Reflections from Ramla- Part I

Muli Peleg

Ramla is truly a microcosm of the Israeli society. Despite its small population (65,000), Ramla is home to several ethnic, religious, lingual and national entities, which endeavor to coexist under a municipality of scant resources and occasionally biased priorities. This is an ideal location for social research: it is relatively small and hence, tenable, conducive and effective for rigorous investigation, and it boasts all possible cleavages a society could wish or dread: socio-economic, political, cultural and generational. We approached our target population–town leaders and social activists—with hesitancy and uncertainty. We couldn’t tell for sure whether we would be welcomed. In spite of our positive and constructive introduction, we still had doubts with regard to how the locals would perceive us as outsiders offering our expertise to improve their lives. After all, what did we know about their concerns, fears, hopes and aspirations?  So what could we possibly offer Ramlians that would stimulate them to dedicate their precious time to us?

Ramla reflects the subtle but volatile coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Israel. Composed of 80% Jews and 20% Arabs of whom 16% are Muslims and 4% Christians, the town consists all the familiar tensions between the two populations along the national, religious and cultural fault-lines. The two groups of population live separate lives: they dwell in distinct neighborhoods (except from few individuals, usually Arabs, who choose to reside in Jewish areas due to the better living conditions), they go to different schools, they participate in dissimilar youth movements, and hang out in disparate locations. They periodically bump into each other in offices, the market place or public places but camaraderie and amity are rare.

Our team came all the way from Columbia to intervene in this precarious situation of an impending collision course. Ramla is a barometer of the Israeli mood and the ostensible calm might shift in any given moment with any probable Arab-Jewish confrontation not only in Israel but in the entire region as well. The challenge facing us was how to introduce our influence without antagonizing any of the participants we invited. It looked like a formidable task: how to meet vastly diverged expectations and satisfying all sides. It is one thing to contemplate such an enterprise in a lab or in a class simulation but quite another when facing reality in the intense and crowded conflict environment of Ramla.