Can education contribute to coexistence and reconciliation? Religious and national ceremonies in Bilingual Palestinian-Jewish schools in Israel

This article considers the potential of educational efforts, specifically school commemorative ceremonies, to help overcome long-standing inter-ethnic conflict. We examine ethnographic data from commemorative ceremonies in 2 newly created bilingual Jewish-Palestinian schools in Israel. We focus in particular on the role of 2 different ritual ceremonial events which articulate both the struggle and attempts at reconciliation between Jewish and Palestinian Israelis. The first is the Hanukkah-Idel Fiter-Christmas ceremony, which addresses mostly cultural religious issues, and the second is the events which correspond in the Jewish Israeli calendar to Memorial Day, which is strongly connected to national issues. The analysis shows how both the macro sociopolitical context as well as micro aspects in the development of working relations within the two communities in conflict, seriously influence the potential of school ceremonies to serve coexistence and reconciliation efforts.