The day after the onset of the attacks, when IDF soldiers were still battling Palestinian terrorists on Israeli soil, dozens of people who had fled their homes in the cities of Ashkelon and Netivot near the Gaza border turned up at the gates of Givat Haviva.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople just showed up with no clothes \u2014 and nothing \u2014 and shaking kids,\u201d Michal Sella, the CEO of Givat Haviva, told Jewish Insider <\/em>during an interview in her office last month. \u201cAnd of course the first thing we did was to say, \u2018You are very welcome,\u2019 and to open all the rooms.\u201d The campus, which has sheltered people from the Gaza border area in previous rounds of violence, quickly housed 300 evacuees, with more on a waiting list.<\/p>\n Soon after, around 100 Jewish and Arab teenagers returned to their boarding school \u2014 followed by 300 Arab students from a seventh\u201312th grade school located on the campus.<\/p>\n With evacuees, Younited students and local schoolchildren all on campus \u2014 at a time of unprecedented communal tension \u2014 the school\u2019s leadership faced enormous challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was seen as a very explosive environment. It was very hard to manage all this, and our goal was for all of them to get along, to be able to share this campus. And of course, the main goal was that we would not see any kind of violence within the campus. That was very challenging,\u201d Sella recalled. \u201cWe worked very hard to keep everything calm, and we were very, very cautious, even doing things that usually we will not do.\u201c<\/p>\n After the Oct. 7 attacks, the levels of fear and suspicion between the Arab and Jewish communities reached a new high, particularly among those who had been directly impacted.<\/p>\n The measures Givat Haviva leadership implemented in order to keep the calm included steps that go against the very fiber of its ethos.<\/p>\n The first few days following the reopening of the Arab school, the campus leaders deliberately kept the students and evacuees apart, while they worked on calming any initial fears held by the residents of Netivot and Ashkelon in light of their recent trauma. They explained to the recent arrivals from the south that they would be hearing more Arabic on campus, \u201cbut it\u2019s kids, that\u2019s their school, Givat Haviva is their home and actually the evacuees are the guests of these kids so we need to learn how to live together,\u201d Sella said.<\/p>\n Within days, the youngsters began to bridge the divide naturally. Children from the Gaza border were playing soccer with both the children from the Arab school and the international school. The international school students also began volunteering to help with the evacuee children. \u201cSo we did have this system of all of us benefiting from having one another on this campus,\u201d Sella said.<\/p>\n A new normal<\/strong><\/p>\n When the Younited students returned to campus in the weeks after the attack, nothing felt normal.<\/p>\n Shaked, a Jewish Israeli 12th grader from Binyamina, recalled the surreal days following Oct. 7. \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about school \u2014 we were all just focused on what was going on,\u201d she said. One student who lives near the Gaza border didn\u2019t respond to messages for days. \u201cWe were so worried about her.\u201d<\/p>\n Before returning, Shaked joined her classmates for a Zoom call \u2014 not a class, just a space to process. \u201cLooking back, it was a really smart decision \u2014 not to keep us isolated,\u201d she said. \u201cWe were each in our own bubble of misery.\u201d<\/p>\n When the students did finally reunite, each carrying their own fears, the tension was palpable. \u201cIt was all so vulnerable,\u201d she said. \u201cYou want to be around people who get you, who\u2019ve experienced it from the same angle. And sometimes, you just don\u2019t have the emotional capacity to see from the other side.\u201d<\/p>\n Salma, a Muslim Israeli student from Taibe, harbored similar emotions. \u201cI was scared,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was exhausting. I didn\u2019t want to talk about politics or justify anything. It was tiring.\u201d The school, she noted, is inherently political \u2014 bringing together students who typically do not live and learn together. \u201cSo it was very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n Both girls spoke of personal grief \u2014 Salma lost a friend in Gaza early in the war and Shaked\u2019s father was called to reserve duty. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to start justifying anything,\u201d Shaked said. \u201cI was worried about him, about my cousins [who were also serving in the army] \u2014 I wasn\u2019t in a position to explain why.\u201d<\/p>\n But something changed when they returned to campus.<\/p>\n \u201cEach person\u2019s individual bubble popped,\u201d Salma said. \u201cAnd we were in one big bubble of misery \u2014 but it was together.\u201d That shared grief, she explained, was the starting point \u2014 not the political debates, not the ideology, but the simple recognition that everyone was hurting. \u201cEventually there were political discussions, and there still are. But it had to start at the common ground of: we\u2019re just kids, and we\u2019re exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n Salma and Shaked had already completed 10th grade together, a year in which their friendship evolved and strengthened.<\/p>\n \u201cI think when we came back, it was like all our fears went away, because it was just the together that we were always used to,\u201d Shaked said. \u201cThe atmosphere, it wasn\u2019t the same, but it was even stronger, because it was with the pain, and it was with all of it. The Hamas war wasn\u2019t just an attack on Israel, it was attacking the belief system of this school, of hope, of shared society, of living together. And I think eventually, us coming back here is what made me have hope again. And I think that was very powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n For many, attending the Younited school marked a journey toward rethinking deeply held assumptions.<\/p>\n Soliman, an Arab Israeli student from Haifa, transferred into the 11th grade at the school this academic year from an all-Arab school. \u201cI came from a circle where everyone had the same perspective,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then I came here. And the war started again.\u201d<\/p>\n The transition was overwhelming, he admitted, \u201ctalking a lot about politics. Before I came here, I was a bit afraid. I didn\u2019t feel confident enough to share my opinion about the war.\u201d But over time, something shifted and he began to speak up. \u201cI realized I could be confident. I could be comfortable talking about things that some people think are a bit touchy or a bit problematic.\u201d<\/p>\n That sense of being heard, he said, changed something in him. \u201cI\u2019m not that much into politics,\u201d Soliman said. \u201cBut I\u2019m with humanity more. If it\u2019s a Palestinian life or an Israeli one \u2014 it\u2019s still a life. You have to talk about this, even if you don\u2019t want to. It\u2019s about basic rights \u2014 to live.\u201d<\/p>\n Hila, a Jewish Israeli 11th grader from Pardes Hanna, started at the school one month before Oct. 7 and barely knew her classmates. She questioned how she would cope with the complex combination of the country\u2019s new reality and her new environment. \u201cI don\u2019t even know them and English (the common language spoken between the students) is not my first language. I\u2019m not sure I know how to explain myself in this language,\u201d Hila remembers thinking. She praised the school for its approach, guiding the students to delay conversations about the conflict. \u201cWhen we were ready and when we knew each other, it helped us to hold a more grown-up conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n A year later, the school\u2019s Oct. 7 commemoration ceremony made a deep impact on both new and old students. The event, organized by a committee of students and staff, included personal narratives from the day of the Hamas attacks and the ensuing war, prayers sung by international students in their native languages and a silent exhibition honoring individuals who had lost their lives, with personal stories shared to commemorate their legacies.<\/p>\n \u201cOne year ago, I didn\u2019t know how I could handle it,\u201d Hila reflected. \u201cAnd at this ceremony, I had my friends who are Palestinians and Israelis and international and it didn\u2019t matter. We just shared our pain.\u201d<\/p>\n Calming the flames<\/strong><\/p>\n Sella, who accuses extremist elements in the Israeli government of trying to provoke violence in Arab society, considers it a quiet triumph that the flare-up that many feared \u2014 and that far-right politicians warned of<\/a> \u2014 did not materialize, not only within Givat Haviva\u2019s own ecosystem, but also in the wider Israeli society.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were a lot of arrests<\/a> of young Arab citizens just because they liked something on Facebook or they shared something on Facebook, and it was this process of, first of all, of silencing the Arab community, but also leaving them very, very scared to say something, feel something, share something, like something,\u201d Sella told JI.<\/p>\n Givat Haviva worked together with regional leaders from the Jewish and Arab communities, including mayors, education department heads and principals, to work together in their regions. A few days after Oct. 7, Givat Haviva hosted a meeting for regional leaders \u201cjust to make them talk to each other, know each other \u2026 So if something happens, if we have any kind of violence, they will be ready to, first of all, communicate between them and try to take the flames down, because that was our main fear.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI really feel that was a little victory, a silent victory of Israeli society, the fact that we managed to stay very firm in front of our government and not deteriorate to violence,\u201d Sella emphasized.<\/p>\n Mohammad Darawshe, director of strategy at Givat Haviva, convinced Israeli President Isaac Herzog, with whom he has had a long friendship, to convene the heads of 36 academic institutions at the President\u2019s Residence before the opening of the academic year. Darawshe warned Herzog that the meeting could be explosive and they must \u201cengage in reduction of potential violence at universities when they reopen, so that the universities do not become a battlefield between Jews and Arabs.\u201d<\/p>\n Together, the education leaders developed a strategy of engagement to reduce tensions on campuses, including regulations, training professors how to handle flare-ups in the classroom and holding dialogue groups on campuses.<\/p>\n These efforts to reach elements of wider society that Darawshe said they \u201ctypically do not touch\u201d have continued into this year.<\/p>\n Last year, for the first time, Givat Haviva moved its annual conference, usually held onsite, to Tel Aviv in an effort to engage with mainstream society. The conference, which Herzog addressed, mainly targeted business leaders with the participation of Arab and Jewish Israeli politicians, including Knesset members Mansour Abbas, Ahmad Tibi, then-war cabinet member Benny Gantz and Interior Minister Moshe Arbel.<\/p>\n Darwashe praised the speech Gantz gave in support of shared society, which Darawshe believes, \u201chad a very significant calming effect on the mainstream Israeli society that Jews and Arabs in Israel should not drift into violence. We have something to protect \u2014 the success stories that we have in the medical industry, in the transportation industry, in the workplaces, in universities. We have, I call it islands of success. Let\u2019s protect these islands right now. Let\u2019s not collapse into the meltdown that is happening and we have something that is worth protecting.\u201d<\/p>\n Darawshe also sees the participation of Arbel, a minister from the Haredi Shas party, as an accomplishment. \u201cWhen more people in Israeli society are drifting more to that right, we want to bring our work more to the center. Our work has to be a more central message that also talks to people in the right wing.\u201d<\/p>\n Givat Haviva also worked with 73 representatives of large corporations that have significant percentages of Arab employees, providing them with training in how to manage tensions within their companies.<\/p>\n Closer to home<\/strong><\/p>\n Givat Haviva needed to invest in its own staff to ease new tensions in the aftermath of Oct. 7 \u2014 some of which did not emerge immediately. Immediately after the attacks, Sella said Givat Haviva\u2019s Jewish and Arab staff shared similar feelings. But several months into the war, Sella said Hebrew-speaking staff were largely unaware of the scale of devastation in Gaza due to limited Hebrew-language coverage, while Arab staff, who were following Arabic media and social channels, were acutely aware of Palestinian suffering.<\/p>\n \u201cThe gap was so severe that we worked very hard to keep the team together, but I think luckily \u2014 we\u2019re education experts \u2014 so we have the tools to bridge these gaps,\u201d she said. \u201cBut some of the new programs that we have for leadership [programs] came from the way we needed to approach our team and to take care of ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOct. 7 and 8 and 9 and onwards continued to be a very harsh challenge from the perspective of what do we teach for and how do we teach it in our educational institution,\u201d Darawshe said. \u201cAnd our ecosystem is \u2014 some might say collapsing, some might say it\u2019s more challenging \u2014 it\u2019s like a moving target all the time. And we\u2019ve seen these kinds of challenges happening a few times already. Every mega event that has happened has put Givat Haviva in some kind of a test of reexamining the relevancy of our work towards that big story.\u201d<\/p>\n Through the decades of his work at Givat Haviva, Darawshe has experienced moments of feeling like a drop in the ocean. \u201cAnd then you need to ask yourself a question, how big of a drop are you, and are you a critical and essential drop, or is your time up?\u201d<\/p>\n Darawshe recalled such feelings in 2001, in the early days of the Second Intifada, when he was serving as Givat Haviva\u2019s spokesperson. \u201cI went to the director and explained, \u2018Our world is collapsing, and I don\u2019t believe we\u2019re doing enough. Here\u2019s my resignation.’\u201d The director proposed an alternative: \u201cThere\u2019s a group of 200 kids here, 100 Jewish and 100 Arab kids that haven\u2019t lost hope. Bring me their story.\u201d Darawshe spent three days with the children, an experience that inspired an article he wrote for The Jerusalem Post<\/em> titled \u201c200 reasons to come back to work tomorrow.’\u201d<\/p>\n Reflecting on this, Darawshe said, \u201cIf those kids are not giving up, who am I to give up? And this has become a topic that I always discuss with our staff.\u201d<\/p>\n Grief and grace<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition to keeping shared society afloat, Darawshe had to cope with his own personal tragedy following Oct. 7. His 23-year-old cousin Awad Darawshe, a paramedic working at the Nova music festival, was killed<\/a> in the massacre after defying orders to evacuate in order to try to save the lives of others.<\/p>\n Darawshe felt that \u201ceven telling his story here [in Givat Haviva] in the first few weeks was not accepted by all Jewish staff members.\u201d In a staff WhatsApp group, he said, \u201cEvery time I would raise something about him, you would hear two, three staff members that would say, \u2018We don\u2019t feel that we\u2019re dealing enough with the Jewish pain.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.givathaviva.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Insider-13-5-25_3-300x200.jpg\")
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