NAZARETH, Israel – As a 15-year-old high school student in Nazareth, Arab Christian Yasmeen Mazzawi wanted to learn the history of the Jews she met volunteering as a paramedic with Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s national emergency medical services.
Her decision to visit Auschwitz with a team of MDA volunteers challenged her friendships with Muslim and Christian classmates at Nazareth Baptist School, founded by Southern Baptist missionaries in 1935.
As her classmates and even teachers ostracized her, Mazzawi responded by embarking on a successful campaign to spread cross-cultural understanding among Israel’s diverse population of Jews, Christians, Arabs, Muslims and others. She spoke at nongovernmental organizations, schools and youth camps across Israel, and utilized social media.
“To bridge between Arabs and Jews, to me that was a huge success. They understood that after they met the people, the Jewish people, they are just like us,” Mazzawi said of her classmates.
“What connects us at the end of the day is values. Christians by themselves are different. I think this is the beauty of the world, that we are different. It’s like this mosaic and each one brings his added value and his own beauty to this world.”
Her Christian faith and love of humanity drive her continued commitment to cross-cultural understanding during the Israel-Hamas War. Volunteering with MDA, she treats soldiers and civilians injured on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, combat overshadowed by the center of the war in Gaza.
“Arabs and Jews, all of us work together to save lives,” Mazzawi said, describing MDA forces composed of Arabs, Christians, Jews, Muslims and Bedouins from very diverse backgrounds. “We are very dedicated and we love what we do.”
She believes rising antisemitism since the Oct. 7 attack on Southern Israel stems from a lack of understanding. Particularly on U.S. college campuses, where students called for divestiture from Israel and freedom for Palestine, she believes scholarly conversations could have eased tensions.
“I grew up on values. We grew up loving the other, accepting the other,” Mazzawi said. “If you try maybe to talk to one another, I’m pretty sure a huge percentage of these people will maybe not change their minds, but they can step back and maybe understand from the beginning.”
On Oct. 7, Mazzawi had planned to travel to Mannheim Business School in Germany, where she completed her studies in November, but the attack changed her plans.
