Located in Wadi Ara, Kfar Kara is home to the bilingual school named Bridge Over the Wadi. At the top of the small village, in perfect coexistence, Jewish and Arab children get to know each other and speak each other’s language.

While recognized by the Ministry of Education, this school does not get much recognition from Gideon Saar, the person who still heads the ministry. The minister has not even once taken the trouble to pay a visit to this school. By contrast, Maestro Zubin Mehta paid a visit last year, barely concealing his emotions. Beating a rhythm on the mountaintop, the school’s percussion band welcomed the maestro who listened to them attentively. Relating that he couldn’t tell the Jewish and Arab children apart, he then added emotionally: “I told myself, why should it even matter?” And it’s all happening in two languages. Each classroom has two teachers, from both nationalities. The principal is an Arab.

If Saar had visited the school, he would have met students, teachers and parents who day in, day out realize the complex and fascinating vision of coexistence that Israeli society can offer its two peoples. He would have found out that some people in Israel believe that the Zionist vision can be realized without taking children on an organized tour of Hebron to show who really owns the “City of the Patriarchs.” After the visit, he might have withdrawn the indictment against five couples from Kiryat Tivon who decided to send their children to a bilingual school. They are charged with violating the Compulsory Education Act because that school is not legally recognized by the state. 

While penning out these lines, it seems as if Sa’ar will have to transfer the education portfolio into the hands of Rabbi Shay Piron of Yesh Atid party. Yair Lapid, the party leader, has once called the Arabs by the inclusive name "Zoabies" (as in Haneen Zoabi, an Israeli Arab member of Knesset). The mighty political battle fought all through last week over the Education portfolio, is good news for Israeli students and their parents: it is now getting the attention it deserves. For many years this portfolio, in charge of educating our future generations and instilling values of democracy and liberalism, was actually considered only “mediocre” in terms of prestige.