First Lady visits Western Wall Tunnels, baby clinic and Jewish-Arab school

The delegation visited "Hand in Hand," an Arab-Jewish school in Jerusalem neighborhood where lessons are taught in both languages.

By IAN DEITCH
US First Lady Laura Bush toured Jerusalem on Wednesday, visiting a baby clinic and a mixed Jewish-Arab school and walking through the Western Wall Tunnels. After arriving in Israel with President George W. Bush earlier in the day, Laura Bush toured an Israeli government health clinic that offers low-cost immunizations and other health care services to families with young children - an issue she said was important to her. At the health clinic, the first lady smiled as a three-week-old boy, Yiftah Rabinowitz, gurgled and wiggled his arms on a changing table. "What a sweet baby," she said, listening in as a nurse spoke to the boy's mother about what to expect in the development of a child that age. Nearby, one-year-old Orly Talal played with some toys. Bush was joined by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's wife, Aliza, and Noa Meridor, the wife of the Israeli ambassador to Washington. Around 20 American and Israeli secret servicemen accompanied the delegation. In a motorcade of black-tinted cars and motorcycles that raced through red traffic lights, the delegation then visited "Hand in Hand," an Arab-Jewish school in a working-class Jerusalem neighborhood where lessons are taught in both languages. Students are roughly divided between Arabs and Jews - a rarity in Israel, where the vast majority of Arab and Jewish students study in separate school systems. Children sang songs for the first lady in Arabic and Hebrew and danced to songs in both languages. In one classroom, she played with children using colorful cards illustrated with pictures of animals. Ending her tour in the Old City, Bush visited the Western Wall and then descended into the tunnels underneath the ancient stones. She posed before a 2,000-year-old mikve and nodded as Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, the rabbi of the Western Wall, explained its history.