A Day in Core Class with Mordechai Cohen, May 4, Spring Semester 2015
The AMHSI core curriculum is an intense study of Israel and 4,000 years of Jewish history and comprises the main component of the AMHSI program. Through engaging classroom study and exciting trips to the sites where history took place, students use Israel as a living classroom to explore their heritage.
After three months in Israel, students are nearing the end of their study having reached the 20th century. Mordechai Cohen, one of the two Spring Semester core teachers, along with Aubrey Isaacs, will also spend the final few weeks of the session exploring larger themes that can be drawn from the broad span of the curriculum.
Each core class begins with a brief recount of the main news events that have occurred since the last time the class met. Today, Mordechai connected the recent nationwide protests in the United States regarding police brutality against black men with an event that happened here in Israel, where two police officers stopped an Ethiopian Jewish soldier, in his army uniform, to check his ID card for no apparent reason and then, physically assaulted him. The event was recorded and can be watched here. This led to a protest in Tel Aviv against the discrimination of Israel's Ethiopian citizens. To read an article on these events, click here
Mordechai left his students with the message that their actions matter. They can be effective agents of change, bringing about a better future for all of us.
On Thursday, Jews around the world will celebrate the holiday of Lag BaOmer. Starting on the second day of Passover, Jews count 50 days. One reason is to mark the days until the Jews received the Torah according to the Biblical narrative. However, it also marks the period when the students of Rabbi Akiva, a famous Talmudic sage, were dying in large numbers. According to the story, the plague ended on the 33rd day of the Omer or Lag (33) BaOmer. The reason ascribed to the rise of the plague was the unethical behavior of Rabbi Akiva's students towards one another. This period has therefore become a time of introspection, a time where we think about how we can better treat one another. In light of recent events, the ability to pause and to reflect on how we relate to others can be a way we implement our Jewish tradition into our daily lives.
In the 1960s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was formed, calling for the elimination of Israel and a Palestinian state to take its place. The PLO was led by Yasir Arafat and was based in Jordan. At this time, there were many PLO-sanctioned terrorist incursions against the state of Israel.
In previous classes, students studied the 1948 War of Independence and the 1967 Six-Day War. This has helped to provide them with some context regarding some of the factors that helped lead to the rise of the PLO. Today's class focused on the PLO's activities in Jordan in 1970 and how it affected Israel. That year, a PLO-affiliated organization hijacked planes heading to Europe and landed them in Jordan. While the Jordanian army was able to negotiate the release of all hostages, terrorists detonated bombs on the empty planes as the world watched. This launched the explosive use of the media as an extremely effective tool used by militant organizations.
The instability the PLO caused the Jordanian government, a transplanted monarchy from Saudi Arabia, led to an event known as Black September. In September 1970, the Jordanian army entered PLO strongholds, massacring Palestinian supporters and sympathizers by the thousands. This caused the PLO to flee to Lebanon.
As a result of this devastating period, a new terrorist organization, The Black September Organization, was formed. This is the group responsible for the murder of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, as well as other attacks.
One of Mordechai's messages to the students was that while horrific actions were conducted by the Jordanians against their own countrymen, terrorist attacks against Israel also became a means of avengement for the Black September massacre.
As the course progresses, students will study the evolution of the PLO including the 1993 Oslo Accords where the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace and rejected violence and Israel recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians.
Lastly, the final section of class was devoted to discussing an upcoming essay assignment. While each AMHSI core teacher approaches this question slightly differently, students are asked to explore their definition of the ideal Jew having studied the development of Judaism over the past 4,000 years. This is an intense, personal discussion and there are no wrong answers. Through this assignment, students should recognize their own place within the chain of Jewish continuity, a sense that was developed throughout their time in Israel. It is hoped that students will continue to engage in this conversation regarding Jewish identity as they grow and learn more about themselves and the wide spectrum of Judaism.
