Israel Schools

In the besieged Jewish neighborhood of Gilo, clowns, balloons and well-armed police greeted thousands of children and teens Sunday as they arrived for their first day of class knowing that some of their schools are now within Palestinian mortar range. Four-year-old Shirli Afriat, her eyes looking as wide as silver dollars, clasped her mother's hand tightly and peered around her kindergarten classroom.

Tami Dumai opened the doors Wednesday of the Arab-Jewish elementary school she runs in northern Israel, unsure that either students or teachers would show up.

It was after dusk 43 years ago today. Arab villagers straggled home from work in the fields, unaware that the Israeli army had imposed a curfew. Border police halted one group of Arabs near the village of Kafr Qasem and fired on them at close range.

When Lesia Mazon arrived at the Amirim Elementary School last September, the 9-year-old Russian immigrant was put directly into a Hebrew-speaking class even though she could not understand what her Israeli teacher was saying, ask a question in the language of her new country or read a book in the unfamiliar alphabet.

Once the Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School in Northridge joins the Internet this week, students there will be able to send and receive electronic mail from Arab and Jewish children at a junior-senior high school in Israel.

Red-haired Ariel Weiss embarrassed his young friends as they debated about Israelis making peace with their neighbors. "I don't mean to sound racist," he told his classmates, setting his jaw defiantly.

Students carried gas masks with their textbooks as Israeli high schools reopened for the first time since the Persian Gulf War began, and Foreign Minister David Levy said Israel was studying ways to stop Iraq's missile attacks.

Israel permitted the second Palestinian university in the West Bank to reopen Friday, nearly three years after it closed all four-year colleges in the occupied territories.