On Wednesday 23 March 2022, 21 Year 9 students attended a program called RUA Interfaith. RUA stands for Respect, Understanding, and Acceptance. It is a program where students from schools of different ethnic and religious backgrounds come together to share and learn from each other. There were five schools that attended: Emanuel School, Moriah College, Stella Maris College, Pymble Ladies’ College, and Granville Boys High School. Two Jewish, two Catholic, and one Islam/Hindu school.

After some initial hesitancy on arrival at the beautiful spot in Little Bay, we introduced ourselves and interacted with the other schools. It was interesting to get to know everyone and share our differences and similarities! We then sat down in the hall, all mixed together so that we were sitting next to students from other schools. We began to get to know the person next to us, and then came together in our groups with approximately three people from each school, and shared more about ourselves and our school!

We were then split into two groups, and a few representatives from each school gave a slideshow presentation about how the school relates to the religion. We then took questions, and it was so shocking to realise that most people don’t know what Shabbat is and they were really intrigued about our special Jewish foods, like hamantaschens and latkes!

It was very interesting to hear Moriah’s presentation and views, because Emanuel and Moriah are particularly interconnected and we found that some of the things they mentioned were rather unexpected. For example; they mentioned that they prayed three times a day with a segregation of boys and girls, whereas we only pray once or twice, altogether!

During our break for lunch, a few Granville Boys students began a game of handball. Slowly, others  joined in, and soon enough, almost every single person there was playing! It was very special to see all these different cultures unite over something, which, in this case, was sport. There was smiling, grinning, laughing, and even a bit of friendly teasing, but we put aside our differences, and enjoyed a fun, if not very intense game of handball!

We then came back together in the hall and watched some confronting videos on the topic of racism. Back in our groups from the morning, we discussed the topic further, and shared our experiences. There were some really shocking stories. For example, one girl we met had a Greek background, and said that she was made fun of for bringing Greek food to school. Someone else was racially abused on a train, and called horrible slurs because of his race. We also made a poster in these groups showing all of our ideas on the impact of racism and how we can prevent it. 

Finally, each school got up and shared a fun performance piece with everyone! Of course, we had to do B’derech HaMelech and share our Emanuel ruach with everyone!!

Something that we found surprising was just how much we had in common with some of the other schools. We were all just Year 9 students, with work to complete, sports to play and fun hobbies to do. Our religion was not as big of a divider as we went in thinking it would be.

We have come to understand that people don’t really think about different religions and how they live their lives – or aren’t aware – and don’t understand that they are just like you and me, so this experience was a real eye opener for many. 

RUA was a great experience to be able to interact with people from all kinds of different backgrounds! We all made a lot of new friends and learned a lot of things about other cultures and religions. It was so much fun and an incredible opportunity that we would do again in a heartbeat! 

By Daliah Smagarinsky, Jaime Keyser and Sarah Manoy