Language, Liberation and a Call for Support

Dear This Is Not An Ulpan community,

This year, three holidays arrive almost together: Passover, Easter, and Eid al-Fitr. Three traditions, three histories - yet all speak the shared language of liberation. Passover tells of escape from slavery. Easter speaks of resurrection after violence and death. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, a month of endurance and reflection. Each reminds us: oppression is not final, suffering is not the end, and human beings can imagine freedom even in the darkest times.

And yet this year, speaking of liberation feels almost unbearable. For over two years, this region has been engulfed in paralyzing violence: death, starvation of entire populations, bombings of civilians, genocide, displacement, and a constant, suffocating fear. We have struggled to hold on to our humanity amid relentless destruction -resisting, witnessing, enduring, and trying to preserve life as communities are uprooted, families mourn, and daily existence fractures.

Words like freedom or renewal cannot be spoken lightly here. They must be reclaimed as commitments - commitments to the world we are still trying to build together.

At This Is Not An Ulpan, we have spent over a decade insisting on something radical: that language matters. Hebrew and Arabic are not neutral mediums. They are the languages through which power is exercised, histories are erased or remembered, alliances built, and resistance articulated. Teaching and learning these languages seriously, critically, and together is a refusal of the enforced separation that structures life here. Our classrooms are small but rare: people sitting together across political and linguistic divides, listening, thinking, and slowly building the trust and understanding a different future requires. TINAU is not a marketplace of opinions; it is a humanistic, leftist educational project grounded in justice, equality, and the refusal of domination. This space exists because our community chooses to keep it alive - a choice that is deeply political.

Our work is sustained not by large institutions or external funding, but by something much more fragile and meaningful - us! We are sustained by the people who choose to learn with us, teach with us, and believe that education can still be a site of courage, solidarity, and imagination. That choice is political: this space exists because our community chooses to keep it going.

This spring semester is one of the most uncertain moments we have faced. Endless crises - war, repression, genocide, and economic instability - affect our ability to continue. For a small independent project like ours, this is not abstract; it is a question of survival. Yet the need for spaces like TINAU has never been more urgent.  Language learning creates openings - moments of political clarity and human connection that feel impossible in the wider reality. We are asking you to help us fill these openings.

This is the work we know how to do, and we want to keep doing it - with you. If TINAU has ever meant something to you, if you believe in this kind of space, help sustain it: join one of our Spring semester courses in Hebrew or Arabic, encourage friends and colleagues to learn with us, share our work, and if you are able, consider making a donation. Every registration, contribution, and shared message keeps this small but determined community alive.

The three holidays remind us: liberation is not a miracle from above. It is created together, through collective courage. At TINAU, we practice that courage in the most humble way we know: by teaching languages, building communities, and refusing to accept that separation, domination, and war are inevitable.

Word by word, conversation by conversation, we continue - and we hope you will continue with us.

In solidarity,

Noa Friehmann

CEO

This Is Not An Ulpan

link for donation