, no one should be surprised by the comments from deputy Be’er Sheva mayor Shimon Tubol, who called on the government to annul the citizenship of the girl and her family and to banish them from the city. “Among our children, new Nukhba terrorists are being raised. We must find new deterrence and heavier punishments.”

Tubol’s boss – mayor Ruvik Danilovich – was silent, even after he was asked to condemn the children’s inflammatory behavior and even after his deputy added even more fuel to the fire. Amnon Yosef, Be’er Sheva municipality’s spokesman, refused to respond to Shomrim’s questions about Danilovich’s silence and about the incident as a whole. Similarly, city hall refused to share data about the number of Arab students studying in the city’s Jewish schools. Yosef brushed off all Shomrim’s questions, telling this reporter to contact the Education Ministry – which responded that it is unable to provide any answers since official data on these matters is collated by the municipality. At first, the Education Ministry said that there were around 700 Arab students in Jewish schools, but later amended that. Based on data from its own transparency website, the ministry said that there were just 117 Arab students, all of them from the Bedouin community, and that around 560 Arab students from Be’er Sheva study in other schools “across the country.”

Be’er Sheva municipality’s spokesman refused to respond to Shomrim’s questions about Danilovich’s silence and about the incident as a whole.

This confusion does not square with what every resident of the city who is familiar with the education system in Be’er Sheva knows: most of the Arab families whose children are integrated into the Jewish education system in the city are actually “northerners” and are not recognized as Bedouin. They moved to the Negev from northern Israel, in search of better education and income. So, where do they appear in this database? The short answer is: They don’t. Moreover, people working in the education system in Be’er Sheva believe that the estimate of 700 Arab students is way below the true number.

According to an informal survey conducted by teachers and other education officials, around 10 percent of students in the city’s elementary schools are Arab. This distribution between the schools is not equal, however, so there is one school where 40 percent of students are Arab and there are schools where there are only a handful of Arab students, if any at all. Only city hall, as mentioned, knows the real figures – and officials there are wary of publishing them, apparently out of concern that the 67 percent of residents who voted for coalition parties in the last election will not look kindly on the demographic processes the city is experiencing. 

“Be’er Sheva is one of the new mixed cities, along with Nof Galil and Carmiel,” says Ron Gerlitz, CEO of the aChord Center.

“If I were to say this to Ruvik Danilovich, he would kick me out of his office, but Be’er Sheva is one of the new mixed cities, along with Nof Galil and Carmiel,” says Ron Gerlitz, CEO of the aChord Center, which provides collaborative projects aimed at promoting equality between Jews and Arabs. “Set aside the traditional mixed cities of Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Acre, Jaffa and Jerusalem and you’ll see that in these three cities there is the largest proportion of Arabs. This naturally increases the proportion of Arab students in the Hebrew education system. In normal times, this poses a challenge in terms of language and culture; on days of national celebration and during times of military escalation, it’s even more complex. And the bad news is that, unlike the labor market and academia, where work is being done – even if it’s not perfect – and there are incentives for making it work, in the education system, the issue is not being dealt with at all.”

Do the municipalities running these mixed cities not offer any kind of incentive to encourage integration?

“None. They do not want to give Arab families, who in any case have moved to the city for a better income and because of housing shortages in Arab communities, the added incentive of education.”

The mayor was as mute as a fish’

The events at the Zilberman High School reverberated not only through the school but through the city of Be’er Sheva itself, on social media and in WhatsApp groups – and in real life. “Arab students were afraid to come to school after that incident and anyone who did show up had insults hurled at them,” says Shehada Ibn Beri, the attorney representing the girl’s family. “Another [Arab] girl had her backpack taken. When she couldn’t find it, the whole class laughed at her and she left in tears. She later found her bag – missing some of her possessions – and went home. There was another boy who left school after he was teased and only returned because his mother went to the principal to complain. 

How did the school treat the girl you are representing?

“The middle school principal came to visit her at home, asked if she was afraid to return to school, and hinted that it might be better for the girl to switch schools. Instead of addressing the incident, they focused on fears and concerns so that the decision to leave would come from the family. There's no doubt the teacher failed to handle the situation properly. When the girl asked for her help with the other students, the teacher responded, "What did you expect them to do?" and walked away. Even in the follow-up conversation with the students, harsh remarks were made again. But who’s to say this won’t happen at another school in the city? The problem lies with the system, which isn’t doing enough to fight this racism, and with the mayor, who stays silent. All he talks about are new fountains in the city.” The city spokesperson, as mentioned, refused to comment.

“Arab students were afraid to come to school after that incident and anyone who did show up had insults hurled at them."

In Be’er Sheva, coexistence between Jews and Arabs is more complex than it appears. The Arab residents of the city can roughly be divided between the “northerners,” who came to study at Ben-Gurion University or to find work in the Negev. They are seen as a liberal and educated group, among whom there are engineers, physicians, pharmacists and teachers. For the most part, they enroll their children in state-run schools in the city.

“What sets Be’er Sheva apart from other mixed cities,” according to Dr. Natalie Levy, a postdoctoral student from the Politics and Government Faculty at Ben-Gurion University, whose thesis focuses on mixed Jewish-Arab schools, “is that the Arabs studying in the city come from a higher socioeconomic grouping and are generally more educated than the Jewish students at those schools. In Be’er Sheva, it is not even certain how many Arab residents there are in the city – and that’s also part of the story. No matter how hard you search, you won’t find that information.”

Compared to the “northerners,” the Bedouin residents from the Negev communities who moved to the city as part of a government program, are considered more conservative. Some of them enroll their children in neighborhood school but the more religious among them send them on buses to schools in Rahat and Tel Sheva, to preserve their modesty and traditions.

There are buses every morning to the schools in Tel Sheva," says a veteran educator observing the movement of buses. "It's unclear how much of it is by choice and how much the municipality is pushing them into it, because it's easier to fund transportation to another town than to deal with underprivileged families whose native language is not Hebrew.

Has there been any work done with the children who do study in the city in terms of Coexistence?

“Based on my conversations with teams of educators in the city, it’s my understanding that they are all in the same boat. There are no tools, no systemic plan and no motivation. So, they take something from the Pedagogical Managerial Flexibility plan which deals with ‘I am the other,’ but when ‘the other’ comes from a different religion and national identity – that’s the red line. The ‘other’ in this case refers to the gulf between the religious and secular camps. Arab students remain transparent as far as their needs are concerned and their struggle with their complex identities as Arabs in Israel – and at a time of war.”

‘This isn’t the time to be right; it’s the time to shut up’

The extremism that followed the events of October 7th has also been experienced by the children of one physician from the Negev. “Someone said to my son that all Arabs are terrorists and murderers. He said that’s not true and asked the teacher to intervene,” The father tells Shomrim. “Instead of helping, the teacher told him – in front of the whole class – that they were right. We approached the School’s guidance counselor and told her that we are a normative family and that my wife and I both work in professions that serve the community. How can something like that happen? She said that she would talk to the teacher and that the situation was tense.”

“Even before the war, it wasn’t easy,” one of the mothers says. “But in the past year, whenever my child went to school with new shoes or new clothes, the other kids would say things like, ‘Did you get them from Rafah, you stinking Arab?’ They tell him to go to Gaza and say that he supports Hamas. I told the teacher, ‘This can’t be happening. We lost a relative on October 7th, too.’ And she said, ‘I’m not making any accusation, I’m just saying that the situation is sensitive and it’s important that children are careful about what they say.’ My son is careful, but he’s only a child and when he finds himself in a situation he does not know how to deal with, he becomes angry.”

How did the incident at the Zilberman High School affect you?

“We thought about not sending our kids to school or maybe waiting a few days. In the end, we sent them with instructions not to respond to anything. I can’t understand how the teacher creates this kind of discourse in the classroom, when there are children in the school who have relatives in Gaza. Can’t she see the distress they are experiencing? It also saddens me that, instead of remembering that people from the Bedouin community rescued Jews from the music festival and the kibbutzim, when I go to pick up my kid from school I see a Jewish mother looking at me and telling her friend, ‘I used to think it was safe to send the children to school, even when there were rockets. Now I’m not so sure.’ On the positive side, the incident has united the Arab children. I saw that when a Bedouin boy spoke to my son in Arabic,my son replied in Arabic – even though he is usually ashamed to speak Arabic at school.”

Is there any alternative?

“What future will there be for my children if I send them to study in the Bedouin communities in the Negev? What opportunities will that present them in life? They already speak and write better Hebrew than Arabic. So, I explain to them that, just like there are bad Arabs and good Arabs, there are good Jews and bad Jews – and that this isn’t the time to be right; it’s the time to shut up.”

Many of the Arab families we spoke to have chosen the option of shutting up. Many of them were afraid to be identified by name, over concerns that it could impact negatively on their children, who are already walking on eggshells. “After the Zilberman incident,” says one mother, a teacher herself, “my son said to me ‘That girl’s parents did not raise her right, like you raise me’.”

What did he mean by ‘raised me right’?

“To shut up. I told my children just to agree with whatever the Jewish kids in school said. At home you can talk freely, because no one can take away our identity, but when you’re outside you don’t have an opinion – otherwise we will be persecuted. On Memorial Day for fallen soldiers, they go to school because I don’t want any headaches. Ask me how it feels to be an Arab kid whose narrative has been erased standing for the siren. It does not generate any sense of belonging, but he’ll stand for as long as needed. The discourse will happen at home.”

It does not sound like you are happy to live this way.

“This is the discourse that I – as an opinionated mother, who believes in democracy and has never been afraid to express her opinions – am inculcating in my children now. Does this mean that I am also a victim of racism? Absolutely. My children and I are paying an emotional price in order not to be who we are. I do not want my children to say a single word about peace – and not because they come from a radical and extremist home. I was raised in a political home which believed in coexistence. The problem is that the word ‘peace’ has now become a dirty word.”

Did you encourage them to be silent less before the war?

“The sense of being in a minority and differentness always accompanied my children at school. My son once came home crying because he had spoken in Arabic to a classmate he was working on a project with, and the teacher told him it was forbidden. When I suggested to him that he organize a class project about healing plants from Palestinian cuisine, which is our specialty at home, he said that he does not want to use the word Palestine in the classroom. And you have to understand: I praised him for that, because I realized that he remembered what I had taught him better than me, who made the proposal in the first place. Then I suggested saying ‘from Arab cuisine,’ because, after all, it’s just plants. He said, ‘I don’t want to use that word either.’ 

‘It’s like a bubble bursting in your face’

Anyone who adopted a more militant approach and filed complaints about hurtful behavior in the aftermath of October 7 did not get the impression that authorities dealt seriously with the issue. “When hurtful comments about Arabs reached my son’s class,” says the mother of one high-schooler, “that was the breaking point for me. To hear his classmates, who have known him for years, saying that none of the Arabs can be trusted because they are all terrorists – that was extremely hard for me.

“The teacher said that we must not make generalizations and, at our request, had another conversation with the class, but the message did not seem to get through. We are not judging the children; we’re judging the education that they get at home and at school. We noticed that children who came as a mixed group from the bilingual school manage to deal better with these situations, and with integration in general, because their Jewish friends stand up for them and they are used to the differentness of the Arab students because their friendship shows everyone that it’s natural.”

Did you think twice about sending your children to a Jewish school because of things like this?

“I never imagined that we would get to a situation like this. It’s like a bubble that bursts in your face. My children have been in Jewish frameworks since they were little; their Jewish friends came to our house and our children went to theirs. We are not part of a group or an organized community of Arabs, even though recent events will probably bring us together to give our children support.”

All in all, just 1.3 percent of Arab students in Israel studied in mixed schools in 2023, according to a report published in April by the Knesset Research and Information Center. This follows a 60 percent increase in the number of Arab students studying in Hebrew schools over the past decade: in 2014, there were 3.336 Arab students, while in 2023, there were 5,399 across Israel – half of whom studied in mixed cities. Be’er Sheva, incidentally, does not appear in that report.

“This is happening in mixed communities, for two main reasons,” according to Dr. Sharaf Hassan, the chairman of the Follow-up Committee on Arab Education. “One is that there is no educational framework in the community for the Arab residents, as is the case in Nof Hagalil, where Arab families have to decide between sending their children to an Arab school in Nazareth or a Jewish school in Nof Hagalil. And the second reason is the desire of Arab families to give their children a better education. The problem is that the schools are not equipped to deal with this multiculturalism and have not internalized their responsibility toward Arab children – especially during times of crisis. The plans that the Education Ministry adopts to tackle racism are not always chosen by mixed schools. That is seen as swimming against the tide – and why get into trouble? You could end up being called in for a disciplinary hearing.”

“in 42 state-run Jewish schools, more than 5 percent of the students are Arab. In half of these schools, the proportion of Arab students is higher than 10 percent."

According to Adi Gilboa, the director of Educational Programming at Merchavim, the Institute for the Advancement of Shared Citizenship in Israel, “in 42 state-run Jewish schools, more than 5 percent of the students are Arab. In half of these schools, the proportion of Arab students is higher than 10 percent. Arab parents want their children to learn a high level of Hebrew and to get a better education than the one offered by the Arab education system, so that they will be better equipped to integrate into Israeli society when they are older. And parents of Arab children with learning disabilities or attention disorders send their children to Jewish schools the moment they can, since they know they will be better treated there.”

Does it not add to the frustration for students with learning difficulties to study in a school that teaches in two languages?

"This is truly complex. The linguistic difficulty is present not only among those with learning disabilities, and what’s frustrating is that the schools aren’t entitled to the resources that could help these children overcome the gap. Immigrant students receive a resource package from the state, but Arab students, whose language challenges are similar to those of immigrants, are not recognized as eligible for such support. Principals are seeking creative ways to navigate this, not just because they ultimately have to meet the same standardized tests as everyone else. I met a principal who decided that the emotional support hours provided to some of these children would be delivered by Arabic-speaking therapists, in order to enhance their sense of a safe space."

You are conducting pilot schemes in four schools across Israel. That barely covers 10 percent of the mixed schools.

“It’s a start. Up until now, these schools were not seen as schools that needed to be addressed separately. And despite the fact that many of these schools have similar characteristics, such as students from the poorer economic stratum – which is also made up of other large identity groups, such as Russian speakers or the children of refugees – these schools do not help each other, which creates a great sense of isolation. We want to introduce peer learning and teach them to respond fairly to all identities. And, at the same time, to safeguard the school’s identity as a state-run Jewish school. That is not a bilingual identity.”

‘Get your terrorists out of here’

Jewish schools with at least 5% Arab students are referred to in the research literature as "incidentally integrated," since the circumstances in mixed cities led to this integration, unlike the ideological foundation behind bilingual schools. Dr. Levy views them as "an anomalous phenomenon. Jewish parents feel it was forced upon them—they didn’t want an integrated school but ended up with one. Arab parents chose it because they believe that Hebrew education will be better for their child, but there is no structured program to fulfill their expectations, as this category is too small for the Ministry of Education."

You sound pessimistic.

“There is a price for sending your children to a school where they will be in a minority – and, moreover, a minority that is seen as hostile, especially during a time of war. These schools exist in a complete pedagogical vacuum. They contain the weakest groups in Israeli society, they are dealing with profound educational and cultural problems and are not getting any help – all of which creates a great deal of frustration on all sides. The only thing that keeps these schools open is the high proportion of Jewish students. Schools which reached the level of 70 percent Arabs will eventually close, because that means that the Jewish population has left the community and it will become hard for the Jewish education system to supervise it.”

"The only thing that keeps these schools open is the high proportion of Jewish students. Schools which reached the level of 70 percent Arabs will eventually close."

Gilboa has first-hand knowledge of the issue. “One principal told me that a mother, whose two older children were enrolled at her school, didn’t want to enroll her youngest child for first grade at the same school because next year half of the students would be Arabs. Some parents enroll their children in religious schools to ensure that they don’t have Arab classmates.”

The conflict comes to a head around Memorial Day, the issue of IDF recruitment and when children study Israel’s War of Independence. One Arab girl who studied in a Jewish school told Shomrim, “I used to stand up for the siren, but I did not sing the national anthem, and I did not put one of the ‘In Memoriam’ stickers on my shirt. In 12th grade, the teacher decided that I have to have one of the stickers and made a big deal of it in front of the whole class. In the end, I was sent home. I do not regret studying there, but it was hard when the Jewish students always expected me to take a side and couldn’t understand that I am caught between the two sides. In history lessons, the teacher talked about ‘the Land of Israel before 1948,’ and I argued with him and said, ‘Just call it Palestine.’ When I wrote Palestine on one of the tests, he docked me points.”

“On Holocaust Memorial Day, we stand for the siren,” another woman, who moved from northern Israel, tells Shomrim. “But not on Memorial Day for fallen soldiers. I prefer not to send them to school on that day, to avoid friction. At my son’s 10th-grade end-of-year ceremony, I sat in the audience and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They put on a show about how the land was empty, nothing but sand, until the Jews came and built it. If the land was empty, who exactly were you fighting? There were people here, but you don’t even recognize them. When I talked to the teacher about it, she just said that’s how it appears in the curriculum.”

Do they teach Arabic at the school?

"My daughter chose the Arabic track in high school, only to discover that they mainly study military Arabic. She thought they would teach her literature and poetry and couldn’t understand why they were shown a film about how the Mossad assassinated Abu Jihad. What does that have to do with tenth graders? The texts had a military focus or were at the level of second grade.

The father of another high school student says, 'So far, everything is fine, maybe because my daughter doesn’t look Arab, and her name isn’t distinctly Arabic. But I warned her—the country is becoming more extreme. Don’t get involved in any discussion, because no one will protect you.'"

The problem is especially acute at these ages, when awareness increases, is it not?

“Not always. My three-year-old twins argued with another toddler in kindergarten over a toy. The toddler’s father told my wife, ‘Get your terrorists out of here’ – and the teacher said nothing. I work at Soroka Medical Center. On October 7th, I rushed to the hospital. It’s sad that we are perceived this way.”

There are some parents who, precisely because of this conflict, prefer to give their children an Arabic education. One of them is Sliman Al-Amour, the CEO of AJEEC-NISPED, which is dedicated to promoting the socio-economic development of the Negev Bedouin community and partnership between Arabs and Jews across Israel. “I took the decision not to send my children to mixed schools,” he says. “I wanted them first of all to find their identities in their natural place, in their own community and only once they are older let them start to join the shared community. It is possible to hold meetings between Jewish and Arab students in middle school and high school, but mixed Arab-Jewish schools, in my opinion, do more harm than good.”

The mother quoted above as being outraged by the content of her son’s end-of-year presentation, however, has no regrets. “Being educated among Jews actually empowers our identity. It is true that the parents need to put in the work. In households where they don’t, the children suddenly do not want to speak Arabic and want to be called by a Jewish name that’s close to their original name.”

Would you expect them to work on that identity in school?

“You know that civics program called ‘I am the other’? It should be called ‘I am the other as long as I’m Jewish.’ That is what happens with these programs. A substitute teacher was sent to my son’s class one day, and he asked my son his name. He thought that my son was being cheeky when he replied with his Arabic name – and threw him out of the class. Because he ‘doesn’t look like an Arab’.”

Are things more relaxed outside of school hours?

“I once took my son and his Jewish friend to soccer practice. The friend told me that he hates Ronaldo because he supports the Palestinian people. My son looked at me in the mirror, saw that I didn’t say anything and also remained silent. I could have said something, but you never know how the kid’s parents will react and what it could lead to.”

Are there no Jews who have become more tolerant thanks to mixed schools?

“My daughter’s friend, who served at the checkpoints in the army, said that because she knew an Arab family, she knew how to speak with them and was less afraid. If a soldier at a checkpoint says something unpleasant, she tells people in Arabic to relax. It’s not easy when they start to grow up and their Jewish friends start preparing for the army. My son didn’t want to go to lessons and field trips that had anything to do with the army. And then he organized a party for a Jewish friend of his and it was only on the day of the party that I realized it was actually a recruitment party. I told him to tell his friend that if she has to shoot, aim for the legs, not the head or the heart.”