For Arabs, Jews, a bit of healing in shared history

"It's a mess," says Mouna's mother, Nesreen Basher, of the situation. Her neighbors had asked if she wasn't afraid to go to West Jerusalem to take part in the program with Mouna. "You cannot hide like an ostrich," says Ms. Basher, a slim woman with a thoughtful manner. "This is our life. They are here and we are here and we have to live together."

On the first day of the program, Basher recalls, the children "sat in two divisions, like little political leaders. Now they mix." Behind her, on their fourth meeting, children shriek with ear-splitting excitement as mixed Jewish and Arab teams charge the length of an empty room with cups of water, trying to win the race without spilling a drop.

Before the program begins, the museum invites the teachers to meet each other and go through the curriculum in advance. They also hold a meeting at each school to answer questions.

Palestinian parents often want to make sure the program isn't proselytizing. "We're not trying to make one group into the other," Weiss assures them. "First and foremost, we're trying to strengthen our own identities."

The response from parents invited to join their children surprised the museum, with more coming every week. "There's an enthusiasm there," says the museum's education director, Yehuda Kaplan. "We're not so naive as to think that in three or four meetings we will overcome all the fears. But at the first meeting, that initial tension evaporated because they could watch their kids and talk about them."

The museum staff finds that the biggest barrier isn't trust, but language. Interpreters help, but since the core idea behind the program is communication, the museum pays particular attention to how children interact. Everyone is asked to stay quiet as activities are explained in Hebrew and then in Arabic.

"One of the things we try to teach is to listen even if you don't understand," says Mr. Kaplan. An important project the children work on is a dictionary, which they fill with words they need to ask questions about each other's lives.

The conflict does intrude on the program. One word the Jewish children often want in the dictionary is "suicide bombing." Indeed, one Jewish boy refused to take part this year because his father had been killed in a suicide bomb attack.

"In the beginning, the principal emotion is fear," says Miral Tannenbaum, a Jewish mother taking part in the program. "It's too bad there isn't money to make this program longer, because this process takes time, and four weeks isn't enough. For me, it's natural to interact with Palestinians, and I don't have to come to these meetings to know children are the same all over, but these kids do. It's sad."

Young Avi, who conquered his nervousness and now enjoys the program and the other kids, has come to a conclusion by the end of the fourth meeting. "We're not very good friends, because of this fight we're having, but we have to help each other," he says, adding that he doesn't worry so much about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict anymore. "Now I think a lot about Iraq."

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