Children Teaching Children Coordinators Orit Meoded and Zakaria Mahameed

By Enno Ebersbach

 

At Givat Haviva many educational staff could be described as veterans. Yet few embody the organization’s commitment to shared society as consistently as Orit Meoded and Zakaria Mahameed. For nearly two decades they have jointly managed Children Teaching Children (CTC), a flagship program that brings together Israeli Jewish and Arab eighth and ninth grade students. Since its founding in 1992, it has reached tens of thousands of students and teachers. Through sustained encounters and dialogue, the program creates meaningful interaction opportunities for young people whose paths rarely cross in a deeply divided society.

 

In many ways, Meoded and Mahameed themselves represent the possibility of connection across those divides. Their partnership is rooted not only in professional cooperation but also in friendship, mutual trust, and a shared conviction that meaningful change begins with personal encounters.

 

Mahameed grew up in Mu’awiya, a small Arab village in the Wadi Ara region near Givat Haviva. Like many families in the area, he carries the memory of displacement. His father and grandfather were expelled from the village of Albuteimat during the 1948 war of Israel’s independence, which Arabs generally call the Nakba

 

The Nakba legacy was a central part of Mahameed’s upbringing. Every year, when Jewish communities celebrated Independence Day, his family visited the site of the village, now part of Kibbutz Gal’ed, they lost. Today, he continues that tradition with his own children. “I take my daughters and son there and enjoy visiting this beautiful place, which holds memories of my grandparents and parents. The story still resonates with me,” he says.

 

Those recollections never evolved into hatred. Mahameed recalls his father drawing a clear distinction between political realities and individual people in favor of reconciliation. “My father always told me not to support separation and hatred, but to do the opposite, to do something good,” he says.

 

Although he grew up in a largely Arab environment, he actively sought opportunities to meet Jewish peers. In eighth grade, a teacher organized an exchange with a Jewish school that left a lasting impression. His involvement in an Arab youth movement, where he regularly participated in mixed Jewish-Arab summer camps in Israel, further strengthened his determination to know Jewish society better. 

 

During his university studies in Haifa, however, Mahameed’s commitment to coexistence was tested by the turbulent years of the Second Intifada. One of his friends from the youth movement was killed by Israeli security forces during protests erupting after Ariel Sharon’s September 2000 visit on the Temple Mount.  He felt more than ever the complexities and tensions of being an Arab citizen of Israel.

 

Yet the growing mistrust and polarization of that period did not discourage him from pursuing shared society work. On the contrary, it was during those years that he began working as a facilitator at Givat Haviva, where he eventually met Meoded.

 

Meoded’s journey toward dialogue followed a different path. Raised in Kibbutz Sha’ar HaGolan in the Jordan Valley, she had relatively little contact with Arab citizens during her youth. In fact, her first meaningful friendships with Israeli Arabs came while studying psychology in the United States. “We were all from Israel, some of us were Arab, some of us were Jewish,” she recalls. “In this context, where we were all strangers abroad, it just felt natural to build bonds between us.”

 

After returning to Israel, she settled in Katzir, a Jewish community in the Wadi Ara region. It was then that Jewish-Arab relations became central for her. She soon formed friendships with residents of nearby Arab town Kafr Qara. Like Mahameed, however, she experienced the Second Intifada as a challenging moment. “It was a very traumatic experience,” she says. “The Intifada marked the beginning of a very difficult time in Wadi Ara. Jews didn’t enter the Arab villages at all, and there was a major crisis of trust.”

 

Rather than accepting that separation, Meoded and a group of Jewish and Arab parents established together Gesher al HaWadi, one of Israel’s first bilingual and integrated schools. She also began working as a facilitator at Givat Haviva. “It was a part-time job, but it was very important for me to work in a place with people who shared my ideals,” she says.

 

After several years working side by side, Meoded and Mahameed were asked in 2007 to take over leadership of Children Teaching Children. Although the program was founded in 1992, it had nearly collapsed during the Second Intifada. “We basically had to start from zero,” says Meoded. The beginning was modest, starting with only three groups of Jewish and Arab classes, but it quickly grew, with 300 students participating each year.

 

Over the years, the program has expanded while remaining faithful to its original mission: challenging stereotypes and creating lasting changes in perspective among young people. “We believe in work that’s both long-term and in-depth. Not just something that is a flash in the pan, but something that really plants a seed in the students,” Meoded says.

 

The CTC program combines encounters between Jewish and Arab students with preparatory and follow-up sessions held separately in each community. Arab facilitators visit Jewish schools and Jewish facilitators visit Arab schools, creating opportunities for honest conversations before the students meet each other directly at Givat Haviva.

 

These conversations can be demanding participating children sometimes ask tough questions. Meoded maintains it is important to create this space. “Only if they openly share their prejudices can we work on overcoming them,” she says.

 

For Mahameed, the importance of these encounters also lies in how rare they are in the context of Israel’s divided education system. “We do not grow up together. For many Arab children, encounters with Jews happen mainly in situations involving authorities—at checkpoints or with armed police officers. That’s why Givat Haviva as the ideal place to bring students together for genuine human meetings,” he says.

 

Children Teaching Children requires constant adaptation. “In this country there is almost never a calm period, so we have to be flexible,” Mahameed stresses.

 

The most difficult challenge so far has been the period following October 7 and the war in Gaza, prompted a crisis of mistrust between Jewish and Arab citizens. Givat Haviva’s 2026 annual survey of Jewish and Arab citizens showed that 54% of Arabs trust Jews, compared with just 26% of Jews who trust Arabs.

 

The war also led to practical changes to the program. One of its greatest features was students visiting each other’s communities, schools, mosques, and synagogues. “Since October 7, we had to stop some of those activities, which is a great loss,” Meoded says. “There is currently a lot of caution from both sides.”

 

Still, Meoded and Mahameed are not giving up on building a shared society in Israel. “Even under these circumstances, we continued to operate,” says Meoded. “Our goal is to eventually bring the program fully back into the schools and communities.”

 

CTC's resilience over many years they attribute mainly to the dedicated team of 10 Jewish and Arab facilitators, and also to their partnership as joint coordinators. At the heart of that partnership is a relationship grounded in honesty and trust. “We speak completely openly with each other. If something happens, I always call Mahameed and ask what he thinks,” says Meoded.

 

“We don’t necessarily agree on everything and I don’t think we always have to,” Mahameed adds. “What matters is that we find common ground and speak with respect, without pretending, and without hiding our differences.”

 

A pioneering initiative in Jewish-Arab relations, like CTC, faces skepticism in both Jewish and Arab societies, including among some of Meoded’s and Mahameed’s family and friends. Yet they remain committed, sustained by their conviction that change is possible.

 

“There is still a large segment of society that believes in partnership and I always try to bring those people together,” Mahameed points out.

 

“History teaches us that societies can change,” Meoded stresses. “If someone had said in the 1940s that Europe would one day look as it does today, people would have thought they were crazy.”

 

Both also emphasize their personal dedication to CTC. “I see it not only as a job, but as a calling to educate a generation for a better and more equitable life,” says Mahameed.

 

“We are making an actual difference in this program. Participants leave Givat Haviva with a different language and new perspectives,” Meoded says. “It is the place where I can contribute the most.”