Ayelet Shahak

Ayelet Shahak’s 15-year-old daughter Bat-Chen was killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square in March 1966.  At the time Ayelet was assistant principal of an elementary school in Tel Mond where she lives with her husband Tzvika and two other children. 

After Bat-Chen’s death, the family gathered her diaries, notebooks, letters, and drawings.  Anthologies of the material have been published in Hebrew, and translated into Arabic, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, and now English.  Ayelet’s research into her daughter’s diaries earned her a master’s degree in Information Management in Education at the University of Derby, England, where she developed a computerized educational program to study the genre of the diary.

Ayelet and Tzvika are active members of the Bereaved Families Forum, a group of Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost children, parents, and siblings to continued violence in the region.  The Forum holds dialogues in Israeli and Arabic schools to educate toward peace and reconciliation.

Programs

The Secret and Power of the Diary 

“For me, writing is something wonderful,” Bat-Chen wrote.  Using excerpts from the diaries, Ayelet challenges students to write their own diaries, as a way of learning to express thoughts, feelings, and fears. “The genre of the diary encourages children to deveop excitement about both reading and writing,” she says.  This talk is suitable for all ages and can be tailored to groups of teachers.  

Peace Dream

“Each person has a dream…and I have a dream of peace.”  These lines, which Bat-Chen penned a few months before her death, have inspired the Shahaks to carry on their daughter’s aspirations and activites on behalf of peace.  Ayelet talks about Bat-Chen’s correspondence and meetings with her Arab pen-pal Nida’a, and discusses her own work with the Bereaved Families Forum of  Israelis and Palestinians.