Students write letters for peace

News12.com - Long Island Interactive 
Hempstead Township, NY 
May 3rd, 2001

-CEDARHURST — For many years, Palestine and Israel have been fighting over land that has caused a lot of bloodshed and heartache.

In an effort to promote peace, approximately 850 high school freshman, juniors and seniors at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns have become involved in the "Kids for Peace" program of the Mothers Against Teaching Children to Kill and Hate (M.A.T.C.K.H.).

Molly Resnick, director and founder of M.A.T.C.K.H. since its start in 1998 has been going around the country to similar schools educating and showing students what Anti-semetic views Arab children are being taught in their country and to "oppose groups teaching bigotry, hatred, and murder of children."

The organization contacts the schools and makes them aware of their efforts to educate Jewish children on what's going on in Palestine and what their program is trying to teach.

Resnick already has traveled to schools in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey and has approximatley 3,000 letters from all the schools she's visited.

These letters written by students express feelings and their personal views. These letters will be laminated made part of a quilt along with others that schools have made across the country.

The quilts will be taken to either the Palestinian delagation in the United Nations or to Washington D.C. under the auspices of Congress.

Ms. Aliza Kadosh, assistant principal of Judaic Studies at HAFTR, told News12.com, “We feel and our students feel that there is a real chance in the Middle East. Letters won’t really accomplish that but education will.” She added, “We want Palestinian children to see us as human beings.”

Kadosh told News12.com, “We are portrayed as evil in Palestinian schools. Our main message is educating the younger generation to peace.”

M.A.T.C.K.H. has also traveled to the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County in Uniondale where Resnick has spoken to nearly 600 middle and high school students.

Both local schools have made quilts and will also march with them in the Israeli Day Parade in Manhattan on Sunday, May 20, 2001.

Two of the letters written by the students, which were submitted to News12.com (Long Island, NY).

Student letter #1

Why must your young hearts be filled with so much hate for people who wish only to live in peaceful coexistence? Why can’t a common love for the land help unite us? True harmony can only exist once hatred no longer does. I don’t learn to hate you. So don’t listen to people who tell you to hate me. There is no reason why we can’t live in peace.