LEGENDARY AMERICAN SINGER AND SOCIAL ADVOCATE PETER YARROW IS WELCOMED ENTHUSIASTICALLY AT PETAH TIKVAH’s NAOMI SHEMER SCHOOL ‏ 

Photo Credit:  Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv

Peter Yarrow, legendary singer and social advocate of the famous “Peter, Paul and Mary,” visited and performed at the Naomi Shemer Elementary School in Petah Tikvah, where the successful educational project,  “Operation Respect: Don’t Laugh at Me” is being  implemented.

After being surrounded by laughing children, Peter was greeted  by the Principal Sarit Cohen-Levi.  He was later briefed by the school’s education leaders on their implementation of the “Don’t Laugh at Me” program, visited several 4th grade classrooms where he heard the children share moving stories of their lives, and joined in a discussion as the pupils talked about their feelings in the classroom setting.

The visit concluded with a musical session in which Peter, special guest and long-time collaborator David Broza, and the students sang his world-famous songs.

Peter Yarrow’s week-long visit to Israel as a guest of the U.S. Embassy is the next step in “Operation Respect: Don’t Laugh at Me” – founded and led by the celebrated folk star – a program that provides tools to create a respectful, safe and tolerant climate of learning in the classroom and the community. 

In Israel, the program is being implemented as a pilot in four schools (two Jewish and two Arab) by the Center of Educational Technology (CET), which adopted program materials for the Israeli school system, and in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.