After October 7th: Why Teachers Need to Experience Israel Firsthand | Education Enhancement Initiative Ep. 174

How do you cut through the misinformation a generation is growing up on? 

Education Enhancement Initiative (Eden) was founded to combat rising antisemitism that followed the October 7th attacks. In this episode, founder Talya Knable explains how bringing educators to Israel helps them understand the region, teach from their firsthand experiences, and help students discuss the complex dynamics without hostility.

She also shares what she witnessed traveling through Israel after the attacks, and Eden's plans to expand beyond its first cohort this summer.

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Transcript

Why Firsthand Experience Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

After witnessing the surge of division and anti-Semitism following the October 7th attacks, Tali and Nabel realized something powerful. Many of the loudest voices discussing Israel have never actually been there. What started as a late-night conversation with her husband quickly turned into Eden, the Educational Enhancement Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing educators to Israel so they can experience the country firsthand and bring deeper understanding back to their classrooms. In this episode, Talia shares the emotional story behind the organization's creation, what she witnessed while traveling through Israel after the attacks, speaking with hostage families and witnessing both grief and resilience firsthand, and why she believes real conversations begin when people move beyond slogans and see the complexity for themselves. She also gives a look inside Aidan's upcoming educator trip to Israel and explains how one teacher can impact hundreds of students for years to come. Now let's welcome Talia to Truman Charities. I'm so glad that, you know, our friend Farron introduced us because I had never heard about your organization. It's fairly new. You started your organization in 2024, and it's the Educational Enhancement Initiative, which you also call Eden. And when I was reading about your organization, it talks about how you empower educators and students by providing immersive, teachable experiences through travel to Israel. And so what I wanted to know, Talia, is that was there a moment or kind of a sequence of events that motivated you to create this organization?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yes.

The Night Eden Was Born

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yes. So post October 7th, I think a lot of people in similar positions to me, I'm very involved in our local Jewish community, with our federation, wanted to know what we could do to make a difference. And I did all the things that you're supposed to do, you know, make a donation. I traveled to Israel actually, and it didn't feel like enough. And as everything started to get worse on college campuses with encampments and with increase in anti-Semitism, it felt more overwhelming and that there wasn't really anything that in my little bubble I'd be able to make a change to. And then one night you asked for a specific moment. It was a Saturday night after a couple of glasses of wine. I have my best ideas. And in those moments, my husband and I were driving home. He was driving. And I started to get really frustrated. This happened to be the night of the first Iran attacks on Israel in April 24. And I was ranting and I made a statement that I did not believe that the students who were participating in college encampments had ever been to Israel. Because if they had, they might not be raging Zionists, but they would understand that the situation was nuanced. They would understand that it was complicated. They would know a little bit more than what we were seeing on college campuses. And normally, again, a couple glasses of wine, I have these ideas. My husband says, let's talk about it tomorrow. And this time he said, Oh no, wait, that's an idea. And we talked a little bit more. And I, we just kind of started with this concept of if we could get people to experience Israel firsthand before they started to get involved and understand all the propaganda that was out there and all the misinformation, they would be a little bit more prepared to consume that. The idea initially actually started with students that we wanted to get them there before they went to college. Middle school students, high school students, not on a religious trip, not on a political trip, but to just be in Israel. So our kids' school takes the Spanish club to Spain. Why not take the technology club to Israel? That was the idea. And very quickly, we it was a Saturday night by Tuesday, I think I had three meetings set up. And very quickly we realized that taking the idea was non-Jewish, but non-Jewish students who don't know much about Israel to Israel, minors during a war when we don't actually know what we're doing, probably not a good idea. So we pivoted very quickly to teachers and realized that each teacher that we invested in would have an impact on these students that we wanted to have an impact on, less liability, more autonomy, I guess, in terms of being able to give these teachers the experience that they want to be having. And after those first few meetings, we reached out to one of our kids' school and pitched the idea, thinking this was like a long shot. And the head of school who we spoke to heard our plan, heard our idea. Initially, we thought we might bring five to 10 teachers. You know, my husband and I and a couple other families might fund it. Well, you know, whatever. That's how we presented it. And he was like, it's a good idea. I love it, but let me talk it up the chain and I'll get back to you. And we thought that was going to be a nice way for him to let us down and not have it be his fault. 36 hours later, we got an email in all caps saying, we're all in, let us know the next steps. So my husband and I looked at each other and said, sorry, oh shit, like now we have to do this. Um, and we did. And so very quickly we developed a nonprofit, a full 501c3. We marketed to donors, we marketed to teachers. It moved very, very quickly from an idea to reality.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

When

Misconceptions And Viral Slogans

SPEAKER_00 5:28

you were talking in the beginning about after the October 7th attacks, tell me a little bit about some of the misconceptions that you were hearing from students on these college campuses or even teachers.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

We see a lot of people who talk about Israel's an apartheid, Israel not being in the position to defend itself, Israel being the aggressor. And I'm never gonna sit and tell anyone that Israel's perfect, but it's very flawed. But there's a lot more to the story that people don't realize. Where does some of the restriction come from? Where does the security measure need to come from? A lot of people, I don't think, knew anything about the region prior to October 7th. And it's very, very easy to see the response that Israel have come across as more than what it should have been. And I think without people understanding the people on the ground and understanding the realities on the ground, it's very easy. We've seen it before. We still see it with some of our new cohort. I've actually had a number of people who've reached out and said, listen, I'm gonna be honest, from what I see on social media and in the news, it's very easy to look at Israel as the aggressor and the Palestinians as, you know, the ones who need our support. But I know there's more to it. Great. It's a much more complicated story than a slogan. And I think that we've seen a lot of slogans that have taken off, and there's validity behind a lot of them. They don't come out of nowhere, but there's more to it.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

So tell me a little bit about your own personal experience. So you had

Traveling Israel After October 7

SPEAKER_00 7:03

mentioned that you went to Israel after the October 7th attacks. What was that like for you?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah. So I've been to Israel more times than I can count, and I can count pretty high. And there was a drive to go. I think it's a lot of people felt that. I had a couple of opportunities, and one felt like the right match. Our synagogue was doing a solidarity mission. It was just a few days. This was January of 24. And I did not fully know what to expect. I will be honest that it was the first time in my life that I had a little bit of hesitation, just because I didn't know. I didn't know what to expect. And we got there, and it was definitely a different country than I had experienced before, a little bit more solemn. But within the first couple of hours, we realized that the country was starting to come back. So we were able to go out and eat in cafes. We were able to have, you know, positive moments just sharing with people who have not really had tourists who weren't coming in. So we were able to have a lot of really positive experiences. And then we also did all the things that we were supposed to do in going. We bore witness to some of the sites that were directly hit. We went into one of the kibbutzim Kfaraza that was very strongly targeted by Hamas and spoke to people who experienced that day. This was still at a time where the majority of the hostages were still in Gaza, and we were able to see the homes that they were taken from. We were able to see the bullet holes that were shot into the walls. There was still a lot of cleanup that hadn't happened yet. So we saw it all. We were able to see the fence that they were, you know, broken through. We spoke directly to people who had their opinions changed on that day. There were, there were a number of people who were very focused on partnership and had connections with people in Gaza and, you know, to hear their perspectives on what that day played out like for them was eye-opening. We heard a lot of different narratives, which I think is actually wonderful. People in Israel have very different opinions about what should be happening. So it's great as outsiders to be able to hear that. We volunteered on a different key buttons that a lot of these, you know, farms lost their workers. Some were taken hostage, some were not able to return. So they needed a lot of help and support to keep things going. So we spent an hour and a half picking avocados, which was lovely. Yeah, we spoke to hostage families. We visited a lot of different sites that were starting to pop up for advocacy and support. Kind of a pretty, a pretty standard, I would say. I mean, a standard of something like that is solidarity trip.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

So

Designing The Educator Trip

SPEAKER_00 9:45

tell me a little bit about your upcoming trip. So this is going to be your first trip to Israel with educators, and that's going to be at the end of July, what, July 27th, right? 27th, yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

We unfortunately have had two trips that were our that were planned with first trip, the first go-arounded trip had to be canceled last minute. So we are now on our third planning, hopefully, first trip.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Perfect. So tell me a little bit about what the educators can expect on this trip. Tell us a little bit what how you have planned.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yeah. So people ask that question all the time because there are a lot of trips that go to Israel, all for different reasons. And what makes us different? And again, like running a nonprofit was not on my life bingo card. So I'm not here to reinvent the wheel or do anything that already exists. So we are taking it's K through 12 teachers in secular schools who have never been to Israel or would not otherwise have an opportunity to go. So there is going to be a little bit of Israel 101. You've never been to this country. Let's understand the lay of the land. Let's see the sites. We try really hard with each cohort to understand who's in our group and cater the itinerary to what they're looking for for their students and for their school environments. Just as an example, we were not planning on visiting the Dead Sea just because it takes a lot of time, honestly. And we have a short amount of time to get done everything. And that's probably been the hardest part of all of this for me is how can I squeeze in everything we want people to experience in what essentially is six days when you take out travel. And we did a survey for the first group, and 18 out of 19 of them had the Dead Sea as the number one place they wanted to visit. So we now have the Dead Sea on our itinerar. And we'll keep we also want to do a chunk that's specific to the current conflict and understanding the players, understanding what it means when you say Arab Israeli, what is a Palestinian, what is a Jewish Israeli, what are all these different components that exist within Israeli society? And how does Israel fit into the greater Middle East? Um, how does it not fit into the greater Middle East? And just understanding what we're seeing in the media while we're on the ground and we're able to talk to people. And then the final part, which in my opinion is the best, we want people to have fun. This is summertime for teachers. It's, you know, cohort building for them. And if we can give people the experience of going to Israel and having fun while they're there, when they come back and they talk about it, Israel's not a dirty word anymore. I share this story, and I wish this was the I could have shared the story in the moment when I had this idea. But the trip that I took in January, my youngest daughter was in kindergarten at the time, and it was a last minute trip. That's how things were going. I think I got the information that I could go while we were on winter break, and this trip was mid-January. So it was like two weeks' lead time. So my daughter must have mentioned she was six. You know, my mom's away. My mom's in Israel. That's it. Her teacher, who's not Jewish, sent me still to this day the nicest email that I've ever received from someone after October 7th. Number one, she's like, I just want to check in on you. Your daughter said that you're in Israel. I can't believe how difficult that must have been. How brave are you to go? Like, thank you for doing that. And if we can support you in any way, let us know. And then she asked me if I'd come in and speak to the class about it. And I was like, they're five and six. Like, what I explained what I saw. Like, I how do I talk to these kids about that? And I at that time I was scared to do that because, you know, think January of 24. If I was going in to talk to a kindergarten class about Israel on October 6th, we'd go in with Israeli flags, we'd be singing songs. I couldn't do that in January. So what was I gonna do? And I went in and it was pretty factual, but about Israel, you know, not about the conflict, not about the war. I did show them pictures of picking avocados, and the kids were like, wait, Israel has avocados? I'm like, yeah, you like guacamole? I like guacamole. Like it was a lovely moment. And when I was leaving, I asked the teacher why she asked me to do. Like, I didn't ask to come in. Like, you could have avoided this. Like, why did you ask me to come in? And her response was that she had gone to Israel on a Christian tour group right after college and has been hearing how people are talking about Israel and doesn't understand it and felt like it was an opportunity to talk about Israel in a different way and let kids hear a different experience than what they likely are going to hear in the media. And that was wonderful. It was absolutely wonderful that she did that and gave me that opportunity.

Bringing Nuance Back To Classrooms

SPEAKER_00 14:26

And what would be your goal for educators after this trip to bring back to the classroom? What would you like to see?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Guacamole, apparently. Um literally that experience, I think, in a positive way. The teachers that are participating range in terms of the grades that they teach. We've got pre-K teachers all the way through, like college counselors. And so at the lower levels, just being able to talk about Israel, being able to share their experiences as you know, the kids, the students, of course, get older, we want them to be able to have the knowledge and the information to be able to answer questions. I think there's a lot of misinformation and a lot of we don't know. And if you're continually fed one narrative, that's the one that you're gonna believe. So being able to give them not, we're not taking people with the intention of this is what you should think. We want to give them the experience. We want to give them the people to talk to. And kind of my hope is that they come back with more questions than they went with, because it is that complicated of a situation. And then another piece, I think, especially for the older student, the teachers who teach older students, we're seeing increase in anti-Semitism, even on the campuses that the high school campuses that some of these teachers are coming from. We had one local school actually reach out to us in response to an anti-Semitic incident that they had because they didn't feel like they were prepared for it. And for a Jewish student to know that a teacher went to Israel, that teacher is automatically a safe person to talk to. And so I think being able to have a network of teachers within these schools that when there are anti-Semitic situations that increase, we're not gonna combat all of that right now. But when there are situations that we do have a safe group that these students feel like they're able to talk to, because we have heard from a lot of high school and middle school kids that they don't know where their teachers stand on these topics. They don't know if they express something that happened to them, are they gonna be told that the person who did this to them was correct and that Jews are colonizers and, you know, all the rhetoric that we hear. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

So you have a background in psychology. Do you think that that had any impact on how you've shaped this organization?

SPEAKER_01 16:40

It's been helpful in taking people into a war zone, which is like not, it doesn't feel that way. Again, I've been multiple times since October 7th. That was, you know, the January trip was just my first trip. I took my kids, like it, it's not as dramatic as I just made it sound, but people are nervous. So absolutely, you know, we have my husband and I have have primarily done this together. And my background as a therapist has served a very different purpose than Israel education or, you know, programming or even fundraising. That for the people who are making the decision to come, there's anxiety along the way and there's fear about it. And I also understand how people think. Like we want to see empathy, we want to see support, we want to be able to understand things that we actually don't fully understand. And I think that's where a lot of people are coming from. So even though I don't have a background in education, I have a background in how people think. So I absolutely think that's helpful.

The Question That Opens Dialogue

SPEAKER_00 17:38

And if there is an educator that's listening and is interested in one of your upcoming trips, how do they go about being a part of this?

SPEAKER_01 17:47

So reach out to us. We have an interest form for the current trip, which is pretty much filling up. Right now we are focusing on Baltimore area independent schools, but we want to be in any school community that would have us. So I would say reach out to us. We have different ways that we've worked with different schools before. Our hope is that as we gain momentum, as long as we have both the participant interest and the funding to do it, we will run as many trips as we can. And we want to start doing subject-specific trips, we want to start doing things that are a little bit more specific so that we can get more specific content in rather than just this, you know, overall view of Israel. So, yeah, just reach out. And depending on the timing that someone is listening to this, we'll point them in the right direction.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

So if you could leave educators with one question, and this would be educators of, you know, high school, middle school, older, older children, that they should be asking their students about Israel. What do you think it should be?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

No one's asked me that before. I really like that. What does Israel mean? Like I think coming, and maybe this is the therapist in me coming out. We make a lot of assumptions about what people think. And someone hears Israel and it's gonna mean a variety of different things. For someone who is Jewish and has visited before, it's gonna mean one thing. For someone who's not Jewish and visited before, it's gonna mean something. For someone who knows nothing about Israel other than what's in the media, it's gonna mean something completely different. So I think if teachers either come on the trip or can ask students what does Israel mean, we'd get a lot of information. And then it would start a conversation. It's our ultimate goal. So, what does Israel mean to you? That question I've been asked. Um and I love that one as well. Israel's it feels like so cliche. It's home in many ways. The first group we were going with asked me what's my favorite place in Israel. And I paused and was not, because I'm the whole country. Everyone, I have to pick one. Um and what I ended up answering with, which I I surprised myself, was, and anyone who's been will understand exactly what I'm saying, the hallway when you get off the plane before you get into customs in Bengorian Airport. Every time that I land and I see that hallway and it's been all over the media, it was lined with all the hostage posters. And there's a you know, big sign that says in both, you know, English, Hebrew, and Arabic, welcome to Israel. And it feels like you're going home. And you don't have to have family there, you don't have to have a direct connection. There's something special about being there.

How To Support Eden And Follow Along

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Now, how can listeners help your organization? A few different ways. So, I mean, the obvious for any nonprofit is we will not function without donations. So we need to make sure that people are financially supporting us. And we've been very, very lucky in getting that support. I think one of the things that we offer is a relatively low budget way to make an impact. So, you know, we're a small organization. We, you know, every teacher that goes is going to impact hopefully hundreds of students over the course of their time. So that's the obvious one. Also spreading the word. People don't know that we exist. We just were created. We don't have great marketing yet, Farran's helping, but we haven't had a trip. So we don't have the photos and we don't have, you know, the sexy, hey, look at what we can do. So just sharing the word and connecting us with, you know, whether it be teachers who are interested, schools who need that additional support, one of the things that we're putting together that we'll have for the teachers, but would be accessible to anybody is a resource guide for teachers and students about how they can talk about Israel, how they can talk about these experiences. So yeah, if anyone is feeling like they need a little bit more support in how to have these conversations within the school system, reach out.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Yeah, and absolutely send me some of the photos after your trip because I'd love to share them on our social media, which would be fantastic. But you know, is there anything that we haven't talked about before I let you go that you think people should know?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

I'm really fun to travel with. Yeah. So in all seriousness, we are putting together a really good trip. Yes, going to Israel is scary. There is nothing that I will be able to say to anyone that's going to convince them otherwise until they take that leap of faith and go. I've joked, and maybe it's a horrible comparison, that's kind of like bungee jumping. We can give you all the safety and security measures and all of that, but like at some point you have to jump and then realize how fun it is. I don't like bungee jumping, so maybe that's where it's, I would never do it, but fine. But you have to kind of commit and be ready to go. And then we're gonna make it a great experience. And we really want to hear from teachers and schools where they feel like the gaps are. We do not want to create a trip that we think is what people need to hear. We want to create a trip that is what people actually need to hear. So we need to know that. We're not in the schools, we're not teaching in the classroom. So we're a partnership in that respect. Teachers sign up, but then we collaboratively work together and create these itineraries. So I don't have the backing yet to say our trips are great, but I know our trips will be great. So, how can people follow you? We do have an Instagram. It is Eden Dash Initiative. We came up with this name, and initiative is really hard to spell, and we had to put the dash in there. And I think that's an underscore actually. Our email has an our email and our website has uh the dash in it, but most of the information's on our website, eden-initiative.org. And that's really all we have right now. So we are a two-man show, which is me and my husband. And again, reach out to me directly. So, you know, I like to connect with people, I like to share what we're doing, I like to hear other people's perspective. So we will hopefully continue to build up our, you know, online and social media presence. But again, once we have the trip and we have more to share, that's where it'll all be.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Well, I'm very excited for your upcoming trip and to see how that all goes. I can't wait to see all the photos. And I want to thank you again for coming on here. We're gonna have all of your information in the show notes. So people don't worry, just scroll down and then you can get in contact. And uh, want to thank you again and I want to thank everybody for tuning in to another episode of the Truman Charities podcast. Until next time.

Reviews And Where To Find Truman

SPEAKER_00 24:19

If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure to do us a favor and rate and review it on your Spotify or Apple app. The reviews really do count since we are a hundred percent volunteer-based organization. If you'd like to follow us, you can follow us on Facebook at Truman Charities, Instagram, Jamie underscore Truman Charities, and you can follow me on LinkedIn at Jamie Truman. Please make sure to go to Trumancharities.com and sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss any of our upcoming charity events and our Bethesda's best happy hours. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Truman Charities Podcast. Until next time.