Elior, 11th grade
In elementary school I was a pitiful student. I didn’t study, I just sat in class and warmed the chair. I would leave the room whenever I felt like it, just wander around. The teachers didn’t say anything about it.
At Kedma you could say it was a complete turn-around, what I was and what I became. People said I would never do the bagrut. I actually did believe I would. I didn’t think I was hopeless. I stayed back a class at Kedma, in 7th grade, because I missed all the material in 6th grade. People were amazed that I’m doing the bagrut now. I sat down like a champ and I studied. I told myself that it’s my future. Besides that I have nothing. What am I going to be, a garbage collector?
I thought about my future. I don’t want to be like the people in the neighborhood, not that I look down on them. I want to be a human being like everyone else: To study, work, make money, get married.
At another school I wouldn’t have made it. At Kedma, the personal attention from the teachers makes the students keep wanting to study here. For example, Michal Hadad, a teacher who gives you the urge to study -- she’ll encourage you, she’ll give you motivation. If you say you can’t do it, she will say there’s no such thing. She gives you hope.
Our mentors, Michal and Ezra, will do anything for us. They take care of us, they’re concerned about us, they give their heart and soul. At another school, if you don’t do the bagrut, they’ll let it go. Michal, on the other hand, will write a contract with you and tell you that she’s not giving up on you. Ezra will get on your back like a hammer. It makes me feel like doing it and it puts me on a roll.
Besides the bagrut, at Kedma there’s the subject of responsibility toward others. I have to study and to help others, not to think only about myself, not to be a person who doesn’t help. Students in 12th grade will help students in 7th grade -- for example if a student in 7th grade has a problem or trips up, the 12th graders will help, and that doesn’t happen at other schools. It’s also a small school and everyone knows everyone else. I know all the students in all the classes. At the comprehensive school where I studied, the 11th graders only knew the students in their class and maybe some of the students in the other classes.
Over the years, and also in the process of putting on the school play, I became a better person, who wanted the best for his class, for my friends’ sake so they would succeed in the bagrut, and they wanted the best for me too. Everybody wanted everybody else to succeed. And it did the class good, it united us and made us closer.

Rinat, 10th grade
In elementary school I was a terrible student. My grades were passing and barely passing. I didn’t come to class, I didn’t have organized notebooks. I was in the lowest group in Math and English. I didn’t take exams because there was no point.
When I came to Kedma everything changed. We became so close to the teachers that it makes you want to listen to them. You see them as human beings, who can and want to help. Not because they have to but because they have faith in you that you can succeed.
My first exam at Kedma was in Science and I got a 95. I was in shock. It was the highest grade in the class, and it gave me the motivation to keep going. You want to have that feeling again of a 95, of being the best in the class. You know that everything they invested in you and that you invested, that it didn’t go to waste.
I’m an average student who likes to go to school. Not that I love waking up in the morning that much but at least I go to Kedma. I’m a student who has a normal and even a fun social life. Someone who loves her teachers very much and is close to them.
At Kedma there are regular students who undergo a process that makes them sensitive, aware of their surroundings, sensitive to stigmas. Students who care about themselves and others. There is an atmosphere that makes it fun to meet up here. Kedma students are a dream and every school would want to have them. They go through a process here that makes them special and better human beings.

Shimon, 11th grade
In elementary school I tried to study but I didn’t succeed. All my grades there were weak. I was a different person before I came to Kedma. I was suspended every other day, they would ask my parents to come in for talks. On school trips they made my parents come along. The way they treated us – they didn’t let us believe in ourselves.
At Kedma, they let me believe in myself, they gave me all the credit to succeed. I felt that I have the ability and I can do it.
At Kedma I ended up reaching a high level. For example, in English I didn’t know the alphabet and at Kedma I ended up rising to a high level. Subjects that in elementary school I was a zero in, a total dunce, at Kedma I succeeded in. At Kedma they started with me from the beginning and that’s what I needed. It made me study. When I succeeded, it gave me energy, motivation to keep making an effort.
I’m happy that I ended up at Kedma. It will be sad to leave.
I appreciate my teachers very much, especially my mentor, Michal Hadad. I love her to death and everybody knows it. She did everything for me, made every effort so that I would succeed. Personal talks, support. She believed in me. She’s a big part of my success.
I’m going to succeed on all of my bagrut exams. I’m not the type of person who gives up. I want to make it, to prove that I am worth something, to the whole world, to everyone who believed in me. I am going to take my certificate to my old schools and to my uncles who didn’t believe in me and I am going to show them the certificate. I’m going to tell them: Even though you didn’t believe in me, even though you looked down on me, I did it.

Eliron, 12th grade
At Kedma everyone’s from the same place. You don’t have to prove who you are to anybody. At my old high school there was constant pressure on a student from a Mizrachi background to prove that the fact that he’s Mizrachi doesn’t mean he’s screwed up.
In terms of ability, I think that anybody who wants to study and make an effort can get good grades. The difference… at Kedma [is] there’s more motivation to learn. At my old high school they didn’t care if I studied or not, if I came to class or not. At my old high school, which was considered a good school, there were problems with drugs and all kinds of other problems. Kedma is a school with the fewest problems that I know. All the students are from the same social class, they are treated warmly, why should they cause problems? The school tries to accommodate the students in everything, in extra lessons, support.

Yaron, 9th grade
Kedma students have the same purpose -- to attain a full bagrut even though they come from a disadvantaged neighborhood, and to go on to show that they can make it even though they are Mizrachim. There’s a stigma that Mizrachim aren’t able to learn, that they do manual labor, live in poor neighborhoods.
Maybe not everyone makes an effort and studies but everyone has the desire to succeed, to break out, even though it’s hard. They know that at Kedma they can be helped. In principle everyone wants to succeed. They’re moving in the same direction, but for some people it will take more time.

Leah, 12th grade
Our mentors Yaela and Ilanit invested in all of us, in private lessons, in staying up until two o’clock in the morning with Ilanit, everything. It raises your motivation. They tell you that you’re worth it, that we, the teachers, aren’t giving up on you. That’s the difference between Kedma and other schools. Show me a school where you can talk to your teacher about everything, where your teacher calls you on the phone in the afternoon or evening.
I didn’t give in to myself and say I wouldn’t succeed. I didn’t give in to throwing in the towel at the end of the year and getting a job to make money, to hanging out with my friends. I didn’t do it. I would wake up early and study, I made an effort. In elementary school they gave up on me.
I’m the only one in my family with a bagrut certificate. All my brothers and sisters studied on a vocational track. Even though they all had the potential they gave up in high school. Now I feel different, that I’m above them, because I have the bagrut.

Yankale, 12th grade
Kedma is the most beautiful period in my life, from 7th grade until 12th grade. I would come with a smile, always satisfied with the school, with my studies. I knew they would always help me, that I had place to fall back on.
I wasn’t an easy kid. I was mischievous, I was disruptive a lot. Now I really appreciate what every one of the teachers did for me. The connections with the teachers are really fun, for example my relationship with [my mentor] Ilanit who is like my mother. I wouldn’t give that up for anything in my life. My brothers are going to be here next year, my children will be here in the future.
How did you overcome the gaps you brought with you from elementary school?
Coming to school was fun. The teachers grabbed hold of me from the beginning so I wouldn’t fall. They sit down and teach you, get involved not only with your studies but what’s happening at home, with your friends. You know that they know you at school, it gives you more confidence. We weren’t ashamed of one another in class. We’re very connected. They believed in me, nurtured me, showed me that I could succeed. They didn’t give up.
Ilanit grabbed hold of me from 10th grade. Before that, Ezra and Hani, they’re too good. Ilanit and Yael did a good job, they grabbed hold of us. Their faith gave us strength, the smile and the love we received from Ilanit, it flatters you and makes you want to study. There wasn’t a single bagrut that they didn’t insist on, sit down and teach us. There’s no such thing as ‘I won’t get it,’ all the teachers sat down together so I would get it. The teachers act like you’re their son. It gives you the feeling of wanting more to succeed. My little sister is in 7th grade at the comprehensive school, and she’s always talking about Kedma. Next year she will study at Kedma.

Oren, graduate of the class of 2000 (first graduating class)
Kedma students come here with the sense, maybe a mistaken one, that their place here is secure. That’s how it was in my class. There’s the sense that this school is like a family. On one hand that’s good, because here I am, five years after I graduated, and I keep coming back here. On the other hand, students maybe make less of an effort because the school provides such a strong safety net, another school would just throw them out or show them their place.
For Kedma students it’s fun to come to school. I don’t know a lot of people -- young or older people -- who are as close as we were at Kedma and love to come to their school. Even when there weren’t classes, we would come to school. The atmosphere is different, the teachers, the managerial staff, the amuta [Friends’ Association], the parents. There was a feeling of family at Kedma that created a less studious atmosphere.
At Kedma they give you a second chance, and they tell you that even if you make a little mischief -- on purpose I won’t use the popular term “troublemaker” -- they won’t throw you out. They understand it’s that kind of age and they invest a lot of resources in you. We didn’t grow up in Rehavia [a well-off Jerusalem neighborhood] and watch educational programming on TV. We grew up in the Katamonim and saw some difficult things. Kedma students are quality students, just that you need to grab them by the shoulders a little more.
I have a friend who went to the Denmark school -- he did the qualification exam of the Hadassah Institute, a single test that determines your future, and they sent him to learn how to be an electrician. Today he doesn’t have a bagrut. He was traumatized in school because they made him study a vocation that he didn’t like and that he had no interest in. Today he doesn’t have the energy to complete the bagrut. He hasn’t found himself, he’s a vendor on the boardwalk. What is he going to do in the future, work at the supermarket?
If I had gone to the Denmark school, I’m sure I would have learned to become an electrician. Partly because they have a certain mindset that the moment a Mizrachi student walks in, they explain the whole vocational thing to him and give him less of a chance to express himself in academics.
Besides the bagrut, at Kedma I was exposed to values and a way of thinking about life that I wouldn’t have received at other schools. One of my influences in going to Golani [an elite combat unit] came from my teachers, Rafi Ben Shitreet and Alon Shalom, even though Rafi has a more complex view of the army. It’s possible that if my teacher had been a maintenance worker in the army, I might have served in the army as a maintenance worker.
At Kedma I was taught to aspire to excellence. Kedma is a leading school in terms of social issues. Our models were our teachers. We admired them. Kedma teachers are at the highest level there is, and I know some teachers, I also took university classes when I went to Kedma. They do above and beyond what they have to, and it comes at the expense of their home life and their personal lives. That’s one of the leading things at Kedma, the teachers.
I would like to say to students who are studying at Kedma today that high school is the most important time in their lives. That they are at a school that gives them the best chance of succeeding, and that they should make an effort to study. They will receive all the tools here. But in the end, they are the ones who are going to write the bagrut exams, as much as I have reservations about them. When they hear stories from other people about the kind of schools they attended, they will understand that at Kedma there’s no discrimination and they will value how well the teachers treated them. In the army I would compare with other soldiers -- I told them about Kedma with pride. I felt like I had studied at a good school in terms of academics, social life, influence, whereas my friends missed out at their schools. They didn’t have the family atmosphere, they were depressed about going to school. Their classes were broken down into different levels. There were the honors kids, and then there were the retarded kids who everyone laughed at. It had an effect on them and it lowered their confidence.

Dorit, graduate of the class of 2003 (fourth graduating class)
My time at Kedma is what solidified my identity. At Kedma we talked a lot about community issues, about the Katamonim. Today I see what Kedma instilled in me beyond the bagrut.
Kedma made me recognize my abilities. In personal talks we got feedback from the teachers, they would draw our attention to our abilities on one hand and the challenges on the other, and it makes you really grow. Kedma gives tools that have no expiration date on them. At a regular school they teach history, you do the bagrut, and it’s over. At Kedma they give students tools for your entire life. Tools like strengthening identity, strengthening awareness, awareness of the surroundings. Tools to judge between good and bad, justice and the desire to give something back to others.
Students leave Kedma better in terms of values, in terms of ideology. To help others, to be aware of what’s happening around you. Justice is a meaningful word because Kedma arose to protest against injustice, and I personally came upon a lot of injustice after Kedma, in the army. (Today I am an officer in the army).
Kedma students, and I will talk mostly about my own class, come from a disadvantaged layer in Israeli society -- Mizrachim and new immigrants, Russians and Ethiopians, with a Mizrachi mentality that is expressed in songs, music, external appearance. That’s the common denominator. Beyond that, there is the individuality of every person.
These are students with dreams, with faith. We always talked about what we would do when we grew up. No one said they would be a taxi driver. We always talked about successful professions. We had a mission. If my goal is to make it in life, and the bagrut is a necessary stage in that, I will focus on that goal. Kedma students demand a lot from themselves and don’t give up.
There were a lot of opportunities to drop out, to give up, to be like the gang from the neighborhood that didn’t get to go to Kedma. I went against that. For example, finding a place in the evenings to open a history book or a book of Bialik poems with a few friends from my class, and not to go sit on a park bench and smoke a water pipe. Out of faith that it would bring me to succeed. That’s the juxtaposition between stupid things that happen in the neighborhood, together with the ability to stop myself, to know what I need to do and to know what my limits are.
Kedma students are galvanized emotionally. Almost everyone has problems with their families and at home that brought them to the point where they have wisdom about life, a deep wisdom. To understand that if I don’t drag myself up by the heels, there’s no one else who will lift me up. They, and I am among them, can make a courageous statement -- to see my parents and to say that I won’t be like them, in terms of succeeding in life. I received a lot from my parents, like the issue of saying that I am Mizrachi. Together with that, I see what a hard life they have, fighting for every cent.
Kedma students are very mature kids, very warm, loving, authentic, honest and emotional. They don’t mince words, they say what they think with self-confidence. The self-confidence of believing in one’s self, it’s something that stands out a lot at Kedma. They also have the ability to say thank you for what was given to me, to love the teachers and what they did for me. They can appreciate and say thank you.
At other high schools drugs are rampant, as well as violence, even sexual harassment and rape. At Kedma there’s no place for that. Not because there are rules but out of understanding. They didn’t say: ‘You are not allowed to smoke here,’ but rather, ‘Why smoke drugs? It’s bad for you, let’s talk about the difficulties you’re having.’ There’s no violence at Kedma. Maybe there’s pushing and stuff like that but not acts of violence.
When I leave the army I still don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know that it doesn’t matter what I will do for a living, it will be connected with a disadvantaged community. Not that I will necessarily be a social worker, but if I’m going to be the CEO of a high-tech company, I will do something on the side that is related to people who are disadvantaged. I am on the track to success but there will always be something inside me that feels for people who are powerless, and I am aware of the responsibility I have.