L.A., Tel Aviv Schools Hold Video Conference
Bridging oceans, continents, culture and a 10-hour time difference, hundreds of students from Milken Community High School in Los Angeles participated in a video conference with students in Tel Aviv Thursday during a high-tech memorial for former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Wearing white shirts, Milken students spoke, prayed, and sang songs commemorating the legacy of Rabin--war hero, peacemaker, Nobel prize-winner and politician--on the fifth anniversary of his assassination.
Behind the stage a huge screen showed grainy, slightly delayed images of Israeli students laughing, listening, blowing kisses. “Rabin knew the danger of standing still,” teacher Yoav Ben-Horin told students in both countries. “He knew the danger of moving forward as well. He had to move forward. The pain all of us feel today is that of a vision that is being thwarted.”
This is the third year of the cross-cultural technical extravaganza. But this year the Rabin memorial service took on added importance because of the bloodshed and violence in the Middle East that threaten to derail the peace process.
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