The only Jew in the room

AVI SHALEV was the first Jewish Israeli to attend an Arab tertiary college.  He talks to ITTAY FLESCHER about the experience and the resulting book, now available in English.

When retired Israeli intelligence officer Lieutenant Colonel Avi Shalev registered for studies at Al-Qasemi College, he was the first Jew ever to have requested to study there.

The Baka Al Garbiya college, which specialises in teacher training, conducts its programs in Arabic and English and usually draws only Arab Israeli students.

Shalev was proficient in both written and spoken Arabic, having recently retired after more than two decades as an officer in the Israel Defence Forces’ Civil Administration in both Gaza and the West Bank.

But the experience gave him new insights into Arab culture, resulting in his book “The Only Jew in the Room”, published two years ago in Hebrew and now being released in English.

Those insights are all the more poignant in post-October 7 Israel, a world which saw him speaking to The Jewish Independent from his car, wearing his freshly pressed army uniform with an orange beret pinned to his shoulder, on his way to do his reserves duty with the home front central command.

Shalev came to Al-Qasemi with much more knowledge of Arab Israel than most Jewish Israelis.