Mideast Meets West in Rabin Tribute

Bridging an ocean, continents, cultures and a 10-hour time difference, hundreds of students from Milken Community High School shared a videoconference with students in Tel Aviv on Thursday during a high-tech memorial for the late 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--and his assassination five years ago.

Behind the stage a huge screen showed grainy, slightly delayed images of Israeli students beamed in from a library on the other side of the world, 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 this cross-cultural technical extravaganza. But this year the Rabin memorial service took on added importance because of the ongoing violence in the Middle East. The Tel Aviv-Los Angeles partnership, sponsored by the Los Angeles Jewish Federation, was started in 1997.

The videoconference event, which connected Milken with teachers and students from Tichon Chadash, Milken’s sister school in Tel Aviv, included remarks by Rabin’s daughter, Dalia, and Roni Milo, the former mayor of Tel Aviv and a member of the Center Party in Israel. Unfortunately, the connection severed when Dalia Rabin came onto the screen.

“The situation is not as bad as you see on CNN,” Milo told the students. “We are strong. We can handle the problems.”

Ninth-grader Ben Beezy asked Milo what he expected the U.S. to do about the Mideast violence.

“I’m looking to the U.S. to be an honest broker,” he told the boy.

Then Israeli students asked the Americans whether Al Gore or George W. Bush would be a better president with regard to Israel. The students said Gore--to loud applause, but teacher Ben-Horin said any U.S. president would be committed to peace in the Middle East.

Milken Community High School of Stephen S. Wise Temple, situated in Sepulveda Pass, is the largest non-Orthodox college preparatory Jewish day school in the United States. The school was founded in 1990 to educate students in Judaic and general studies and has 770 students in grades seven through 12.

Ben-Horin, who was brought to the school three years ago to help set up the exchange program between Milken and Tichon Chadash, said the now-thriving program is designed to give American and Israeli Jews a better sense of each other and themselves.

“In our case, our students get to see the real life of Israel, not just the headlines,” Ben-Horin said. “In their case, the Israeli students get to see an active, thriving Jewish community that is this unique historical place that is America.”

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It seems to be working. Right now, 22 Israeli students are attending Milken. In the spring a group of Americans will go to Tel Aviv. Students on both sides say the experience is unforgettable. The videoconference memorial service is part of that.

“The ceremony was really exciting,” said 10th-grade exchange student Ofer Cohen. “They can see, even in America, people really do care.”