While in Israel I rode public busses five times, sometimes scanning the passengers to look for overdressed, wild-eyed men. But the Israelis themselves seemed to be used to this sort of tension. In fact, after the conference we went on a bus tour around Israel, and of course, they went NORTH! I asked if that wasn't dangerous and they said, "We know the range of the missiles. We won't go within their range!" Yet on Independence Day, with fireworks displays in the distance in every direction, I was at a multi-family bon- fire/barbecue. They had the bon-fire because they felt it was dangerous to take their families where there were crowds. One of the families had come down from the north after a missile had come within a kilometer of their house. After they left, one had come within 50 yards. "I'm so glad we left," the father said to me. "The kids would never recover from such a trauma as a bomb falling nearby."

The conference itself began on April 14th, ran to the 19th, and it had its own share of drama and excitement. There were hundreds of participants, and over 125 from out of Israel. About half of those were there through connections with AERO. Many of the participants were children.

The AERO-connected attendees included Liz Wertheim of Hawaii, Jim Hoeppner of the Alternative School in Calgary Canada, with a group of about ten from his school, Oleg Belen of the Stork Family School in the Ukraine, later joined by a graduate, George, who is studying in Israel, Jim Murphy of West Side Alternative School in New York and a group of ten, Patrice Creve with two others from Theleme School in France, Stan Kantner, who now directs Clonlara's Compuhigh from Israel, David Gribble, Sean Bellamy and 7 others from Sands School, in England, Justin Baron of Summerhill, Barry Lamb, who is trying to start a school in Australia, and Fred Bay of the Bay-Paul Foundation in New York, with whom I flew over.

In addition there were participants from Hungary, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and many Israeli Schools. The Ministry of Education was a sponsor of the conference and will reimburse Hadera for many of the expenses. They are encouraging the development of more democratic schools. The Minister, Amnon Rubinstein, was scheduled to speak, as was Leah Rabin, but they were forced to cancel because of the crisis in the north. I had hoped to ask Rubenstein why homeschooling is illegal in Israel. I think it is an issue they must deal with.

We were housed at a conference center called Givat Haviva, which is run by a kibbutz specializing in Israeli-Arab relations. The food included wonderful fresh fruits and vegetables. The mornings were spent at the Democratic School of Hadera, a public alternative school which organized the conference. The students there had voted to cancel classes for the week so they could participate in the conference. The k-12 school is run by a democratic parliament and has non-compulsory class attendance. Yacov Hecht is the director.. There are 300 students in the school, with 3000 on the waiting list!

Many of the workshops dealt with various aspects of democratic education such as the role of the adult, the decision-making process, "When Ideology Meets Reality," etc. I think it was difficult for students to participate in these.

One of the workshops I did was on table tennis, but I was disappointed that it was not until the next to last day of the conference that they got a table. People sometimes do not understand why I consider it so important to have a ping pong table. I did a workshop on this last year in Russia which I called "Ping Pong and Pedagogy." Here are two reasons: At a conference such as this one it presents an opportunity for people of a variety of ages and languages to take part in a common activity. Second, it is non-academic. But because my teacher was perhaps the best in the United States, I can show people how to improve their game spectacularly in a brief time span. Through this process students can learn that they are quick learners, and thus gain confidence in themselves as learners. After the table appeared, it became very popular. I was able to teach about 25 people. The school will keep the table.

There were also presentations by schools. Two of the most dramatic were by a democratic school on the Golan Heights, which is fighting for full approval by the Ministry of Education, and a democratic school in Bethlehem in the West Bank, the Hope Flowers School. The latter presentation was by its director, Hussein Issa, a Moslem Arab, who had barely received a 12 hour pass to come over to make his presentation. As he said, "It is sometimes harder to fight for peace than for war." He lost his mother and son in the process. The school is co-educational, and has Jewish volunteers who teach music and Hebrew. His school makes a variety of crafts to support itself, and he is looking for places in which they can market their wares.. PO Box 732, Bethlehem/ West Bank, Via Israel.

Two unusual homeschool groups came over from Austria. One is a circus family, which supports itself by performances of unicycles and juggling, including spectacular flaming torches, which they demonstrated for us. Another group I had met at last year's Vienna conference. Fourteen of them, with children as young as 7, DROVE to Israel in two vehicles, through Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan! It took them ten days and many bribes at the borders. I negotiated with a ferry company to reduce their price in hopes that the family's trip back could be expedited by a ride to Greece. The two groups were planning to visit the West Bank school on the day I left Israel.

There was general agreement to create a computer network centered around democratic education, and to keep in touch electronically.