The Bible-Koran Quiz which took place in the Bet Zisling cultural hall on Kibbutz Ein Harod Meuchad in the Gilboa Regional Council was the first event of its kind in the world.

This Bible-Koran Quiz was about the most exciting outcome of the Co-Existence Program supported by Partnership 2000 for more than five years in the Gilboa Regional Council.

The years of work with educators, parents and students through the Arab and Jewish schools in the Gilboa Region produced an impressive and unigue outcome with this event.

The quiz was presented with professional grace and dignity. 11 pairs of Arab-Jewish Students who had for a couple of years, within the framework of the participating schools, studied from the Bible and the Koran the passages which were emphasized in preparation study for this quiz and were connected with tolerance, peace and co-existence.

The final round of the quiz was presented as a public event and modeled on the Bible Quiz which takes place in Israel annually on Independence Day.

The event brought many dignitaries to the Gilboa region, and television and radio broadcasting teams both for the Jewish and Arab populaltions. National television and radio gave time to this event included interviewing some of the student participants.

The students were full of praise for the positive value of their participation in this project. The students said that their participation in this project gave them the opportunity to get to know the Arab students and to learn about and understand something about the Muslim religion and the Koran and the Arab students expressed the same in reverse, they were given the chance to get to know the Jewish students and to learn something about the Bible and the Jewish religion.

Knesset Member Avraham Burg who was the keynote speaker at the quiz ceremony, referred to the Gilboa region as a place of sanity and that he wishes that the rest of the country could come and learn from the relations between Jews and Arabs that have been established in the Gilboa Regional Council. The pride felt by the residents and the leaders of the Gilboa Regional Council can be shared by SNEC Jewish Community's friends and supportors of Partnership 2000 and it's Co-Existence Program.

  Tevet 5764 - January 2004