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to wash them. I’m wondering—do your hands get cleaner the more times you wash them? I wash my hands over and over and then I run very fast to the Room without touching anything and I say to Daddy do my hands look clean? And he says yes very clean and I say really really really clean? And he says yes really really clean but I can tell he’s only trying to make me happy.

That was an experiment. I proved that if you wash your hands one time or a lot of times it’s exactly the same. Exactly exactly the same.

Precedents

Out, out damn spot!

Dori

It’s our day to go to Galron. Everyone’s shouting microbus microbus! But you know what? In the end a microbus is just a small bus.

I sit next to Skye. Suddenly I remember about the shelter. I ask Skye do you know what a shelter is? Skye says they’re in case the Enemy drops a bomb on us.

I say a boy asked me to do sex in there. Skye says he asked Hagar too but it hurt so she told him to stop. I heard her tell my sister. I say I didn’t like him. Skye says he’s new here.

Skye reads the sign on the road. She knows how to read because her father taught her. I think I know who her father is. I think he’s the serious man with the moustache. Serious like Skye.

Transcript of Meeting August 1961

Topic:

Integration of Outside Students—Parental Votes

Chair:

Amos Atar

Amos:

It was suggested at the last meeting that the parents of

each high-school grade be allowed to decide by majority

vote on integration for that grade.

This is our umpteenth meeting on this topic and I’d

like to make a request that points which have already

been made should not be made again. We’re here to vote

on a specific topic which came up at the last meeting but

which we didn’t have time to discuss.

To summarize the points which have already been

made, I have made a list, which I’d like to present, in no

particular order:

a) segregation reminds us of Jim Crow;

b) we need members and these children are more likely

to stay if we integrate them completely;

c) if we don’t take in outside children, our own chil-

dren won’t be able to be educated here as we don’t

have the numbers to create a high-school facility,

and that means we’ll only see them on the weekend;

d) children who may be disturbed, wild, or even delin-

quent will have a bad effect on our own children and

may bring discord into their lives;

e) this has nothing to do with Jim Crow because these

children are not average children and our doubts

have nothing whatsoever to do with race or city

background (on the contrary, we want as mixed a

population as possible) but with the fact that many

of the children are troubled due to early experiences;

f) we are teaching our children to accept and educate

others and to be inclusive—what better opportun-

ity is there to put those values into daily practice;

g) we believe the influence will work in the other dir-

ection, and this belief in education is at the heart of

all we hold dear;

h) it is our moral duty to help others in need, and to

quote the Talmud, “if I am only for myself, what

am I?” not to mention Marx et. al.;

i) these are Israeli children and their conditions have

been deplorable, the country must do all that it can

to help them, and we are duty-bound to try and

remedy the neglect they have suffered;

j) we don’t have the resources to accept high-school

children and segregate them so it’s either integrate

them or not take them at all;

k) we are doing more than our share already—we’ve

taken in many social service cases largely at our own

expense;

l) can we afford a high-school in the first place?

m) we have successfully integrated the young out-

side children sent to us by social services;

n) not everyone agrees that this has been an unquali-

fied success.

Have I covered everything?

Varda:

Thank you, Amos, that’s very helpful.

Naftali:

Yes, very well done.

Amos:

What we’re voting on today is the proposal that came

up last