By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
The struggle
between keeping a centuries-old traditional society alive
and adapting to the 21st century is a common one in the
Middle East. The Bedouin population of Israel’s Negev desert
is an important example of this struggle.
One man,
Professor Alean al-Krenawi, has been working to help his
fellow tribesmen through the social issues of these changes.
As the new chair at the Spitzer Department of Social Work at
Ben Gurion University, al-Krenawi was in Seattle recently to
talk about his new job.
"This year I was
elected to be chair of the department," al-Krenawi said,
"which is the first Bedouin to be chair of a department of
social work in Israel."
He is also the
first Bedouin to run a department at the university that
serves the southernmost portions of Israel.
"One of my goals
is to strengthen the relationship between research and
academia," he said. His visit, by meeting with the
University of Washington’s social work department in an
international exchange program, is one way he is attempting
to achieve that goal. The relationship between the
universities was facilitated by the late Jack Spitzer, who
died in July. Spitzer, with his wife Charlotte, helped to
turn the Israeli university’s struggling social work
department into a strong institution that serves the entire
country.
"I came here to
be with Charlotte because of Jack," al-Krenawi said.
"Without their support, it’s hard to say if we’d have such a
great department."
Al-Krenawi’s
story could have been like one of the other 150,000 Bedouin
that live in and around Southern Israel. He is one of 15
children, and grew up in a small city that is among the
poorest in the country. He is also, however, the only member
of his family to attend university. He took as much
advantage of his opportunity as he could, and found his
calling in the fields of education and the social sciences.
During his second
year of school, al-Krenawi began working as a social worker.
"I was the first
one who came to the Negev for mental health services," he
said.
The years he
spent in the field were eye-opening to him in how he saw his
people.
"When I completed
my Master’s degree, I said to myself there’s something
unacceptable here among the Bedouin community," al-Krenawi
said. But it wasn’t until after he received his doctorate
from the University of Toronto that he decided to return
home. He had been weighing his options on what to do next
when Ben Gurion University called. That was in 1995. He has
been there ever since.
Bringing the
knowledge and methodology of mental health service to the
traditional communities was not an easy task.
"Within the
culture itself there is what are called informal systems
that exist within the community: the traditional healers,
the religious aspect, the family in the community," he said.
As part of his
work in the university, al-Krenawi has trained social
workers – Jewish and Arab alike – to be able to go into
these communities while remaining sympathetic to the
cultural differences.
"The profession
shapes the attitudes and view of the social workers," he
said. "We try to put the social workers in a position to be
more creative, and to deal with them a little more
differently."
The problems the
Bedouin face are similar to many problems other Arab
populations face when attempting to adapt to the modern
world.
"Our job is to
help the social workers deal with that clash," al-Krenawi
said. Problems range from domestic violence to simply
allowing women to attend school at all. As little as 10
years ago, al-Krenawi said, "Even high school was not
accepted."
Today, 51 percent
of the Bedouin students in his department are female, though
he said that number is a bit skewed because many males who
enroll in social work programs have the freedom to leave
their homes to attend universities elsewhere in the country.
"But we see that
education is getting more important for the Bedouin
community," he said, and that typifies the type of change he
deals with.
Still, convincing
the Bedouin to seek out and sustain mental health treatment
holds its own set of challenges.
"The termination
of treatment after one or two sessions is very high," al-Krenawi
said. "I think the issue here is stigma."
In his tenure at
the university, al-Krenawi has also worked to build
Jewish-Arab relations through face-to-face meetings and
education.
"In bringing the
issue of dialogue between cultures, in this case being
Jewish and Arab, it’s very important, it’s really crucial,"
he said. "When they talk about their attitudes, their
values, their ideology you tend to help to change the view
and attitudes of each other."
He said that by
teaching the suffering of others, it better enables them to
listen to each other and develop sensitivities.
As chair of the
department, al-Krenawi said he will continue to focus on
multiculturalism while helping to ease the social problems
that have beset the poorest area of his country.
He said he is
honored to have been elected to his three-year term as
chair, while acknowledging his situation is unique for both
the Bedouin and Israel. "When it happened," he said, "I said
to myself, it’s really a political statement."