Amid COVID-19, US volunteers help teach children in Israel's periphery

• Published date: 29 December 2020
• Date: 29 December 2020
• Author: AARON REICH
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Globally, around 90% of governments ordered a shift to some form of remote learning due to the virus, affecting an estimated 70% of children. However, 30% of them are known to lack the ability to learn remotely, either due to technological limitations or otherwise.

And with COVID-19 having also forced young adults out of work or making them defer their college studies, several volunteers have stepped up to help the children of Israel's periphery.

One of them, 23-year-old San Diego native Zach Fish, came to Israel after the pandemic cost him his job as a Costco event manager.

He then came to Israel and, deciding to help those hurt most by the crisis, joined a program run by MASA Israel and BINA: The Jewish Movement for Social Change to teach Israeli Arab children at a Jaffa school.

"Kids should be at school, socializing and interacting with each other, but instead they are learning on Zoom," Fish said. "I teach English at a school in Jaffa which has one English teacher for nearly 700 pupils. I am really happy to join the staff and make a difference!"

Another volunteer, San Francisco native Alyssa Alishoev, also came to Israel to help make sure youths from disadvantaged communities receive education amid the pandemic.

Working at schools in Nazareth, Alishoev helps bring educational opportunities to a city that has been slow to open up compared to others in the country, as it has been labeled a red zone due to high cases throughout much of the pandemic.

At the time of writing, despite Israel having entered a third lockdown, schools are reopening nationwide, despite the fears by teachers that they won't be vaccinated soon enough.

Teaching during the coronavirus pandemic has been especially challenging, with many teachers struggling to cope with the shift to remote learning, and many others – especially in disadvantaged communities in the periphery – struggle with a lack of resources needed to properly adjust.

This was stressed in a May op-ed in The Jerusalem...