Indonesia meets Israel

Though diplomatic relations are nonexistent between the two countries, that hasn’t stopped two ambitious graduate students from coming here to further their education.

By ANDREW FRIEDMAN
Joshua Klein with Amanda and Nurhaya 521 (photo credit: Volcani Institute)
Joshua Klein with Amanda and Nurhaya 521
(photo credit: Volcani Institute)
Growing up in Indonesia, Amanda (Manda) and Nurhaya (Yaya) never really gave too much thought to Israel, a tiny country half a world away that doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Indonesia. If they thought about Israel at all, as religious Muslims they held similar beliefs to a majority of their friends and relatives: Israel is a dangerous place, stricken by ongoing war and terrorism, and even at the best of times it is pretty awful to be a Muslim living under Israeli jurisdiction.
Those impressions changed earlier this year, when the 25- year-old women, both graduate students in agricultural sciences at Hassanuddin University in the city of Mikassar, spent four months conducting graduate research at the Volcani Institute of Agricultural Research in Beit Dagan. On the eve of their return to Indonesia, Amanda and Nurhaya said their time in Israel had been a uniquely positive experience that shattered the misconceptions they had grown up with.
“We are religious Muslims, so we consider all other Muslims like brothers,” said Nurhaya, “Naturally we feel a lot of solidarity with the Palestinians – their suffering is the only thing about Israel you see on TV in Indonesia. So of course we were worried about how we would be accepted here, and our parents worried about how we would be treated.
“But when we got here, the reality was so much different.
In a really nice way, people have been curious about us and our country. Tons of people have asked us where we are from, what we are doing here, and most of all how we like it. The first time we had to take a bus we were worried about whether people would help us out, but that was never an issue. The language barrier was sometimes tough if we couldn’t find anyone who spoke English, but that only happened a few times.
“Of course, people have stared at us a bit, but I suppose it’s fair enough. We do sort of stand out in the crowd here,” she said with a laugh.
Both Amanda and Nurhaya pointed to their experiences traveling around Israel to Muslim, Jewish and Christian sites as a highlight of their time here. With Fridays and Saturdays off, they seized the opportunity to visit beaches along the Mediterranean coast, Muslim communities and mosques in Acre and Jaffa, museums and galleries in Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea and more. As for many tourists, the “special aura” of Jerusalem held a unique draw for both women, especially the opportunity to pray at al-Aksa Mosque five times.
“June 29 was the holiday of Isra’ Mi’raj, which marks the anniversary of Muhammad’s nighttime journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and, from there, his ascent from the ‘farthest mosque’ – al-Aksa. It’s not a big deal for Palestinian Muslims but it’s a massive holiday in Indonesia. And here we were able to pray there on the holiday itself!” exclaimed Nurhaya.
THE IDEA of creating a pilot experiment in Israel for Indonesian students was the brainchild of Steve Stein, a businessman/ philanthropist who has been conducting joint ventures between Israel and Indonesia for nearly 20 years.
Beginning in 1992, Stein created a host of business and educational programs involving Israelis and Indonesians, and following the 2004 tsunami that killed more than 100,000 Indonesians, Stein initiated a program for Indonesian doctors to study emergency medicine in Israel. More recently he has turned his focus to joint agriculture projects as a scientific and diplomatic bridge between the two countries.
“Food security is something that is on everybody’s mind today, and no one is better about ensuring that than Israel,” said Stein. “Israeli expertise in so many agricultural disciplines – soil management, water management, irrigation and more – leads to better quality fruit and vegetables. That’s very important for Indonesia.”
Following discussions with Lea Mazor, head of the Israel Seed Testing Laboratory, Stein settled on seed research as an area that could foster scientific and people-to-people relationships that he believes transcend diplomatic ties. Those talks led Mazor to contact Dr. Joshua D. Klein, a researcher in plant sciences at the Volcani Institute, while Stein broached the idea of academic cooperation with a variety of academic contacts at universities throughout Indonesia.
Those talks eventually led to an invitation for Dr. Klein to deliver a guest lecture at Hassanuddin University, and to identify graduate students who might be open to studying in Israel.
Klein, who is Orthodox, said he refrained from wearing a kippa most of the time he was in Indonesia in deference to his hosts, who were concerned about his safety. But he said the advertisements for his talks mentioned that he was from Israel, and during his lecture he wore a kippa and spoke openly about scientific research and about life in Israel. During the trip he met with professors and was introduced to prospective students, but the plan to host two female master’s students did not gel until during or immediately after the trip.
“I suggested to Yaya before I left that she might want to consider coming to Israel for a semester or so,” Klein recalled. “She works closely with the professor who hosted me so we’d had several conversations about agriculture and science and I was impressed with her abilities and seriousness.
Then, we were driving across town and we came across a demonstration. I asked Yaya what the protesters were shouting; she said they were shouting slogans about the high cost of electricity and about neo-liberalism. That really drove home that she’s got a very high level of English. I’d already taken note of her friendly personality and her open attitude, and I could tell she was developing into an excellent scientist. It was a perfect combination of traits and I began to think she’d be perfect for a research semester at Volcani,” said Klein.
OVER THE ensuing five months, six potential students and one post-doctoral candidate were rejected for a variety of reasons – some were deemed inappropriate for the training program Volcani was developing, while others were ideal on paper but were dissuaded by parents or friends from coming to Israel. Eventually, Amanda’s name came up – Klein called it “a leap of faith that turned out to be completely justified” – and efforts began to obtain student visas to Israel. In contrast to Nurhaya’s parents, who required a dose of gentle persuasion by Sjahril to agree to the plan, Amanda agreed immediately to come to Israel, and her family was on board as well.
Indonesia’s lack of diplomatic relations with Israel made securing a visa to study in Israel difficult. In all, it took five months to obtain a visa for a four-and-a-half-month stay in Israel. In December 2010 their Israeli student visas were finally approved for collection at the Israeli embassy in Singapore, 2,300 kilometers away.
But picking up the visas proved to be difficult.
Nurhaya laughed as she recalled the taxi driver’s reaction in Singapore when two obviously religious Muslim women asked for the Israeli embassy. “He kept asking us if we were really sure we wanted to go there [to the Israeli embassy]. We kept saying yes, but he couldn’t drive us all the way there. Turns out the road leading to the embassy is blockaded for security reasons.
“Then, when we walked up to the actual building, we had to really convince the guard that we had legitimate business at the embassy. Eventually they let us past that first layer of security, but when we put down our bags for the security check inside the building they found a small knife I was carrying to cut swaths of gauze to dress a wound I had at the time. It almost messed up the whole thing,” she said.
Klein stressed that the experiment to host Amanda and Nurhaya was so introductory that it was incorrect to even call it a “program.”
“There are two kinds of scientific experiments: One tries to confirm that a certain procedure will work. The other asks if a certain procedure will work.
This was the second kind. There is no program here. It was an experiment to see if we could collaborate with an Indonesian university. We were looking to see if it all worked out – religiously, politically, culturally and most importantly scientifically. Did both sides have the ability to learn new methods? Did both sides gain from the interaction? I think the answer to these questions is absolutely ‘yes,’” he said.
SITTING IN Dr. Klein’s lab at Volcani, his affinity for Amanda and Nurhaya, and theirs for him, is palpable. He is a generation older than the students and the women clearly look up to him as an accomplished scientist and a successful father and husband. He, on the other hand, is clearly energized by the students’ combination of youthful vigor and cultural modesty. Here in the office, he vacillates between offering the fatherly advice of a seasoned professional and seeking the youthful perspective of up-and-coming scientists who share his passion for nature and for science.
Significantly, both sides say the relationship developed from simple workplace cooperation into a deep friendship.
During their time in Israel, Amanda and Nurhaya were frequent guests of the Kleins for Shabbat and holiday meals, and they quickly came to regard the Kleins’ apartment as a home away from home.
“I went to a Catholic primary school,” said Nurhaya, “so I know the Old Testament a little bit. I really liked the atmosphere of Shabbat, especially the blessings for the kids. There’s something really special about taking that time every week to let your kids know how much you love them and how strong your dreams are for them, even once they are adults.”
Their joint religious angles led to some quirky situations. When the Indonesians arrived, Klein told them to avoid Russian-owned shops because they were likely to find pork there. And during their first week at Volcani, Klein excused himself from the lab to attend the minha prayer service at the Institute. The short service was scheduled for 1:30 pm – a good opportunity for the Muslim students to offer the second of their five daily prayers. “It was a funny sort of interaction, but we all laughed and said, ‘Right, let’s meet back here in a half hour,’” recalled Klein.
BACK IN Indonesia, a university official said he was initially afraid that there could be negative repercussions on the department of agriculture if he sent students to Israel, especially as Klein’s visit to Mikassar took place in June 2010, a few weeks after the Mavi Marmara clash.
But he said there has not been any backlash from the trip, and added that he would not hesitate to send other students to study in Israel in the future.
As for hosting Israeli students for a semester in Indonesia, the source said it was unlikely to happen unless the student was Israeli Arab or Palestinian.
Relations may be improving, he said, but the tension of having a Jewish Israeli there for a semester might be too much to ask for at the present time.
Intellectually, both Amanda and Nurhaya said they gained important knowledge at Volcani about treating seedlings to withstand drought conditions.
For Amanda, that recognition became particularly important after learning midway through her time in Israel that her graduate adviser had stepped down to finish work on her masters project, which focused on insect pests that pose a threat to the cocoa plant, one of Indonesia’s main cash crops. The university’s decision to recognize the students’ work at Volcani helped offset that setback, and in any event, Amanda said that what she gained in Israel was worth more than the research she lost. “I’ll be able to take some of the research methods I learned there to tackle the issue from another angle. It only set me back a semester, and what I gained socially and academically was worth so much,” she said.
Klein stressed that the goal of having students bring Israeli methods back to their home countries is not a form of “Israeli scientific imperialism.” Rather, he said, it is the essence of scientific cooperation.
“It’s not about using Israeli methods.
It’s about bringing Indonesian methods and knowledge to Israel, applying them here, seeing how they work in a different setting and finally comparing them to Israeli research methods. Then they take all that back home with them and see how to apply it all. That’s what science is all about,” he said.
Back home, both women said their friends have been interested to hear about their adventure and about their experiences in Israel. They said they do try to keep the matter private in order to prevent backlash from strict Islamic organizations, but added that even at Muslim universities in Indonesia, many students do not observe all of Islam’s religious strictures, especially on social issues like movies and other social outlets.
Most of all, however, they are glad to be home.
“My mom doesn’t really know how to use Facebook or things, so she is really, really glad I’m home. But I told them all how nice and beautiful Israel is, about Jerusalem and al-Aksa, and I’ve told them a lot about Judaism (that we learned from Josh [Klein]). It was a terrific trip and I hope to come back one day, but for now its really nice to be home.”
Indonesia at a glance:
• Population: 245,613,043 • Life expectancy: 71.33 years
• Religions: Muslim 86.1%, Protestant 5.7%, Roman Catholic 3%, Hindu 1.8%, other or unspecified 3.4% • Trade with Israel (2010): $300 million • Agricultural products: rice, peanuts, rubber, cocoa, coffee • Industries: petroleum and natural gas, textiles, footwear, mining, cement, chemical fertilizers, plywood, rubber Information; CIA Factbook: Indonesia