APR.11.2013
In Israel, I often
come across groups of friends who have known each other since grade school/high
school or the army, and have stayed in close touch. This kind of friendship
within a group is common in Israel because many people tend to stay in their
home town/ land and they meet on a regular basis both formally and informally.
I have always thought that it must be reassuring to go through life surrounded by people with whom you could be
comfortable because they really know you.
In contrast, since we moved
around a lot, and lived 15 years
in the US, we wcould not maintain our
friendships with school and army friends and thus were never part of such a
group.
In the last few years, thanks to social networks, all kinds of events have
started to take place and old friends
who have lost touch throughout the years have been reunited. Due to an unusual turn of events I have recently gained a high school group which, strangely enough, is not my own.
My late husband attended Boyer high school in Jerusalem; it
was a special institute, both a regular high school and a boarding school for
gifted and talented students from developing communities in peripheral areas.
The boarders, many of them new immigrants, came to that school from areas where
educational opportunities were limited. The vision of the school, which was
founded by the Society for Advancement of Education, was to bring together
promising young people to give them good education and leadership skills and
thus to create a pool of future leaders who will eventually either go back to
their home towns or contribute to the community as a whole.
My husband’s class graduated in 1970, at that time many of
the new immigrants came from north Africa and Eastern Europe. I know of one boy
who immigrated to Israel a year earlier, when he was 13; without any help he
applied by himself to the school and of course, was accepted. The school was
looking for resourceful students like him. In the 4 years that the students
attended the school, they learnt values of community service, humanity and
pluralism. Boyer high school has been around for almost 50 years and has
produced many socially involved leaders
During the high-school years, there was a rivalry between
the two groups of students: the day school students from Jerusalem and the
boarders from in Israel's periphery. After graduation there was almost no
interaction between the two groups.
But in 2010 the 1970
class celebrated 40 years to graduation
and soon after the class started to meet on a regular basis. Because of my late
husband, I was invited to the reunion, and
later my partner and I were invited to join the group and attend its
different activities..
Naturally I don’t not have shared memories with the
members; in my repertoire there are
only stories that I have heard from my
husband about his happy years in school. But even without personal experience
of "being there” I feel reassured,
and happy to finally be part of such a
welcoming and inclusive group.
P.S This is the
link to the Jerusalem school
http://www.kidum-edu.org.il/en/education-campuses/boyer
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