On the 6th of October, we hosted our annual TINAU Fall Fair. The event was a space for Palestinian, Israeli, and international artisans to come together with their crafts, representing identity, resistance, and resilience. In attendance were hundreds, including students, staff, and community members, with Hebrew, Arabic, and English being spoken freely and interchangeably. This gathering served as a beacon of hope, depicting a reality where equality and solidarity among individuals in Israel-Palestine are not only conceivable but also within reach.
This is Not an Ulpan (TINAU) is a cooperative Arabic and Hebrew language school in Israel-Palestine, born out of the 2011 Israeli social justice protests. TINAU was founded to be a transformative language school, dedicated to teaching Hebrew and Arabic in a way that challenges existing social structures and promotes understanding between Jews, Palestinians, locals, and newcomers.
Our educational philosophy is grounded in critical pedagogy, emphasizing the importance of students critically engaging with themselves, the complex realities of Israel-Palestine, and their role within these dynamics. We utilize social justice as a guiding principle, making language learning a vehicle for understanding and addressing broader societal issues. At the heart of this educational approach lies the belief that every student is a teacher and every teacher a student. In fostering a collective learning experience, TINAU moves beyond the traditional teacher-student dynamic to create an environment where knowledge is shared, perspectives are exchanged, and diverse voices are heard.
These values are what embodied our Fall Fair – social justice, community, and linguistic inclusivity. Though the optimism that enveloped our community on October 6th took a devastating blow the next day when we woke up to the horrific massacre on October 7th. Barely given enough time to mourn or comprehend the sheer tragedy of what happened, we were soon faced with further horrors of mass bloodshed and displacement within Gaza. Simultaneously, anti-war voices were immediately suppressed, separate and violent nationalist discourses were bolstered, and political reductionism was amplified at the expense of empathy and solidarity.
The impact on our student community was profound; the majority of our international students hastily departed the country, while Israeli and Palestinian students found themselves unable to start courses due to severe mental distress and insurmountable obstacles imposed by the harsh reality.
In the first days, our immediate focus was to protect and strengthen our community. To understand the needs of our teachers, we had earnest discussions about their individual situations and what role they saw TINAU playing as a community and an organization with a platform.
Simultaneously, we organized community calls, holding safe and empathetic spaces for students, teachers, and community members to come together. These calls served as forums where individuals could openly share their experiences, struggles, and emotions, fostering a collective environment that embraced the diversity of identities and experiences within our community. It was a concerted effort to provide support, solidarity, and understanding amid the shared challenges and traumas that unfolded, reinforcing our commitment to maintaining a compassionate and resilient community.
Despite the vehement push back from our surroundings, fueled by desires of vengeance and an inability to empathize with the perceived other, we have remained unwavering in our values and commitment to our mission of using language as a tool in resisting injustice and fostering solidarity among all peoples of this land. TINAU has persevered as a beacon of linguistic inclusivity and remained committed to social justice, reflecting the enduring spirit that inspired its creation.
“This is Not an Ulpan” stands as a testament to the enduring power of education in shaping a just and united future. In the midst of turmoil, we remain unwavering in our mission, reminding us that language can and must be a force for positive change, challenging the status quo, fostering empathy, and building a more just society for all its inhabitants, wherever they live.
This is Not an Ulpan Staff
This is Not an Ulpan (TINAU) was founded in 2012 by a group of teachers and students frustrated by their own Ulpan experiences where the language taught was too often removed from the real world. The group believed a language school should teach the language of everyday life (and in real-life situations where possible). The group also identified the lack of language schools teaching both Hebrew and Arabic and believed that in order to reduce cultural barriers within Israel that first the language barriers needed to be reduced. Today TINAU stands out as one of the only language schools in Israel that teaches both Hebrew and Arabic and is run by Jews, Palestinians, locals and newcomers together.
