Jewish-Arab running group leaves race out of marathon

More than 25,000 people are expected to pound the pavement on March 13 for the fifth (full) Jerusalem marathon, including 2,200 from 60 countries other than Israel and 6,000 people running to raise money for charity. If you’re one of the participants, or cheering along the sidelines, keep your eyes peeled for a dozen teenage girls in white shirts. They may not be talking to each other, because they don’t speak the same language, but they’ll certainly be rooting for one another.

The girls are members of a new running initiative called “Runners Without Borders” that brings Arab, Jewish, and Armenian girls together. But unlike other coexistence initiatives spearheaded by international groups or well-established organizations with executive boards and fundraising committees, the powerhouse behind this running group is a high school student and runner named Shoshana Ben-David from Jerusalem.

“Last summer, because the whole situation was so tense, I really felt the increase in the racism and the violence,” said Ben-David, 18. “I felt that I had to do something, and I wanted to something for teenage girls because I saw that girls are doing a lot less sport than the boys are doing. So I said, why not kill two birds with one stone? Let’s combine this together with doing something about the terrible political situation.”

Runners Without Borders has two goals: to help young women improve their self-confidence and body image through sports, and to bring disparate communities together, Ben-David explained.

Ben-David previously participated in a Jewish-Arab summer art camp, so she had experience with cross-cultural dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians. She started last fall by visiting schools across Jerusalem and connecting with gym teachers to try to find interested students. She was surprised by how many people thought a Jewish-Arab running club was a good idea, but also surprised by how difficult it was to recruit girls to come on a regular basis.

“In the Jewish schools it was really easy to find people, but it was hard to get them to come because they were busy or because it was cold,” said Ben-David. “People who aren’t used to running don’t know you can run when it’s cold because you warm up.”

Ben-David specifically appealed to non-runners to try to get them involved in sports, and many of them were loath to train in the rain and cold of a Jerusalem winter. But the March race date meant that they needed to maintain a regular training session for the past several months to prepare for the half-marathon (Ben-David) or the 10k (the other runners).

“With the Arab population, it was really difficult,” said Ben-David. She started in some of the higher socioeconomic neighborhoods, like Beit Safafa and Beit Hanina, which are also less involved in political violence. “I talked to a gym teacher in Jabl Mukaber, which is a more conservative place, but she said she’s trying to take really small steps towards coexistence,” said Ben-David. A joint Jewish-Arab running group was too radical for her school.

Ben David, right, ran into a lot of difficulties trying to recruit teenage girls to run in the Runners Without Borders running group. (photo courtesy: Itay Akirav)

“The problem is when the parents are really conservative, they don’t like the idea that their kids will go to west Jerusalem and run with Jewish people,” explained Ben David. This also happens among more conservative Jewish families, she noted. Part of the problem also lies in the community’s perception of the activity. Some parents do not have a problem with the joint nature of the group, but are worried what their neighbors will think, especially in politically tense periods such as now.

“But we want to reach the more conservative families, because these girls probably have even less opportunities to do sport,” added Ben-David. She is still working to try to solidify a core group of Arab runners for the group as it’s been difficult to get the teenagers to commit. None of the Arab participants agreed to speak to a reporter.

Soon after Ben-David started her running group in November, the Schusterman Foundation connected her with Jerusalem social activist Israel Haas, who was also trying to start a Jewish-Arab youth group. Both Ben-David and Haas are runners, so the partnership was a natural fit. Haas also speaks Arabic, which made it easier to connect with the Arab schools.

“We spin the story a bit differently depending on where we are,” said Haas. “If we are in a more conservative area, we put less emphasis on the coexistence, and it’s more about the sport and the running aspect.” Haas is also working on creating a boys’ running group for middle schoolers, though he’s still trying to recruit participants.

The girls meet once a week for a training session with coach Sarah Stone, a 24-year-old American runner doing her master’s degree at Hebrew University. Every other week, they also have a dialogue session.

“This is not a political project, it’s about a personal connection with the person who lives next to you,” explained Ben-David. “When we discover things we have in common, I am able to understand more about them and where they come from and they do the same for me.”

Although the group is new, it’s already met with some success. Mayor Nir Barkat invited the group on one of his morning runs from his home to his office, though Arab members of the group did not participate.

The Hope Onluz organization in Italy invited six members of the group for an all-expenses-paid trip to run the Milano Marathon in April. The team will run in a relay, with each girl running about seven kilometers.

Haas’s dedicated work publicizing the project on Facebook attracted the attention of a fledgling group of five young female runners from the Armenian Quarter. Ben-David said this group of Armenian girls has brought an entirely different aspect of the conflict to the forefront and educated everyone involved.

Runners without Borders has two goals: to get girls more active and more self-confident, and to bring together disparate communities. (photo courtesy: Itay Akirav)

But Runners Without Borders has also run into challenges. Public transportation is severely lacking in the Arab neighborhoods, and Arab parents are worried about letting their children go to west Jerusalem after the murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir and attacks against Arabs in Zion Square, said Haas. So the group must organize transportation for the Arab students. They are also hoping to pay for permanent trainers, one in Hebrew and one in Arabic. They get incremental support from places like the Peres Center for Peace, which donated T-shirts, and the Ginot Ha’Ir community council of Jerusalem, which provided the seed money. But before the marathon they’re in a frantic bid to fundraise another NIS 20,000 ($5,000) from private donors.

Ben-David knows that there are plenty of organizations that provide activities for Jews and Arabs to get to know each other, through Ultimate Frisbee, judo, basketball, soccer, summer camps, or art projects. But there’s something about running — that feeling of pure freedom from feet pounding down a trail. It’s a sport that needs no equipment save a pair of sneakers and a tolerance for pain.

“You can do this with soccer or basketball,” said Haas. “But with running, you don’t have to speak the other’s language.”

The girls’ group runs mostly on the new pedestrian and bike path built on the train tracks in south Jerusalem. The location was chosen with purpose: the path runs through both Arab and Jewish neighborhoods, a more neutral location far from the tense city center. It’s public, and it’s pretty. Oval tracks at the stadium can be intimidating for first-time runners. But the most important thing, said Ben-David, is that they’re out running in public together.

“It’s something that everyone can see, that there’s this running group in Jerusalem,” she said.  “Everyone can see us and they can see that Jews and Arabs can run together.”