About Melitz

"The mission of Melitz is to fortify Jewish identity by nurturing strong connections to the State of Israel, the Jewish people, and their culture, through informal, pluralistic and value oriented education."

Melitz Educator Jeremy Aron

Jeremy Aron grew up in Manchester, England as a member of Habonim-Dror, the Socialist-Zionist youth movement, and made aliyah in January 2002. He established a non-profit organization based in Misgav, in the hills east of Haifa, facilitating volunteering and informal education in socioeconomically deprived Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. The region has a population of 15,000, including 4,500 Bedouin, in 34 villages.

Jeremy currently lives in a development town in Northern Israel as a member of Kvutsat Yovel, a new urban kibbutz.

All programs will be at Congregation Sons of Abraham, 1820 Main Street, La Crosse, Wisconsin.

• Friday evening, October 26
  Kabbalat Shabbat Services at 6:15, followed by dinner. Jeremy will present an educational program after dinner. (For dinner reservations, email Sara Levenstein no later than October 24.)

• Shabbat morning, October 27, 9:15-10:15 AM (before services)
  Torah study with Jeremy Aron

• Shabbat afternoon, October 27, 5:30 PM
  Arabs in Israel: A Citizen's Perspective on Life in Northern Israel following the Lebanon War of 2006

  There is a large Arab minority in Israel that is split into a number of different subgroups. Many people are often confused by the concept of 'Arab' and often place the term as synonymous with the label 'Muslim'. Arab Israelis are given an 'underdog' status by the world's press, but more often than not, the press is referring to the Palestinian Israeli, as opposed to the Arab Israeli, who is struggling with their identity as an Israeli/Palestinian/Arab as well as the added confusion of their religious commitments. Their existence revolves around internal and external influences and factors, such as different citizen's rights, expectations, cultures, traditions etc.

  This was written about by Rafi Israeli in 1987, in terms of the 'Arab Crisis of Identity'. Using this article as a springboard, I would like to ask the question about the status of Israeli Arabs today in terms of their identity as a (somewhat) homogenous unit. Moving on from there, we will ask the question underlying how do we think they responded to the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon last year. Which side did they support? Were they split in terms of their support and did the war create a rift in Israeli Arab society? (I want to emphasize that we are not talking abut those Palestinian Arabs living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank.)

  At the same time, I would like to present an idea of how it was as a Jewish Israeli, living in the 'Katusha zone' during the war last summer, and the feelings from my perspective of how Israeli society and opinion reacted throughout the conflict.