THE TABEETHA SCHOOL

THE CHILDREN'S SCHOOL IN ISRAEL - THE TABEETHA SCHOOL

The children have had the most amazing time at the small, 330 student, K-12, English speaking school here in Jaffa, named the Tabeetha School.  It is the only Church of Scotland school in the world and was bequeathed by Jane Walker-Arnott, who established the school in 1863.

The front gate of Tabeetha

The beautiful oasis in Jaffa that is Tabeetha School.

The graffiti and ugly wall hide the oasis that lies inside....

Jane Walker-Arnott who established the Tabeetha school and bequeathed it to the Church of Scotland.

Although they only spent a term at Tabeetha, our children's experience at this school has changed them forever.  Brigid remains in daily contact with her friends from Tabeetha who are a mix of Christian and Muslims from Israel, Mexico, Guatemala - countries far and wide.  The children greatly enjoyed being in a co-ed environment, to the point where Brigid struggled coming back to an all-girls school.  Dario was the only one who found his time at Tabeetha a bit difficult, from having to study both Hebrew and Arabic to the challenges of  many of his classmates speaking Hebrew or Arabic in the playground.  Having said that, Dario became very close friends with a German boy, Sebastian, who mother was from Peru and his father from Germany.  Dario and Conor also greatly enjoyed the wild soccer sessions two afternoons a week, playing on Tabeetha's hard courts.  With such a mix of cultures, you can only imagine how amusing it was to hear the many and varied languages and enjoy the different cultural responses to scoring a goal.

While the children were at Tabeetha, the BBC came in and filmed a news story about the school and it's place in Israel.  It's a delightful recording for the children to cherish and provides beautiful examples of a place in Israel where Jews, Muslims and Christians are working alongside each other to explore each other's religions and cultural understandings.  In the video you see Mohammed, a Muslim boy, lighting the Hanukkah candles and reciting the prayers in Hebrew.  It's worth watching:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-35128143

The BBC reporter writes: "I would be unlikely to ask what religion a child is in the UK. It's unlikely it would matter. In Israel, it's entwined in their lives and ingrained in the school curriculum."

As much as we have experienced great kindness and good will as Catholics in this wonderful country, many Christians in the Holy Land experience significant discrimination and, in some areas, persecution.  One such example of discrimination is that funding for Christian schools has dropped from 75% to 29% in recent years.  The number of Christians now in Israel sits at only 158,000, which represents 2% of the population.  There has been a mass exodus of Christians from, not only Israel, but the whole of the Middle East.  In 1947, Christians living in Bethlehem made up 85% of the population.  Today the Christian population in Bethlehem sits at 10%.  In the Gaza Strip, the Christian population is down to an estimated 1,250 in a population of 1.7 million.  The exodus of Christians from Gaza accelerated after Hamas came to power in 2007, when Gaza had nearly three times as many Christians.

We wish to thank the many wonderful people who made our time at Tabeetha School so special, from the Roger family to Pam Gilboa to Tina Goldfarb to Mr Albert Odeh to all the very special teachers the children had, including their form teachers, Miss Eve Singerman for Dario, Miss Yelena Ismalova for Conor, Mrs Trish Izchaki for Marcus and Mr Greg John for Brigid.  I feel compelled to make special mention of Mrs Linda Rosenthal, who was the older children's art teacher and who gave them the most wonderful experience of expressing themselves creatively.  Thank you!