Ayelet Shahak - the Bat-Chen Diaries

Wednesday, 10th February 2010

On Wednesday 10th February, Ayelet Shahak came to speak to Years 7-9 about the recently published English translation of the diaries of her daughter Bat-Chen. Bat Chen was celebrating her 15th Birthday on Purim (March 6th) in 1996 with friends at a mall in Tel Aviv when she was killed in a terrorist attack.

During the week of shiva (mourning), the family discovered the diaries that Bat-Chen had been writing since she was 10 years old.  The family have treated these diaries as Bat-Chen’s legacy to them. They show that Bat-Chen was a child who always actively sought peace with her Arab/Palestinian neighbours. Even in her earliest diary, entitled ‘The War Diary’, written during the First Gulf War in 1991, the first page speaks of her desire for peace rather than war. Ayelet told us how this inspired the family to stop just talking about peace but to become actively involved in pursuing it. The Shahak family are founding members of the Bereaved Families Forum, which arranges events for and encourages dialogue between Israeli and Arab families bereaved by acts of terror.



The family have also established the “Association for the Commemoration of Bat-Chen”  which not only seeks peace, but also promotes writing as a healing therapy for children who have been traumatised by the effects of war and terrorism. Members of the association recently visited some of the areas of Southern Israel affected by shelling and rockets and provided school-age children with special gift packages, –a copy of The Bat-Chen Diaries along with an empty diary to encourage them to start writing their own. Bat-Chen wrote in her diary, "For me, writing is wonderful and it makes me a happy person." It is hoped that by starting their own diaries, these children can find happiness through their writings.