MITF Jerusalem

If you are one of the 40 new recruits of the BINA sponsored MITF program in Jerusalem, I want to mention something very important that you will not be told going into the program. I was part of the initial 18 person cohort recruited for the first year of the program, and based on my experience this feature was unexpected and figured prominently in my time in Israel:

The neighborhoods that we taught in were Pisgat Ze’ev, Ramot, Gilo, French Hill, Homat Shmuel, and Kiryat Yuval. If you google any of those names other than the last one (which was only 1 out of the 9 schools), your first results will be the words “East Jerusalem” and "illegal" and “settlement”. None of the schools were in Arab neighborhoods. Only one of the schools had a significant Arab minority. At my school in Pisgat Ze’ev, at least half of my students commuted from Rimonim, Anatot, and Geva Binyamin—all of which are very much West Bank settlements. Many of the students’ and teachers’ families at my school frequented Kiryat Arba, Gush Etzion, and Maale Adumim, which are all large settlements in the West Bank.

Suffice it to say that as a politically left-leaning American I spent a large part of my time in this program confused and disillusioned with my role in Jerusalem: the separation barrier is a 15 minute walk from my school, my students talk about how scared they are of the residents living across the street in the neighboring Arab communities in East Jerusalem, and I’ve witnessed everything from students shouting “Allahu Akbar” to one dressing up as an Intifada protester for Purim (kefiyye, plastic gun, and all...). It’s troubling to see an area that is so systemically full of fear and hatred, but it’s much more troubling knowing that I’m playing a part in that neighborhood’s development at the expense of the much more underprivileged and disenfranchised communities surrounding it.

What is even more disturbing is the placement of the teaching fellows into Jewish East Jerusalem neighborhoods in a year that has been one of the most controversial for the city in decades. Trump’s declaration was not just a headline for us; it was an event that changed the city we lived in and altered the perception of Jerusalem for our friends and family back home in the US.

At times it was hard not to feel like Bennett’s soldiers, deployed at the front lines of one of the most ideological battles for segregation in the entire world. It very much appears like the Jerusalem MITF program was shaped by the vision of the HaBayit HaYehudi Party which is currently dominating the Department of Education. We voiced our concerns about the politics behind our placements with a few of our superiors employed with the program, and each time we hit an ideological concrete wall. Several of the Masa bureaucrats who directly coordinated the Jerusalem MITF program were in fact from the Ring Neighborhoods and West Bank settlements....

Jewish East Jerusalem neighborhoods are in dire need of English language assistance in public schools, and I saw myself making a positive impact in the community that I was placed in—but I think that it is VERY important to mention that if you apply to the Jerusalem MITF program, you will *almost certainly* be placed in a school in one of the Ring Neighborhoods. All of these neighborhoods; 1.) have a international reputation of being Israeli settlements, 2.) have commuter settlements in the West Bank, 3.) are very visibly segregated from surrounding Arab communities by checkpoints and infrastructure, 4.) are visibly given much more funding by the government than any of the surrounding Arab East Jerusalem neighborhoods, and 5.) are up to 1.5 hours by bus from where your home will be in West Jerusalem.

There are some nice perks with this program like the grant and housing, but in hindsight (having spent the full 10 months on the program) I would say that the ideological atmosphere and difficult bureaucracy is worth avoiding. Do not choose MITF if you are looking into TEFL in Israel and pick an intensive Ulpan course if you want an effective pre-Aliyah experience.