On every count, Shlomo Alon is not the man you'd expect for the job, at least at first glance. The jolly, grandfatherly Jerusalemite in his late 60s wears both a toothy grin and a yarmulke and speaks proudly and easily about his religious Jewish beliefs - even to audiences of young Muslims from Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon - in Arabic.
A son of Holocaust survivors from Poland, Alon was born in pre-State Israel with Hebrew as his native tongue. Considered a bright child and raised in South Tel Aviv, he dreamed of studying in the more affluent neighborhood of North Tel Aviv.
Once there, he realized he'd have to accomplish something special to stand out among the other kids, all equally as bright, and chose to study Arabic. The Jewish Arabic teacher at the school had made an impression on him.
Flash forward to today: For 25 years, Alon has been the head of Arabic studies in the Israeli Ministry of Education. Two months before his retirement, as his 40-year-old replacement Sigalit Shushan is poised to take over, he expresses pride in his accomplishments.
Alon is not the first to have overseen Israel's official second language being taught in high schools around the country, but he remained in the position the longest, seeing the greatest amount of change and acceptance by Jewish Israelis. He jokes: "It's a record to have someone to stay this long and when he retires still in good shape!"
Arabic no longer associated with conflict
Alon reflects that the major step forward since his own student days is that Arabic is no longer associated only with conflict in the minds of Israelis. "In the past, people tried to identify studying Arabic with the political dispute in the region, between Israelis and Arabs, Muslims and Jews, Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews, and people were angry. In the past they said, basically, 'I don't want to like the language of the enemy' and this [sentiment] has almost totally disappeared."
Today, he continues, "Arabic is taught as a major subject and is one of the core curricula in the county." As far as he knows, Israel is one of the only countries in the world, if not the only, where Arabic is taught as an official second language. "Maybe they are teaching Arabic in Malaysia, but honestly, I haven't heard of any country that comes close to Israel."
Arabic studies in Israel are optional but popular at the middle-school level, introduced at age 12 and taught until age 16. Now as a pilot project, Alon has helped introduce Arabic to the southern region of Israel, where a majority of people in some locales speak Arabic, mainly the Bedouin. In nine Jewish elementary schools in the Beersheva area, the Education Ministry has introduced Arabic classes. "It's a small step but a meaningful step," Alon says. "Because in the Negev we have so many Arabs and Bedouins who live there and so many non-Jewish students at the colleges. We continue to work very hard to make Arabic a real obligatory subject for every Jewish student from the age of 12 to the age of 16," he says.
Find him in Jordan or Morocco
As he leaves his position, Alon, who is vice chairman for the United Religions Initiative based in California, looks forward to continuing the Arabic language debate in salon meetings held in literary Arabic through the non-profit group's Arabic Speaking Cooperation Circle of Teachers of Jews and Arabs. Through this initiative, about a dozen educators meet every six weeks to talk in literary Arabic, and learn texts from the Koran and the Bible. They also study other texts produced originally in Arabic, such as those written by the medieval Jewish sage Maimonides.
Meanwhile, although he is retiring, Alon is actively promoting the notion that if you can speak in the language of the "other," you will get to know him better. It's a mission of culture and peace.
In June, he was invited to be the keynote speaker at a meeting in Morocco focused on Middle East migration to Europe, organized by the Anna Lindh Foundation and the United Religions Initiative. Alon was among 60 people at the meeting, most of them from Middle East and North African countries, where Arabic is the official and spoken language.