The Changing Map of Israel

Capital Camps

Overnight

Adam Teitelbaum

This program is an adaptation of the Map Program taught to me by longtime Jewish and Israel educator, Joe Perlov. Using colored masking tape, the facilitator creates and then explores the changing borders of Israel and the Middle East. Campers are invited to “travel” the history and geography by making a large, general map of Israel and the surrounding countries on the floor and then, as the story evolves, tape is added and moved to convey changes in a visual and tactile manner as campers physically stand and traverse the changing maps.

geography, maps, history, borders, Middle East, Arab

Geography

Campers will:
●    Explore the historic Jewish connection to the land and region
●    Gain an understanding of the impermanence of national borders and the existence of countries in the modern era
●    Explore modern day issues and topics with an expanded lens seeing not simply the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but a broader region that has undergone dramatic changes throughout history.
●    Using stories and tactile experiences, create their own memories of the region - especially establishing a historical Jewish connection to the land.

All ages (campers and staff)

10 – 50 individuals. Depending on how in-depth or “political” the conversation gets, smaller groups might be preferred (especially for older campers and staff)

· Multiple rolls of masking tape in different colors
(This is possible to accomplish with just plain masking tape. However, if given the option, use standard masking tape for the general borders, green tape when adding Golan, West Bank and Gaza to represent the “Green Line,” and blue for the water.)

· Maps of the region (The iCenter)
(If looking for additional resources and learning opportunities, facilitators can share historical maps such as biblical Israel, the region under the Ottoman Empire, pre-WWII regional maps, Partition Plan, 1949 Armistice lines, 1967 borders, modern political maps.)

· Optional: Posterboard with post 1948 dates and events leading to changing borders

Background:

● Parshat Lech Lecha (Abraham’s original journey)

● Parshat Chayei Sarah (Abraham buying the land for burial)

● Sykes-Picot Agreement

● Background on term Green Line

Program leader

Large, open area (can be indoors or outdoors, only requirement is to create map on floor large enough for campers to stand in)

I.    Introduction                    5 minutes
II.    Mapping process                 30-45 minutes
III.    Wrap up                    10-15 minutes

I.    Introduction                        5 minutes
Maps tell us a lot about history and politics: How borders are designated; what places and landmarks are called; the relative sizes of different places on the map all give us clues to understand who created the map and what story they are trying to convey. (If I have access to it, I sometimes show this map of the world “upside down” or this map of continents how they actually are based on size and location on the globe, not just from an American/Western centric vantage point to demonstrate how maps can be political tools.)

History is all about understanding the ways in which different peoples and different powers all interacted with one another - usually for control over natural resources or physical safety. As early as pre-WWII, borders were constantly changing. People would wake up and have to read the newspaper to know which currency to use or which country they now lived in. This is particularly relevant to the Jews who were living in the Pale of Settlement around the 1900s.

Today we’re going to explore the making of the modern middle east.

Ask 4 trivia questions:
a.    If you were to look at a map of the United States from 1900, what would be different? (Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii not part of the map).
b.    How is it decided what goes on a map of a certain country or region?
c.    When did the country of Jordan come into being?
d.    Who determined the boundaries of the country of Lebanon?
e.    How many times have the borders within the current state of Israel changed since 1947? (27)
Today you are going on a hike through the Middle East to see what you can discover about where things are and how they got to be that way.
II.    Exploring the Map                    30-45 minutes
The length of this portion of the program will depend on the age of the group, their background knowledge and their desire to engage in dialogue about Israel.

The script below is very detailed since the content is quite detailed. We recommend printing it out and arranging it in a way that enables the program leader to follow along easily.
a.    Gather everyone in a circle and begin making outline of Israel and surrounding countries and bodies of water - the Red Sea, Kinneret and Dead Sea.
1.    Put North arrow in the Mediterranean Sea.
2.    Intentionally exclude borders for Golan heights, West Bank, and Gaza.

3.    Ask group: what are we looking at?
Gather answers.
4.    Does anyone have any problems with my map? Is there anything missing?

b.    Add borders for Golan, WB, and Gaza using green to represent the Green Line. (Link to: Why is the Green Line called the Green Line?).
c.    Add X for Jerusalem.

d.    Now that we’ve established what we’re looking at, call on people to go to the following countries that they identify. Ask, “who knows one of the countries on this map?” As they say one, invite them to go stand in that country:
●    Lebanon
●    Syria
●    Jordan
●    Saudi Arabia
●    Egypt
●    Iraq
●    Iran (this is a good country to show because there is so much tension between Israel and Iran, and it shows how even though Iraq is between the two countries, they really are proximate. But showing Iran is not as necessary in this program - I usually only have someone go to Iran if they name it thinking it’s on this map)
●    West Bank
●    Gaza
●    Israel

e.    Once everyone is situated and standing in their assigned country ask the following (and prompt them to sit down if they don’t know):
Stay standing in your country if it existed as the current modern country before:
●    1952 (Egypt and Iraq, 1958, sit down)
●    1948 (Israel sit down)
●    1946 (Jordan and Syria sit down)
●    1943 (Lebanon sit down)
●    1932 (Saudi Arabia)

Note: If the participants standing in Palestinian territories are still standing - open discussion group about why they chose to continue to stand and what the implications of this are.

Ask: What does this tell you about the permanence or impermanence of the map and different countries?
Major point: The modern creation of this entire region and the country maps began post-WWI after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Sykes-Picot Agreement.  Following WWI the British and French primarily divided the region and the countries you were just standing in began to emerge. Also, depending on what terms you use give an indication of political leanings and also understanding of history. For example, are these lands: occupied? Judea and Samaria? Palestine? Occupied Palestinian Territories? There is a lot to unpack even in what it’s called.

f.    Pull up the (Green) tape marking the Golan Heights, West Band, and Gaza.

g.    Historical perspective:
1.    OK - now we’re going to go wayyyyy back in time.
Pick someone to be Abraham, invite them to stand in modern-day Iraq:
●    Voice of G-d:  Abram, go…go forth, Lech Lecha
●    Instruct Abram to walks all the way from Ur which is in modern day Iraq, through Syria, down into the Negev desert.
Here you are in what is today Israel.
●    In this place Abraham does something (have discussion with campers), what does he do? He digs a well. How many wells? Seven? How do you say well in Hebrew? Be’er. How do you say Seven? Sheva. How do you say seven wells? Be’er Sheva. Does that sound familiar to anyone? That is a city that still exists today.
●    But there is more: Then there is a famine in the land so Abram and his wife have to go to Egypt. Send Abram over into Egypt, then back to Israel which was then Canaan and there he is told to take is son up a mountain - which mountain is it? Mt. Moriah. Where is it? Jerusalem, then after his wife dies he goes to Hebron (put an X) where he buys a parcel of land and then back to Be’er Sheva where he stays for the rest of his life.
●    Finally, go back to Hebron: this is where you are buried.

2.    Ask for Isaac. Question to the group - what other countries did Isaac visit?
Trick question, he’s the only one in our history who was born, lived, and died all within the borders of Israel. So, Isaac should stay put.

3.    Ask for Joseph and brothers (2 people).
Joseph was sold and he went to Egypt.
His brothers went to Egypt then back to Israel, then back to Egypt.

4.    Ask for a Moses and a representative of the Hebrews in Egypt:
Moses and God got Pharoah to “Let my people go”
Everyone then wanders through the Red Sea where what happened? G-d split the sea. Then they wandered for 40 years through the desert to Mt. Sinai where what happened? We received the Torah. Then to Mt. Nebo just on the eastern side of the Jordan before Moses passes away and Joshua leads the people into the land.
Everyone except Moses then enters the Promised Land (what is today, Israel) where they stay for about 1,000 years until they are exiled to Babylonia (modern day Iraq) in 586 BCE. They all came back a few decades later for another 500-600 years until they are exiled in 70 CE for the next 2000 years, until the modern era.

5.    Fast forward to where we started today, just after World War 1 when many of the countries on the map were created.

In 1917, the British annoucned the Balfour Declaration , which announced its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in what was then known as Palestine.

The 1947 the newly founded United Nations created the Partition Plan (Resolution 181) which proposed dividing British Mandate Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem under international control, aiming for independence by 1949.

With all 6 campers crowded inside the map ask the following discussion question:

Discussion: – Why is this a good plan? Problematic plan? Discussion.

6.    From 1948 – today:
This is a lot of content to cover! Choose for yourself how many key moments from a modern Israeli history timeline you want to include, and remove or add tape to give participants a sense of the changing borders.

III.    Wrap up
We’ve covered a lot of time and a lot of maps today.
●    What did you notice about the rate at which the map evolved?
●    What surprised you about the map(s)?
●    What do you want to know more about?
●    How would you describe the map of the region to someone who asks you about it?

Final thought: What’s next? How will the map change tomorrow? Or at some future time. Maps help us to picture issues, to shape our thinking through our eyes!

Our goal with this program is first and foremost to open you up to the long history and connection between the Jewish people, our story, and this land specifically. This is not always understood in such a visual way. The second is to show the ways in which this very map and the ways that it has changed, continues to change, and will continue to change is at the heart of a lot of current discussion in the region and about the region. Being able to have this understanding and connection to the history and the politics is important to being able to discern the stories you hear in the news and on social media to decide the narrator’s own biases and perspectives as you make your own conclusions.