The Books for Israel Project

Rockville, MD and Rehovot, Israel, September 7, 2004 – Writing to the leader of a community book drive in the U.S. that recently shipped donated English books to her school in Rehovot, Amanda Caplan, volunteer teacher with the Books for Israel Project (“B4i”), has this to say.  “I don't think teaching is an easy job anywhere in the world, but in Israel with 40 kids in each class, and 3 armed policemen on each junction near the school, it's sometimes very hard to find the energy to continue. To start the school year with something as positive as your wonderful and generous gift of books gives us all the strength to keep going.”

Israeli public schools opened this year on September 1^st, the day after twin terrorist attacks in the city of Be'ersheva took the lives of 16 people ages 3 to 70, and left many wounded, including school aged children.  Meanwhile, the brutal hostage-taking in an elementary school that would ultimately result in over 300 dead and hundreds more wounded, was underway in Russia.

U.S.-based Rena Cohen and Israel-based Jade Bar-Shalom, co-founders of B4i, say the connection between these and other atrocities targeting children and civilians is painfully clear.  B4i is a grassroots effort helping to stock Israel’s public schools with quality donated English language books, which would have otherwise virtually disappeared from schools in many of Israel’s growing poorer sectors, as the education budget keeps being cut to handle pressing security needs. Cohen says, “The good news is that some 25 tons of literature have been donated by generous people from all over the U.S. and England who understand that we must not leave kids and their teachers struggling alone to face the fear and deprivation that terrorism brings. When kids are up against terrorists, the worst we can do is nothing.” Bar-Shalom adds, “The bad news is that things are very, very tense.
The children are being drilled on how to run from their schools in the event of an attack.  And terror has many horrible faces.  One of them is poverty.  For the second year in a row, we see teacher layoffs and school workers going unpaid. We’re also hearing about more and more Israeli kids going to class hungry, which is why we added the Hunger in Israel section to our B4i web site during this past year – how can a child learn on an empty stomach?”

B4i continues its efforts to support Israel’s Jewish, Muslim, Druse, Bedouin and Bahai public schools throughout the school year. Community centers, synagogues, churches, schools and individuals interested in assisting or learning more are welcome to write Rena Cohen at Rena@BooksforIsrael.com.