Tonight on the television news, there was a report about how even though there's a shortage of workers willing to be aides in afternoon programs for preschoolers and other young children, school security refuses to allow Arabs to take the jobs.
My mind goes back to what an Arab told me many years ago. Her family davka lived in a Jewish-Arab community for idealistic reasons. The program we were both in had Israeli Jews of all political stripes and her, the only Arab. After awhile, she admitted that she felt more comfortable with those of us who lived on yishuvim and were unapologetically on the Israeli political Right. She had been getting rather disillusioned with Leftists. She said that her Jewish neighbors didn't like their children to be exposed to the Arab preschool and teaching staff. They didn't want their children to have even a trace of an Arab accent. And even though she considered herself to be a loyal patriotic Israeli, the Leftists in our group ignored her.
Another point that kept coming up in my mind was that the same people who wanted Arabs to care for Jewish children and insisted that it was racist to forbid it, don't consider themselves racist for insisting that Jews shouldn't live in Arab neighborhoods. Of course they have no problem with Arabs in Jewish neighborhoods...
What do you think?
