Bilingual Schools in Israel

Bilingual integrated Palestinian-Jewish schools in Israel are a bold and innovative initiative by a relatively small group of people who seek to make a difference in the education of children living in an area characterized by an intractable conflict.

The first bilingual school was created in 1984 at the Neve Shalom Village outside Jerusalem, the only integrated Palestinian-Jewish village in Israel to date. The Center for Arab-Jewish Education in Israel, a nongovernmental organization, was established in 1997 to create a fully egalitarian, bilingual educational environment. Its main aim was described as raising youth who acknowledge and respect one another while at the same time retaining loyalty to their own ethnic/cultural heritages and identities. The center has opened four schools in Jerusalem, the Upper Galilee, Kfar Karah ...