Coexistence is a point of pride at Bar-Ilan University. And although there is still a notable gap between the number of Jews and Arabs who pursue higher education in Israel, Bar-Ilan has made sure its Arab students feel welcome and are treated with respect. This year, 1,250 Israeli Arabs enrolled, which represents a 20 per cent increase.
Speaking while on a brief visit to the UK, Bar-Ilan’s president and Israel’s former minister of science and technology, Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, described the attitude to the challenge of bringing different people together on one campus.
He said: “In Israel there are two big sectors where people are not fully integrated in society. One is the Charedi sector and the other is the Arab sector. The state of Israel has given a very high priority to offering higher education to both. Although it’s still on a small scale, nevertheless it’s growing quickly.”
Bar Ilan University has responded to its increasing Arab student body by creating a place to pray on campus, as well as offering counselling, translation services, scholarship assistance and extra courses in Hebrew and English. There is also a Charedi centre and the university has taken its programmes to Charedi colleges in Jerusalem.
For Mr Hershkowitz, who is a rabbi of the Ahuza neighbourhood in Haifa, education and religion are not mutually exclusive. “People used to think that either you excelled in religious studies or you excelled in the sciences but we have a new generation of excellent scientists who are also Torah scholars,” he said.
“What I try to show is that the deeper the understanding in science the better our understanding of religion — and vice versa.”
The university also prides itself on teaching all its pupils the value of giving. “It’s not that we only give students knowledge and a profession but we teach them to give back to society,” he said. “We hold ‘clinics’ where students get to practise their profession by offering free legal advice to Holocaust survivors, for example, or to women who have problems getting their divorce.”
