We were delighted to once again host our friends from the Brandeis School during their annual 8th grade trip to Israel. This year, we did something a little bit different, and the Brandeis students spent a night on our campus, meeting Younited Students and participating in both social activities and a value-based seminar.
Here is a reflection from Dan Glass, Head of School.
Hope
One of the great privileges of joining our annual 8th grade trip to Israel this year was the time we spent simply traveling together—on long bus rides through hills and valleys, over shared breakfasts and group reflections, through hikes and hotel check-ins. These are the hours when our students shine: showing kindness, curiosity, resilience, and their capacity to laugh and think deeply at once. I write now from the airport, where I’ve left a few days early in order to get back for some school work and a dear friend’s half-century birthday celebration.
As I leave, I find myself thinking of where we spent our Tuesday night this week, with the students of the Younited School, a program of Givat Haviva.
Givat Haviva, founded just after the establishment of the State of Israel, is one of the country’s oldest civil society institutions, long committed to building a shared society—one where Jews and Palestinians and folks from other communities around the world live and work together. The Younited School is a powerful extension of that vision: an international boarding high school grounded in the idea that education can help us imagine and model a more just and interconnected world.
The school is home to around 140 students, aiming to grow to 160. Half are local—Jewish and Arab teens from nearby towns and villages—and half come from around the globe. Students live together, learn together, and participate in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which is not specifically Israeli or Palestinian, and is taught entirely in English. That means nearly all students are learning in their second or even third language, which levels the playing field and creates a shared sense of vulnerability and mutual reliance. Still, students also study literature in their native languages, maintaining strong ties to home cultures and traditions.
The academic work is rigorous—students dive into CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) projects, and engage in Theory of Knowledge seminars that push them to ask essential questions: How do we know what we know? They think critically, challenge assumptions, and practice seeing the world—and each other—through multiple lenses.
During our visit, our students participated in an activity focused on stereotypes and generalizations. The statements were stark and familiar: Teenagers are always on their phones. Everyone in the West is wealthy. Peace isn’t possible in the Middle East. Our students stepped into the conversation with insight and empathy. Zelig observed that it was sad how easily we all recognized these assumptions—how deeply ingrained they’ve become. Eva brought her San Francisco perspective into the room, pointing out the visible homelessness in our city as a challenge to the idea of Western wealth. Cyb named the way young people often turn to their phones not out of apathy, but as a means of escaping the challenges of a world shaped by adult failures. As the facilitator Hannah noted in summarizing some of the feedback, “Talking in absolutes just doesn’t help.”
What we witnessed at Younited was not utopia. It was something far more powerful: a real, living community of young people working hard to understand one another, despite difference and across distance. Jewish and Palestinian teens, along with their international classmates, are sharing meals, asking big questions, and choosing—each day—to build a future rooted in connection and courage.
For our Brandeis students, the visit was both inspiring and grounding. They saw firsthand what it looks like when education is not only about content, but about character and coexistence. In a year when despair can feel easier to access than hope, our time at Givat Haviva was a powerful reminder of what is possible when we trust our young people with complexity—and with one another.
