2 Inspiring Stories

I once viewed a film on HBO called Strangers No More which won the Academy Award for best documentary. It was such an inspiring story. Today we had a chance to visit the Bialik-Rogozin School, the subject of the film.

This school is located in the south Tel Aviv, the older and poorer section of the city and serves children of many of the foreign workers and refugees from nearly 50 different countries (there are over 70,000 in Israel today). These children come from diverse backgrounds of poverty, political adversity, war and genocide. They have confronted so much hardship and tragedy. The school is a place where they become a family (kindergarten through 12th grade) and where they rebuild their lives. I was inspired by the principal, Eli Nechama, who for the past several years has created an incredible place in which no child is treated like a stranger.

From the films website....
The film follows several students' struggle to acclimate to life in a new land....Mohammed, a 16-year-old refugee from Darfur, who witnessed the killing of his grandmother and father before escaping alone through Egypt to Israel; Johannes who arrived at Bialik-Rogozin after spending most of his life in refugee camps; and Esther, who fled South Africa with nothing, in search of safety and peace of mind. With tremendous effort and dedication from the school, the three managed to create new lives for themselves, form strong bonds with their teachers and make new friends......Education is a number one issue around the world. What this small school in the heart of Tel Aviv is accomplishing is just fantastic.

This is just one of the wonderful stories about Israel that I wish more people would know about.

Next we walked through the center/north section of Tel Aviv and got to see the historica Bauhaus buildings in the area of Bialik Square. We ended up at the former municipality building of Tel Aviv, now a museum and homage to Meir Dizengoff, Tel Aviv's first mayor.

The day concluded with the screening of Life in Stills, a documentary about Miriam Weissenstein, who with her husband Rudi, founded the Photo House, a photography studio and archive containing over one million negatives of photos that document Israel's history. www.pro-or.com In the film, Miriam is joined by her grandson Ben as they try to save the studio from demolition. The relationship between Ben and his grandmother was so beautifully filmed and depicted. Miriam was 96 years old when the film was made, she lived to see the premier, and died several months later. This was such an amazing tribute and we were fortunate to have met Ben and Tamar Tal, the filmmaker, for a discussion following the film.

All of us were excited about the prospect of a tour in the States of the film and a photo exhibit from the Photo House. It would be a perfect program for Israel's 65th in 2013!