US students trade unruly Cairo for uneasy Jerusalem
Steve Weizman
JERUSALEM, Steve Weizman- Jerusalem wasn't on the agenda for a group of American students in Cairo to study in a Muslim, Arabic-speaking environment but the upheaval in Egypt, and their US schools, decided otherwise.
The group of 12 young men and women, some of whom had freshly arrived at the American University of Cairo, are now coping with "a little bit of culture shock" in Israel, said 21-year-old Kelly Roache of Little Silver, New Jersey.
Their new venue is the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, still in the Middle East, but Arab unrest was traded for life at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Roache, who arrived in Cairo on January 23, had only a two-day taste of Egypt before protesters filled the streets near the calm, centrally located apartment she and fellow students had found, just 10 minutes walk from the revolt's epicentre, Tahrir Square.
"We had rented an apartment and we moved in Monday night," Roache, a student in international public policy at Princeton University, told AFP on Hebrew University's sprawling hilltop campus.
From her Cairo balcony, she could see the demonstrators and also the looters in the mounting civil unrest that led to the fall of Hosni Mubarak three weeks later.
As security became a concern, Princeton and several other US universities decided to pull their students out and send them elsewhere to finish the term.
Within days of Roache's arrival, she and the others were hurriedly bundled off to the airport.
"On the ride there, there was definitely evidence of what had been going on the night before; things on fire, a lot of smoke," Roache said.
"It was the first time that we saw tanks, which was actually almost a relief given the almost complete lack of security presence in the district of Cairo which we had been staying in."
After two nights stranded at Cairo airport, she flew first to Turkey, then back to the United States to ponder the options for completing her overseas term.
Back in Israel, when news of the unrest hit the headlines, the Rothberg International School at the Hebrew University contacted its partner institutions in North America and offered help.
"We knew that they were evacuating students and we said that we would be willing to help them and offer them studies in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies," said Jonathan Kaplan, head of undergraduate studies at the Rothberg School.
"The universities gave their students a choice," he said. Some of the students opted for Turkey, others went to the Far East.
"But this really was the main Middle Eastern option and Jerusalem has a large Arabic-speaking population," said Kaplan.
Jeremy Hodge, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles, said Israel was not where he expected to end up when he went to Cairo five months ago as part of his Middle Eastern studies degree at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
"I came with the intention of living in a Muslim country and learning Arabic and immersing myself in Muslim culture, in Arab culture," he told AFP. "So I am a little upset that I'm not able to do that to the same extent as before."
"It's definitely a big change in lifestyle," Roache agreed.
The students can still practise their Arabic in Jerusalem's Old City, as on a recent day when they haggled with vendors in the Arab souk to buy strawberries and flavoured tobacco for water pipes.
And Hodge conceded there was an upside to the sudden move.
"I wasn't necessarily focussing particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
"But when I did speak about it (in Cairo), I definitely was exposed to one side of it very thoroughly, so I'm trying to see this as a good opportunity to see the other side."
Though long a flashpoint for the Mideast conflict, Jerusalem now seems tame for worried parents back home, added Roache.
"I think that after Cairo, they have a rather high threshold of tolerance now for conditions they might not be comfortable with ordinarily," she said.
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Roache, who arrived in Cairo on January 23, had only a two-day taste of Egypt before protesters filled the streets near the calm, centrally located apartment she and fellow students had found, just 10 minutes walk from the revolt's epicentre, Tahrir Square.
"We had rented an apartment and we moved in Monday night," Roache, a student in international public policy at Princeton University, told AFP on Hebrew University's sprawling hilltop campus.
From her Cairo balcony, she could see the demonstrators and also the looters in the mounting civil unrest that led to the fall of Hosni Mubarak three weeks later.
As security became a concern, Princeton and several other US universities decided to pull their students out and send them elsewhere to finish the term.
Within days of Roache's arrival, she and the others were hurriedly bundled off to the airport.
"On the ride there, there was definitely evidence of what had been going on the night before; things on fire, a lot of smoke," Roache said.
"It was the first time that we saw tanks, which was actually almost a relief given the almost complete lack of security presence in the district of Cairo which we had been staying in."
After two nights stranded at Cairo airport, she flew first to Turkey, then back to the United States to ponder the options for completing her overseas term.
Back in Israel, when news of the unrest hit the headlines, the Rothberg International School at the Hebrew University contacted its partner institutions in North America and offered help.
"We knew that they were evacuating students and we said that we would be willing to help them and offer them studies in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies," said Jonathan Kaplan, head of undergraduate studies at the Rothberg School.
"The universities gave their students a choice," he said. Some of the students opted for Turkey, others went to the Far East.
"But this really was the main Middle Eastern option and Jerusalem has a large Arabic-speaking population," said Kaplan.
Jeremy Hodge, a 22-year-old from Los Angeles, said Israel was not where he expected to end up when he went to Cairo five months ago as part of his Middle Eastern studies degree at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
"I came with the intention of living in a Muslim country and learning Arabic and immersing myself in Muslim culture, in Arab culture," he told AFP. "So I am a little upset that I'm not able to do that to the same extent as before."
"It's definitely a big change in lifestyle," Roache agreed.
The students can still practise their Arabic in Jerusalem's Old City, as on a recent day when they haggled with vendors in the Arab souk to buy strawberries and flavoured tobacco for water pipes.
And Hodge conceded there was an upside to the sudden move.
"I wasn't necessarily focussing particularly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," he said.
"But when I did speak about it (in Cairo), I definitely was exposed to one side of it very thoroughly, so I'm trying to see this as a good opportunity to see the other side."
Though long a flashpoint for the Mideast conflict, Jerusalem now seems tame for worried parents back home, added Roache.
"I think that after Cairo, they have a rather high threshold of tolerance now for conditions they might not be comfortable with ordinarily," she said.
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