Arab and Jewish students embrace diversity at University of Haifa

When University of Haifa opened its doors after a months-long delay due to the Swords of Iron war, faculty eagerly greeted its diverse array of students and handed each one a bright orange bracelet with the words “Continuing to Learn Together” emblazoned on it. Within hours, a sea of orange wristbands was prevalent on a campus famous for its diverse community of Jewish, Arab, and Druze students.

But coming up with the slogan or even the color of the wristband was not an easy feat. Yael Granot-Bein, director of the Division of Diversity, Inclusion and Community, said the students and faculty were candid during a brainstorming session where the administration wanted to devise a slogan to boost morale and inclusion on campus.

With several slogans rejected for projecting too rosy a view of campus life in today’s tense climate, many colors were also rejected for their connotations. Finally, the school settled on orange with a black border and the above slogan, representing the consensus of students who are eager to learn in harmony and leave politics at the door.

But for Prof. Arin Salamah-Qudsi, the head of the Division of Diversity, Inclusion and Community, the words etched on the wristband were far more than a slogan. She said, “‘Continuing to Learn Together’ is not a slogan but rather a keen expression of reality that we have always witnessed here at University of Haifa. Promoting an everyday reality of shared life on campuses is the only way to maintain the resilience of students and faculty and protect the academic institutions during wartime.

“With a student body composed of Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Druze, our campus is incredibly diverse,” Granot-Bein explained of the school where Arabs comprise nearly half of the 17,000 students. “This means we have to take the needs of all our students into consideration.”

As such, the administration worked tirelessly in the weeks leading up to the first day of school on December 31 to provide the resources and tools needed that so students felt they were returning to a safe place.

Together, the Office of the Dean of Students and the Division of Diversity and Inclusion set up resilience groups for each of the three demographics, where each meeting was led by a facilitator who shared the same ethnic background and language.

Has University of Haifa's diversity survived October 7?

Some 400 students freely expressed what was on their mind. The university has made it clear that it is taking student concerns seriously and will continue to uphold its vision of coexistence for all, despite the tense atmosphere post-October 7.

“For us, it was a good way to learn about their needs. We learned that all groups had their own unique worries,” Granot-Bein said. “We didn’t immediately offer solutions; rather, we listened and gave them the safe space to speak in their own language about their feelings.”

Faculty were then sent questionnaires which surveyed their needs; the perceived challenges ahead when the school year was set to start; and what skills they could bring to the table to help address these challenges.

Granot-Bein explained that based on the responses, “we created a rich system of workshops that provided answers to all the various issues participants saw bubbling up on the horizon.

These workshops were led by volunteer psychologists, social workers, and organizational consultants who specialized in resilience training.”

This process set the stage for a relatively uneventful start for the beginning of the academic year, a feat that is particularly impressive considering that the administration also had to contend with the controversial reinstatement of eight students who were suspended for allegedly posting anti-Israel content online after the war broke out.

These new initiatives are in addition to the myriad programs already in place to help promote a climate of shared society such as the Jewish-Arab Community Leadership Program. The program facilitates multicultural social interactions through joint community projects and the school’s work with MABAT, which offers student dialogue programs that help them develop tools to work in multicultural spaces and foster meaningful, positive, and enriching encounters with peers from different backgrounds.

Additionally, with its Haifa Laboratory for Religious Studies, led by Uriel Simonsohn, the university capitalizes on the unique strengths of the city of Haifa as one of the most multi-religious settings in the world, to advance understanding of the role that religions can play in promoting social cohesion in an increasingly divided society.

“Before the school year started, we were worried about students not feeling easy on campus, but I think the situation has changed. These worries were largely unfounded,” said Kalanit Kleemer, head of administration of the Office of the Dean of Students. “The situation is generally quiet, with an underscore of tension.

“Ultimately, students come here for a degree. They don’t want to make waves, even if they don’t agree politically with their fellow students or professors. The goal of successfully graduating overrides the differences between groups.”

The other main challenge facing the administration was how to address students coming back from reserve duty.

“The IDF never gave us a concrete date of when we could expect our reserve students back,” Kleemer said of the 1,500 students who were called up and the some 550 who remain in active duty. “So we have to be pretty fluid as to how we’re handling this ever-evolving situation.”

To that end, the university is helping them integrate by providing them with tutoring, recorded sessions of missed classes, and opportunities to complete work outside of class even during active duty if they choose to do so.

“If they need more intensive assistance, we’re happy to help with that, too,” Kleemer added. “We know that students have witnessed horrors on the ground. Some of our students are our most vulnerable segments of Israeli society in general – we’re talking about those who had friends in the Supernova music festival massacre, those who had friends who were killed during military service, and those who have relatives whom Hamas is holding hostage in Gaza. We’re making sure they receive clinical one-on-one help by people who specialize in trauma.”

Prof. Mouna Maroun, a Christian Israeli-Arab who is vice president and dean of Research and Development at the university, said that “almost all the Arab students were afraid and apprehensive” about the return to campus, “especially first-year students who never really spent time being around Jews before and have limited Hebrew – and most Jewish students don’t speak Arabic. The lack of communication alone can engender fear and hostility.”

Yet on a personal level, Maroun demonstrates how the university can transcend these social stigmas.

“I’m indebted to the university, which is so much more than my workplace,” she said. “It’s a place that believed in me, promoted me, where I met my best friends, and we openly expressed our fears and problems. Together with my colleagues, we share our experiences, gossip, and laugh. This is exactly what I wish for my students – a place where Jews and Arabs can work together and become friends and that this tradition will continue.”

Salamah-Qudsi echoed that sentiment. adding: “For me, University of Haifa is not a workplace. It is an inseparable part of what I am today.

“University of Haifa is a role model for other academic institutions due to its unique human fabric and the high rates of Arab students and faculty in its lines. The agency of the university lies in its vision to create a stable campus reality that encourages the inclusion of all diverse groups and thereby contributes to creating a better society. A positive shared life on campus is, in fact, a win-win situation for all.”

“It is more important than ever that Americans learn University of Haifa’s unique story,” said Naomi Reinharz, CEO of the American Society of University of Haifa (ASUH). “As Israel’s most diverse campus, with 40% of the student body consisting of Muslims, Christians, Baha’i, Druze, and Bedouins, for 50 years the university has played and will continue playing a central role in ensuring that all sectors of the Israeli population unite to nurture their beautifully diverse civic society.”

Furthermore, as Reinharz asserted, the university is an institution that those around the world can look to in rebuilding Israeli society in the aftermath of the October 7 tragedy.

For more than 50 years, University of Haifa has been weaving a rich tapestry of diverse students who share the common goal of bettering themselves and Israel’s North – and Granot-Bein believes the campus culture has stood the test of October 7.

“Despite everything that’s happening,” she said, “we’re still a safe and diverse place that promotes the values of equality and inclusiveness.” ■