What they are learning

Four of our grandchildren are studying at universities. We were curious as to what they are learning and asked them each to submit a short statement. This is what we got:

Assaf, who is a career officer in the army, is studying about Islam at Tel Aviv University. The world dispute as to what Islam has contributed to the science of medicine can be summarized as follows: The Islamic world translated the Greek knowledge of the medical sciences around the ninth-12th centuries, "The Golden Age," but hasn't contributed to it any knowledge of its own. Islam's main contribution was to pass this knowledge to Europe, which developed it and made it the basis of modern science. After the "Golden Age," the Islamic world started to decline culturally, especially in science, and turned its attention toward more theological research and religious medicine, closing itself to outside influences.

Dafna, a third-year student of nursing in the Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, reports that after her army service she spent six months traveling, and it was then that she decided to study nursing, choosing Hadassah. The student body is a true mirror of Israeli society in all but one aspect: More than 90 percent of the students are female. The four-year program includes theoretical studies and working in the hospital wards.

Naomi is a freshman at Haifa University majoring in communication disorders, a relatively new field. When she graduates, she will be a speech therapist and audiologist. She will diagnose communication disorders and supply adults and children with the tools to improve their ability to communicate with their surroundings. The studies include developmental psychology, anatomy, linguistics and phonetics, both in Hebrew and Arabic. In her class, 30 percent of the students are Arabs.

Anat, who is gainfully employed in the high tech industry, is pursuing graduate studies in English literature at Tel Aviv University, and is working on a paper about "Mother Courage and her Children," analyzing the source of Brecht's failure to create alienation between the audience and the character of Mother Courage. Her argument is encapsulated in the following hypothetical story she once heard from a tour guide:

A girl lives with her father in the ghetto. The father is ill and the girl goes to collect food rations for both of them. On her way back, being very hungry, she can't help herself and eats her father's small portion as well as her own. As she realizes she has no food to carry home to her ailing father, she remembers a pair of golden earrings left to her by her mother, which she managed to keep in hiding. At this point the guide stopped, turned to them and asked what the group thought the girl should do. The group, finding the question almost rhetorical, replied that she should of course trade the earrings for food. Well, said the guide, none of you think she should have traded them for a gun?

That's what some of our grandchildren are studying - and learning.

Carl Alpert is a freelance writer based in Haifa, Israel. He will no longer be writing a regular column.

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