Monthly Archives: May 2017

The Little Prince – Rolling Up Our Sleeves

We all have our differences but one thing that unites us – Arabs, religious, secular and Haredi Jews – is garbage. After years of working in the neighborhoods and speaking with residents from all populations about what they want to change, one thing always comes up – and it’s garbage. Inspired by the successes of our MiniActive project and its ‘We won’t live in filth!’ campaign, the Little Prince project seeks to help all communities in Jerusalem deal with their garbage.

150 people talking garbage

150 people talking garbage

An initial meeting was held in March at our offices on Mount Zion, which set the tone for this unique project. A true mix of the Jerusalem population – 1/3 Arabs, 1/3 secular/ religious Jews, 1/3 Ultra-Orthodox Jews – came to draw the broad strokes of the project.

Discussing ways to take care of garbage - together as well as separately

Discussing ways to take care of garbage – together as well as separately

On Wednesday, May 3, we rolled up our sleeves, and got down to work.

150 people came – 150 people who care about garbage! This included deputy mayors, the Haredi Deputy Mayor who is in charge of sanitation, the professional director of the municipal sanitation department, a number of members of city council, both from the coalition and from the opposition, lay leadership from a range of community centers, active residents, and more. Indeed, since the meeting they’ve been true to their word, helping us to help residents take care of our garbage.

Including Deputy Mayors and City Council Members

Including Deputy Mayors and City Council Members

“I’m participating this evening…in an amazing initiative of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center,” wrote Deputy Mayor Ofer Berkovich. “Those who dream of making a change in the field of clean streets in Jerusalem.” Here’s his Facebook post (Hebrew):

Yael Yechieli, Director of Jewish Pluralism programs at Shatil, happened to be in the Beit Alliance building, lecturing another group about activism. “I was telling them that the first condition for activism is when something gets you mad. The second condition is that other people tell you that you have no chance of succeeding and you ignore them. Then I remembered about the meeting and went downstairs to see more than 100 people, who had gotten mad about dirty streets, and who had been told that there’s no chance they’d succeed. What a wonderful coincidence.”

Here’s her Facebook post (in Hebrew):

This project is unique in that, on the one hand, it encourages different populations to work together. On the other hand, much of the work is done within individual communities. The initiatives are as diverse as Jerusalem’s populations – there are those aimed at individuals, those aimed at neighborhoods, those aimed for implementation citywide. There are those that deal with specific aspects of keeping the city clean (signs, garbage cans), and there are those that are more general (developing an interactive app). Each participant can choose whether he or she wants to work with the ‘other,’ solely advance his or her community, or do both. The true beneficiary – all Jerusalemites. Here are some examples of projects that are being advanced:

  • Connecting – connecting residents with municipal workers through creating a mobile app that will connect and update all factors involved – municipal departments, residents,
  • “Two Pieces of Garbage” campaign – a public awareness campaign to encourage each resident to pick up at least two pieces of garbage a day
  • Adopt a street
  • Adaptation of street cleaning according to special needs in East Jerusalem
  • Our Signs – ensuring that public signage is clean and free from defacing
  • Twinning neighborhoods – enabling two neighborhoods that are similar in character to plan and brainstorm together
  • Clean Neighborhood Committees in individual communities
  • Adopting public sites by local schools
  • Public awareness campaign, “Leave it the way you found it,” on returning garbage cans to their place, with the lids down
  • Increasing reports to 106 municipal hotline
  • Community cleaning events
  • Increasing recycling

Keep updated here for more updates on this amazing program.

MiniActive Hebrew Courses End another Successful Year

In today’s Jerusalem reality, to get things done – at the Municipality, at the water, telephone or electric companies – you need to know Hebrew.

Learning Hebrew as a tool for communication

Learning Hebrew as a tool for communication

Last year, as part of MiniActive’s efforts to provide professional development to its participants, and in order to improve the women’s effectiveness, they began participating in weekly Hebrew courses, offered by Speaking Hebrew, which takes place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Last year 150 women and teenagers took part. This year, over 200 studied Hebrew from MiniActive!

In class

In class

Last week, they held a year-end party for 300 participants and their families, volunteer teachers, and everyone involved in the program.

Graduation ceremony at Hebrew University

Graduation ceremony at Hebrew University

There were congratulatory speeches.

MiniActive Director, Intisar, speaking at graduation

MiniActive Director, Intisar, speaking at graduation

Graduation certificates were distributed.

Very proud of their accomplishments

Very proud of their accomplishments

And the women shared the fantastic food that they’d prepared for the party.

Fitting finale to a fantastic year

Fitting finale to a fantastic year

The women told of how fun it was to learn in the classes – not the standard frontal lessons, but also games and other interactive methods.

The first of many steps to Hebrew fluency

The first of many steps to Hebrew fluency

See you next year!

Here’s the Facebook post (in Arabic):

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its ongoing support for this project.

Cultural Competency in Rights Realization Citywide

Why do Arab residents from East Jerusalem utilize volunteer rights centers in West Jerusalem? What’s the difference between a Haredi person’s usage of B’Ezrat Hashem (With God’s help) or Bli Neder (God willing)? And how would you deal with these questions if faced with a real-life situation?

Listening to a very interesting lecture

Listening to a very interesting lecture

Some 30 volunteers who work in the Municipality’s rights realization centers from throughout the city participated in introduction to cultural competency workshops resented by our Director of the Cultural Competency Desk, Orna Shani, on April 30.  This workshop focused not on the specific answers to these questions, but rather on how to handle the range of cultures and ethnicities that are served by the municipal rights centers. Rights centers are operated by the municipal welfare department, part of the Social Services Division of the Jerusalem Municipality that is undergoing a process of becoming culturally competent. You can read more about this process here and here.

The volunteers learned about the principles of cultural competency, about different meanings of common phrases that often seem to mean the same thing, about what to do when a volunteer has pre-conceived notions about a particular group of people, the different types of requests from different types of people, and more. All in a process to help more of Jerusalem’s diverse populations gain access to rights guaranteed them by law.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its ongoing support of Cultural Competency in Jerusalem.

 

Gearing Up for Jerusalemite Day

What is your Jerusalem? Who is your Jerusalemite?

This year May 23 and 24 are the days to think about Jerusalem and connect to it. This year, there are dozens and dozens of ways to do it.

Building on last year’s success of A Different Day in Jerusalem, this year we call it: Jerusalemite Day: A Day of the Other.

Jerusalemite Day: Day of the Other

Jerusalemite Day: Day of the Other

How do you want to connect to Jerusalem and its diversity? With tours of the Jewish-Arab seam line, the secular – Haredi seam line? Or Mount Zion, the only site that is holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians? Or Jerusalem according to asylum seekers? Commemorating those who perished in the treacherous journey from Ethiopia to Israel? Along the Jerusalem Railway Park or on the Light Rail? At a Kurdish hafla in the Katamonim or a parade on Azza St.?

Right now we have a list of some 70 events. And the list keeps getting longer and longer and longer. See here for the event on Facebook and here for the web site, which is constantly being updated.

Many thanks to the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jerusalem Foundation for their support of this program!

And here’s the entire list, updated as of 21.5.17. You can download an English list of events in PDF here:

Tuesday, May 23

15:30 – Hapoel Katamon Neighborhood League  – Year-End Girls Soccer tournament that will include 12 girls soccer teams in grades 4 – 6 from throughout Jerusalem including all sectors – religious, secular, Arab. At the Keshet Sports Field.

15:30 – From Zion Square to Sallah a-DinA Walking Tour of Jerusalem’s Urban Centers.’ A tour that examines connecting and conflict points between the Israeli and Palestinian centers of life in Jerusalem, guided by Eran Tzidkiyahu. Organized by the Ir Amim organization.

16:00  – Weaving – Macrame Workshop with Yaffi Ronen. At the Reading Station, Masryk St.

16:00 Jerusalem: An Ethnic Mosaic: Secular, Religious, Ultra-Orthodox, Arab. Presented by 4 female citizens of the city. Moderated by Daniel Goldman, Chairman of Gesher. Jerusalem Ramada Hotel.

17:00 – Tour of the Interfaith Music Conservatory with Father Alberto. We’ll meet at Damascus Gate and walk together to the conservatory that is within the St. Saviour monastery, which is adjacent to the New Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem.

17:45 Weaving – Macrame Workshop with Yaffi Ronen. At the Reading Station in Mekor Haim.

18:00 – 20:00  – Wandering around the House – A short play in which a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman choose to take an open place and claim it as their house. Come discover what happens afterwards, in a show that expresses the power dynamics of nationality and gender. This event is in English.

18:00 – Curator’s tour of a special exhibit at the Museum on the Seam. The exhibit seeks to examine secular Jewish artists and the influence of Jewish values on them and their art, at the same time looking outward at a new phenomenon of religious artists who draw inspiration from their beliefs and who engage it in a complex dialogue. The exhibit examines the connection between art and faith, both of which deal with the human acknowledgement of the revelation and the need to express it. Cost of the tour: 20 NIS. Pre-registration required.

19:00 – Bat Hur – voices and shadows echo the story of a daughter and mother who were trapped between the walls of Beit Hanson, Jerusalem’s leper colony. Two languages, two actresses, a choir and hidden Jerusalem history. Performance will take place at the Alliance Building.

19:00 – Screening of , “Turn Left at the End of the World,” organized by the Jerusalem Branch of Enosh, the Israeli Mental Health Association. The screening will be followed by a discussion about Jerusalem and welcoming the other. Discussion in Hebrew and English. Shalom Yehuda 29. This event will be held in English and in Hebrew.

19:30 – Martial Arts Advancing Peace – at the El Halev Center.

19:30 – Founder of “Stories on the Way” (Sipur al Haderech), Adv. David (Darsali) Avetta in an intimate discussion about his immigration to Israel, on ‘Yerusalem’ and about the story that an entire community is beginning to tell today. In cooperation with the Israel Association of Community Centers. We’ll meet in Diana Lipton’s house.

19:30 – The Mount Will Answer the Judgment: on Holiness and Sovereignty – The Forum for Regional Thinking invites you to the Researchers’ Community Lounge at the Alliance Building with 2 Jerusalem researchers-Tomer Persiko and Eran Tzidkiyahu, commemorating the 50th Jerusalem Day. We will discuss different perspectives, complimentary and opposing, from which we can look out on the Temple Mount / Al Aqsa.

20:00 – Ask for the Heart of Jerusalem, organized by Out for Change. In honor of Jerusalem Day, Out for Change will bring together two sectors that are intertwined with each other: Haredim and those who were formerly Haredi. We will try to bridge the gaps via a mind that seeks to know and a heart that seeks to listen. The interviewer: Pini Via, who grew up and was raised Haredi, and Mr. Benahu Tevila, a graduate of rabbinic and halakhic law studies, M.A. in Philosophy, Ministry of Education Supervisor for Haredi secondary schools, and an activist in Haredi society.

20:00 – Souls (Nefashot) – Coping through Art.  A special evening in which we’ll try to bridge the gap between the headlines and the stigmas about people with emotional disabilities and their abilities. A variety of performances will tell us about their experiences in special ways: original music, spoken word, stand-up comedy, open galleries, and more. At the Abraham Hostel.

20:00 – Heroes: Dance performance -Israel, Jerusalem and the ‘Others’ within It: Because Israeli-ness isn’t a melting pot – it is the Land of Israel in all its glory, which stretches out to all those who inhabit it, to the edges that don’t connect. The performance is by the Ka’et Ensemble and will take place in the C.A.T.A.M.O.N. studio in the Alliance Building. Cost: 30 NIS

20:30 – My Heart is in the East – Jerusalem in the Eyes of North African Liturgy. Jerusalem liturgy in Hebrew, Moroccan-Arabic and Matruz, by the Paytan Maimon Meny Cohen and a musical ensemble. Organized by Kehillot Sharot.

21:00 – Visions of the Gazan youth – An unofficial meeting with Sami, a freelance journalist and peace activist from Gaza. Join a discussion about the possibility for a better future and the missing dialogue between Israelis and Gazans. This event is in English.

21:00  – Holiness and Politics: Jerusalem of Three Religions – A panel by the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue (Formerly JCRC) invites us to a workshop in which we’ll examine the character of none other than King David, who appears in holy writings of the three monotheistic religions. Through him, and through the Jerusalem sites that are associated with him (David’s Tomb, for example), we’ll learn about the holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and we’ll attempt to understand the political connections behind that holiness.

21:00 – Bat Hur – voices and shadows echo the story of a daughter and mother who were trapped between the walls of Beit Hanson, Jerusalem’s leper colony. Two languages, two actresses, a choir and hidden Jerusalem history. Performance will take place at the Alliance Building.

21:00 – 02:00 – Ma’aleh Movie Marathon. Ma’ale School of Television, Film & the Arts invites the general public to enjoy a nighttime marathon of the best new graduate movies that are participating in film festival around Israel and the world. The marathon will include films that deal with and take place in Jerusalem, covering the entire spectrum of lifestyles. The movies will be screened throughout the school. Come to a virtual-cinematic tour of the Haredi neighborhood and synagogue communities, through the crowded streets of Nahlaot, the city center, and Talpiot, to the mysterious, hidden monasteries. 20 Shivtei Yisrael St.

Wednesday, May 24

8:00 – Tour of the Rahel Checkpoint – That’s How We Do Zionism, Tolerance and Human Rights – a special tour of the Rahel Checkpoint that connects between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, by the Blue&White Human Rights group. This is a rare opportunity to hear and see up close the reality at the checkpoints, to meet the people from the field and to discover how to combine Zionism and human rights. The tour is free but pre-registration is required.

9:00 – Status Quo in Jerusalem – Tour of Mount Zion – between holy sites, forgotten stories and a delicate status quo, monks, yeshiva students, artists and business owners live side by side. Let’s get to know the viewpoints of the residents and the visitors of Mount Zion, about the shared living there and about the delicate and fascinating cooperation that takes place today. During the tour we will meet with the deputy director of the Diaspora Yeshiva Ely Dan, and Father Daniel, a monk from the Dormition community. The tour is free but pre-registration is required.

9:00 – Jerusalem is Tiptoeing In – The Djanogly Visual Arts Centre is hosting the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education and invites the general public to take part in a unique event that is completely Jerusalemite art – a rich collection of works that weaves the new-old narrative of Jerusalem from its artists’ point of view. Moving through the space we will discover new corners and faces of Jerusalem. We will examine how tensions, feelings and people build yet another story of Jerusalem.

10:00 – Heterotopia in MusraraTour of the Art Trail (for men), of the Studio of Her Own project. Art in the public space in northern Musrara, the third wall. Two tours, one for men (at 10:00) and one for women (11:00), guided by Rabbi Aharon Kedem from the Breslev Hassidim, and Tzipi Mizrachi from the Studio of Her Own.

10:00 – Stories on the Way at the Sieff & Marks Community Center in Beit HaKerem. The group of volunteers of the Shalem Movement will meet with Eitan Penethon for an open discussion about the story of Israelis of Ethiopian descent, on ‘Yerusalem’, and on the possibility to create change in Israeli society.

10:00 – Stories on the Way Discussion Circles – The story of the Ethiopian-Israeli Aliyah, by the Olim themselves. The discussion circles will take place at Mount Herzl, right before the official ceremony that will take place at 11:00.

10:30 – I Saw a City: Jerusalem between Dream and Reality – Tour about Jerusalem in the National Library: We will meet original objects from the Six Day War, we will view the largest stained glass window in Israel, we will become acquainted with the ancient map collection of Jerusalem and we will visit the exhibit, “City of Dreams: Jerusalem from the Imagination’s View,” Jerusalem as seen in the imaginations of Jewish, Muslim and Christian artists.

11:00 – Heterotopia in MusraraTour of the Art Trail (for women), of the Studio of Her Own project. Art in the public space in northern Musrara, the third wall. Two tours, one for men (at 10:00) and one for women (11:00), guided by Rabbi Aharon Kedem from the Breslev Hassidim, and Tzipi Mizrachi from the Studio of Her Own.

11:00 – Official ceremony for Ethiopian Jews who perished in Sudan. The public is invited to become acquainted with a different story that is commemorated on Jerusalem Day. The ceremony will take place at Mount Herzl. There will be discussion circles, operated by Stories on the Way, on the immigration stories of Ethiopian Jews.

11:30 A special workshop on the secrets of mediation and self-defense. Participants will learn how to correctly handle any conflict through a proper balance of wisdom and listening and action. Operated by the Mosaica Center for Conflict Resolution and The Jerusalem School of Traditional JuJitsu and Self Defense.

12:00 – 16:00 – Tolerance Stop on the light rail line, operated by the Ruach Nachon pre-army preparatory program, in cooperation with the Citypass company that operates the light rail and the Jerusalem Municipality. The stop seeks to create a Jerusalem mosaic and increase tolerance at the Municipality light rail stop.

12:30 I Saw a City: Jerusalem between Dream and Reality – Tour about Jerusalem in the National Library: We will meet original objects from the Six Day War, we will view the largest stained glass window in Israel, we will become acquainted with the ancient map collection of Jerusalem and we will visit the exhibit, “City of Dreams: Jerusalem from the Imagination’s View,” Jerusalem as seen in the imaginations of Jewish, Muslim and Christian artists.

15:00 – Wall art for girls in the Art Shelter studio in the Mekor Baruch neighborhood, together with Solomon, the fantastic graffiti artist! Children (and adults) welcome.

15:30 – 18:30 – The Jerusalem March along the Jerusalem Railway Park, by the Yerushalmim Movement. Jerusalem communities march together and celebrate Jerusalem’s diversity. There will be 3 starting points:

            15:30 – Beneath the Baram Bridge, the long route

            16:00 – Gonenim Park, the general route

            17:15 – Oranim Junction, the Family March

            18:15 – Festive event at the First Station.

The march will be accompanied by Marsh Dondurma, Tahrir Eastern Bar and Kehillat Zion. Activities for children, music, balloons and a range of surprises will be distributed along the route!

16:00 – 21:00 Building Our Own Jerusalem with Lego – A building site for Jerusalemites from all ethnicities, religions and opinions. Building together a tolerant and inclusive Jerusalem from tens of thousands of Lego pieces. At the Davidka Light Rail Station. No Hebrew required.

16:00 – Street Beit Midrash on the Ben Yehudah Midrachov. A special session about tolerance and Jerusalem.

16:00 – Ascension Ceremony at the Church of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives. At 16:00 all the Christian churches will begin their ceremonies. At 16:45 the Catholic Franciscan evening service will begin. It is a Christian ceremony, please come dressed appropriately.

16:00 – Traditional Flower Parade organized by Tag Meir: Light instead of Terror. Let’s distribute flowers to the residents of the Old City.

16:00 – 23:00 – Katatmon’s Wisdom: Katamon Culture in Houses and in the Streets. An entire festival of Katamon-led activity, including neighborhood tolerance activities:

16:30 – 18:00 – “Here There Was…” a tour of the Katamonim neighborhood from the outlook of 3 women from different ethnic backgrounds. Starting from the gat of the Gonenim Park.

17:00 – Writing Workshop: Poetry from Recipes. Recipes from different ethnic groups are written as new Israeli poetry. The workshop will take place at the reading station on the Jerusalem Railway Park.

17:00 – The Parliament. Neighborhood residents from all cultures and ages are invited to the Butka Café to hold a neighborhood parliament, in which we talk about everything.

17:00 – 19:00 – Katamon Portrait. Neighborhood residents take pictures of themselves next to the Well-Baby Clinic.

17:30 – 19:30 – A Knit – A Space for Knitting. A simple space for knitting and learning how to knit, regardless of religion, creed or gender.

18:00 – Ethnic cooking workshops in residents’ homes. Learning about the dish as well as how to prepare Ingra with Abbebe and Kubbeh with Hannah.

18:00 – Kurdish Hafla – A Kurdish dance party with food.

18:00 – Meeting at the Beit Midrash – Asking for Peace of Jerusalem. The Matan women’s Beit Midrash opens its doors for joint learning for women from all backgrounds.

18:15 – Women’s Song: Vocal Creations as an Agent of Change. Vocal artist Faye Shapiro will tell about the “Rivers of Katamonim” project that she led with older women, together with young artists. It will meet at the Gonenim Community Center, and include vocal work and singing.

19:00 – Ethiopian Celebration – songs, dances, food, in the plaza in front of the minimarket on San Martin St.

19:30 – Choosing to Feel Well. Loneliness is a cross-cultural experience. We will hear about Alan’s project, which creates an inviting space for everyone to deal with loneliness together.

19:30 – Singing together songs from Israel and different ethnic groups. Organized by the Singing in the Garden initiative, in San Simon Park.

19:30 – 21:00 – Katamon Portrait 2 – Taking pictures of ourselves in San Simon.

17:00 – Wall art for boys in the Art Shelter studio in the Mekor Baruch neighborhood, together with Solomon, the fantastic graffiti artist! Children (and adults) welcome.

17:00 – 50 Years, 50 Faces – An opening festive event marking the documentary project of the Tower of David Museum of the History of Jerusalem, commemorating 50 years since the reunification of Jerusalem, presenting 50 personal stories of Jerusalem residents from all its corners, from the time directly after the 1967 war. It will include video clips, interviews, text and original pictures.

17:00 – Everything Private: Prayers, Stories and Staged Reading of ‘Everything Private’. A play based on meeting minutes of the Barashi synagogue’s board in Nahlaot. The minutes combine the holy with the everyday, and touch on practical details from the everyday life of the synagogue and community. It is spiced with light irony, and sometimes self-humor, yet it preserves the accuracy, honor and the reality of the time. The play has a contemporary and universal message about the unique drama and meaning of worlds that are disappearing, worlds that are being built, and colorful characters that are building them; and on longing and love. At the Museum of Italian Jewry.

17:30 – Black and White Jerusalem – A tour on the seam line between Haredi and non-Haredi neighborhoods to understand the Haredi sector, organized by the Tarbuth organization. We’ll meet in Davidka Square.

18:00 – Jerusalem for All Festival – with performances by Echo, Tito and Jaluk. There will be a stage for Jerusalemite performers. Kelly Halperin and Moshe Waldman will hold a panel on Jerusalem entrepreneurship. There will be stands selling art, art installations and a poetry slam and of course food and drink. The even strives to bring together different groups in the city, emphasizing the human and cultural diversity in Jerusalem. At the Alliance Building.

18:00 – Tour of Jerusalem as a City of Asylum: Jerusalem in the Eyes of the Asylum Seekers who Live There. A tour by the Jerusalem African Community Center.

18:45 – Believers – An evening of inter-religious prayer and listening circles, on listening and the Holy City, with Kehillat Zion, Marsh Dondurma, Tahrir Eastern Bar and the Yerushalmim Movement, and Arab and secular and Haredi Jewish leaders.

19:00 – New Haredim, the Formerly Religious, and All that Cholent. Journalist Mendy Grosman hosts Moshe Sheinfeld and Avi Tapilinsky at the Tmol Shilshom Café.

19:30 – Shfuyah B’Haloma (Sane in Her Dream) – A multi-aged, multicultural Jerusalemite panel on the occasion of the launch of Dr. Elan Ezrachi’s new book, Shfuyah B’Haloma. The panel will include: Ora Ahimeir, Keren Brunwasser, Eran Tzidkiyahu, Yossi Klein-Halevi.

19:30 – Screening of the movie, “The Seventh Day,” and discussion with Suleiman Hattib, founder of Combatants for Peace. Afterward we’ll dive into the sounds of Fuad Abi A-Nam and Friends.

19:30 – Meeting of Stories on the Way with Daressa Atchnepa – his emotional story of immigrating to Israel from Ethiopian. In the home of the Dahan family.

20:00 – Storytellers Evening on Jerusalem and Tolerance at the BeShutaf Cooperative. During the evening Jerusalemites will tell their stories: some sad, some happy, some emotional, some will leave you stunned. But all are real. Facilitated by Itamar Farhi.

20:30 – Beyond the Dark Mountains – a journey near home. We will commemorate 50 years since the Six Day War, which are also 50 years of shared living between Jerusalem residents from eastern and western parts of the city. Eliezer Ya’ari will take us on a journey to the people who live in East Jerusalem, part of the capital of Israel, and will enlighten us about their thoughts and dreams, on shared living in the city, on the daily reality, and on the future. We will meet at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.

21:00 – Jibberishalem – Improvising the language, by JLMprov. An interactive improvisational performance on Jerusalem and its characters. We will meet in Alliance Building. No Hebrew required.

21:00 – Bat Hur. Voices and shadows echo the story of a daughter and mother who were trapped between the walls of Beit Hanson, Jerusalem’s leper colony. Two languages, two actresses, a choir and hidden Jerusalem history. Performance will take place in the Alliance Building.

21:00 – Yachas Ham at Birman. A special performance of the Yachas Ham band, paying tribute to Bob Dylan’s birthday (and Shakespeare’s). Let’s hear about tolerance as expressed in Bob Dylan’s songs.

All Day – Teachers Lounge project of “This is Jerusalem.” An exhibition of a year-long program that brought together Jewish and Arab educators. The exhibition will be shown at the First Station.

All Day – Jerusalem Tolerance Cookie Decorating! International competition of cookie artists who decorated cookies to emphasize tolerance in Jerusalem. Organized by Jerusalem Cake Design.

Events Not Open to the General Public

Special activities to advance tolerance at the Dror High School (religious).

Students from the Tag Meir student organization light up Jerusalem – Students will visit high schools throughout Jerusalem and will operate workshops on tolerance in Jerusalem.

The Scouts – all participants in the scouts will have special activities for Jerusalem Day, focusing on Jerusalem, its complexity, its uniqueness and its place in Israeli society.

Workshop by the Center for Middle Eastern Music for students for the Keshet School.

An Accessible City: Photography exhibit. The school at the ALYN Rehabilitative Hospital will hold a party celebrating Jerusalem’s many cultures. The program: An Accessible City – a photography exhibit. Songs about Jerusalem in Hebrew and Arabic and a competition identifying places in Jerusalem. The workshop is closed to the public but the exhibit will be open.

Meeting for all group coordinators from the Interfaith Encounter Association to meet each other.

Cultural Competency in the Workplace: Health Care

We’ve mentioned here the many ways we develop cultural competency in the health care system – from the perspective of the national and local authorities (Ministry of Health, municipalities) to HMO’s, individual clinics and hospitals, schools of nursing and medicine, and more.

We continue to introduce  concepts of cultural competency wherever we can. This includes the Change Agents course of the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity, which consists of businesses and non-profits that are working to further diversity in the workplace. This includes increasing the integration of populations with disabilities as well as a range of cultures and ethnicities.

Orna Shani, Desk Director, lecturing

Orna Shani, Desk Director, lecturing

We’ve been giving lectures to the Forum for some years now. Cultural Competency Desk Director Orna Shani recently lectured to a course for diversity managers from health care organizations, hospitals and HMO’s, from throughout the country. The main goal of these diversity managers is to integrate populations with special needs into the work force.

Of the 25 participants, only 5 had heard about cultural competency before. Our discussion included language accessibility, on the connection between diversity and employment, the current situation and the desired situation.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continued support of cultural competency since its beginning.

MiniActive – and Jerusalem – Featured in International “Cities of Migration” Newsletter

MiniActive, the Jerusalem Intercultural Center and the Jerusalem as a Culturally Competent City conference are featured in the May 2017 newsletter of the Cities of Migration Network.

As part of the preparation for the conference, Dr. Adit Dayan, our colleague at the Jerusalem Foundation, attended the Cities of Migration Conference in Toronto. Cities of Migration is an international initiative launched in 2008 to identify and disseminate local integration practice in major immigrant receiving cities worldwide.  The project was the first to link global cities around issues of immigrant integration and has been surprisingly successful. Today, Cities of Migration has an international following of over 7000 international experts, practitioners and policy-makers, and its mailing list reaches 16,000 people worldwide.

Ms. Uzma Shakir, Keynote Speaker

Ms. Uzma Shakir, Keynote Speaker at the Jerusalem as a Culturally Competent City conference

After the conference we remained in contact with the Cities of Migration Network.  And this week, they published MiniActive in their May newsletter and as part of their “Good Ideas for Integration”  section on their web site.

Click here for a link to the online article.

And here’s the full text:

MiniActive: Local Women, Local Action

Jerusalem Intercultural Center

May 4, 2017

Empowering local women and minority populations to become agents of community change

Can a functioning street lamp be the key to peace?   Sometimes, it’s almost that simple.

In 2011 a group of Palestinian women in East Jerusalem decided they’d had enough of broken street lamps, unrepaired roads and other nuisances that caused daily tensions and disrupted the peace of the neighbourhood.   Local volunteers started using the municipal hotline to demand the repair and replacement of faulty street lamps and were soon meeting with relevant municipal authorities. No, the women explained, contrary to what municipal workers too often said, the street lamps would not be broken by local youth.

Five years later, the street lamps are still working, bus stops have been repaired and thousands of other small and large improvements have been made.

Empowered by a unique program called MiniActive that focuses on community-led action and helping local residents become change agents in their own neighborhoods, MiniActive volunteers are leading the way for civic action in East Jerusalem, and across the city.

From Activism to Action

Conditions for the more than 300,000 Palestinians living in poverty in East Jerusalem often put the health and welfare of local residents at risk. The quarter’s winding streets are poorly maintained, filled with potholes and often littered due to inefficient garbage removal by local authorities. Public stairs and walkways are uneven and unsafe, and few public buildings – schools, welfare offices, community organizations – are handicapped accessible.

Compounding these challenges, residents often lack the tools to self-organize and build the organizational capacity needed to effect changes on their own, leaving them feeling dis-empowered and disengaged from civic processes. Such frustrations can be exacerbated by cultural and language barriers, or unfamiliarity with municipal services.

For these reasons, the success of the intervention by Palestinian women in East Jerusalem around municipal repairs to their neighborhood caught the eye of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center (JICC).

Since 2004, the JICC had been engaged in a series of internal discussions about activism as a tool for community change. Since their mission was to help residents of all identities create positive impact within their communities and in the city as a whole, activism seemed an important approach. However, over the years they had noticed that much of the activist energy was non-effective, more cause and complaint than positive impact.

By contrast, the activism of East Jerusalem’s neighbourhood women was practical, positive and place-based.  Its example galvanized the JICC to pilot a new model for community engagement called “MiniActive.”  The central idea? To let people train themselves to change the world, by choosing a very small part of the world to change.

Agents of community change

MiniActive was launched in 2012, with the support and partnership of the JICC and the Jerusalem Foundation and the dual objective of effecting real change and empowering community action. Its goals are to advance human rights in East Jerusalem by creating sustainable grassroots advocacy and empowerment mechanisms; to empower women as agents of change; and to help all residents, but mainly women, take practical steps to improve the everyday lives of East Jerusalem residents.

MiniActive workshops consist of small group meetings in which each of the participants is invited to choose an issue to work on that is both ‘do-able’ and requires working with or convincing others to do something, whether it be neighbours, local agencies or the municipality, because learning to work with others is critical to developing organizational capacity. Examples can be repairing a street light, improving garbage collection in a specific location, fixing a pothole, replacing a safety fence, initiating an event in school, or simply connecting neighbours to meet together over an issue.   The criteria for choosing projects are:

  • Results can be achieved in 1-2 months. The relatively quick results seen on the ground in this model boosts participants’ self-confidence and empowers them to ‘graduate’ on to larger and more complex issues.
  • The solution cannot be achieved alone – some other body or organization must be activated to achieve success. This often includes the Municipality or other service provider
  • A passion for community. The participant has passion to achieve this target issue.

Whether it’s a problem on the street, an issue to be tackled at the local school, or a service improvement at the health clinic, the program empowers participants to identify problems in their immediate community, and helps them to develop effective methods of solving those problems, which can be applied to larger-scale problems in the future as well.

Language classes, recycling, horticulture: a community hub

In 2014 MiniActive upgraded its monthly professional development seminars for their volunteer coordinators from East Jerusalem’s various neighbourhoods. Previously, monthly meetings largely consisted of peer learning and assistance on a case-by-case basis. The new format included workshops on how to map local needs and set priorities; how to navigate the Municipality and its different departments; how to navigate other service providers (phone, electric, water, etc.); how to write letters to these agencies; how to deal with the Municipality’s contractors in the field; who might (or might not) be willing to work with them should a woman be supervising– and more.

In addition to in-service seminars about accessing local services more effectively, Hebrew classes have been organized for more than 200 women to facilitate communication with municipal service providers.  An important project outcome was the addition of Arabic-speakers to the municipal hotline, both to encourage participation and to handle the volume of calls MiniActive outreach was generating.

Since its overall goal is to improve residents’ immediate environment, in 2014 MiniActive began to offer courses and workshops that focused on a broader definition of improving one’s environment, such as composting, recycling, etc.  A photography workshop increased the women’s ability and propensity to look around them and see new ways to improve their neighbourhood.  In 2016, the first ever Arabic-language horticultural therapy course was added.

MiniActive has become a community hub, offering a wide range of activities – from exercise to crocheting to baking to trips – where local women can gather to enjoy their leisure,  each other’s company, and the rewards of hard work.

Today MiniActive’s network of volunteers spills across 15 districts, with 50 – 100 women in each district, and covers nearly every neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. Working in small groups of 4 to 6, the women of MiniActive are working on 500 issues each month, solving approximately half and continuing to work on the remainder, and improving the everyday lives of residents through continual communication and interaction with service providers (telephone, electricity, water, municipality, etc.) and community members.

What’s more, municipal service providers recognize the effectiveness of MiniActive’s work and are less inclined to see the complaints as antagonizing ‘nuisances.’ Rather, MiniActive participants are viewed as partners in the change process.

Success

MiniActive has galvanized civic action in East Jerusalem neighbourhoods. In 2016 alone more than 6,000 formal complaints were filed, and over 2,300 problems resolved. Among the improvements, all bus stops in three neighbourhoods were repaired or replaced.  On a larger scale, MiniActive’s response to an acute problem around garbage removal resulted in the launch of the “We Won’t Live in Filth” Facebook campaign. The result? Millions of shekels were added to the East Jerusalem sanitation budget, and garbage collection became a central issue in local activism throughout Jerusalem.

From its modest beginnings, MiniActive quickly grew to a network of 1,000 Palestinian women in every corner of East Jerusalem, arguably the largest network of volunteers in East Jerusalem.  In 2015, MiniActive’s success was internationally recognized when the project’s director was invited to present at the Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) Partners Forum in Washington, DC.  In November 2016 a group from the Czech Republic visited Jerusalem to learn about MiniActive. Interest in the project remains lively. Today, the MiniActive Facebook page has over 20,300 ‘likes.’

Over the past 5 years a growing MiniActive volunteer network has solved thousands of neighbourhood problems and is training hundreds of women on how to engage local service providers and municipal services to bring about community change by working with the system, and despite the system.

For the first time, MiniActive empowers participants to be stakeholders in their own future.

Making it Work for You:

  • Define realistic objectives in advance to make sure you can actually advance towards desired outcomes.
  • Prioritize actions according to importance, even when “urgency” threatens to re-order actions.
  • Building consensus takes time. Make sure urgent items don’t disrupt important consensus building processes.
  • Take an approach that brings the “other side” (the government, the neighbours, etc.) on board for a win-win outcome.
  • Break up a large issue into many smaller problems and tasks. This makes results more achievable and more feasible.
  • Groups dynamics and peer learning are the key. Consult with each other on how to proceed while ensuring each member of the team can work independently to advance her project.
  • Use the synergy of community forces as a tool to create power and move your project forward.

The newsletter also featured the remarks made by Uzma Shakir at the conference as a featured story:

 

Here’s the full text of that article:

Keynote speech by Uzma Shakir, Director of the Office of Equity, Diversity and Human Rights, City of Toronto, on the occasion of the Jerusalem Foundation’s 50th anniversary event, the “Jerusalem as a Culturally Competent City” Conference, hosted by the Jerusalem Intercultural Center on May 17, 2016 in Jerusalem.

In a brilliant, wide-ranging presentation Shakir describes processes taking place in Toronto and throughout Canada regarding multiculturalism and cultural competency, and responses to the country’s vastly different population groups, from the native populations to the Francophone community of Quebec to recent immigrants from south Asia and elsewhere. She first defined the role of cultural competency:

“Cultural competency can be viewed in two ways: it can either be seen as paternalistic and prescriptive – something you do for others who have either limited or unequal power to claim their rights; or transformative and critical – consciously producing spaces that address those power differentials in a meaningful manner and eventually lead to an equitable and just society.

In other words, cultural competency can mean being nice to people while maintaining the status quo of inequality or it can mean empowering marginalized people to take control over their own destiny and to change the conditions in society to produce equitable and just outcomes for all.

However, this requires an honest recognition of who is marginalized and then consciously co-creating the conditions for inclusion. In this sense, Toronto has its challenges just like Jerusalem and provides some compelling lessons.”

Uzma’s description of the role of cultural competency was really a defining moment for us. We realized that our work, experience and know-how was already working on both sides of the cultural competency equation, but we had never defined it as such. We were both training service providers to make services accessible to a wide variety of populations, and we were also empowering marginalized populations – of all kinds and ethnicities – to demand access to services, adapted to their particular needs. This is best represented by Uzma’s illustration:

Three views of Equity

Three views of Equity

In the first approach, existing infrastructures render services equally for different people. However, since people’s needs are different, equal provision of services does not create proper equality. In the second approach, adjustments are made, often ad hoc, to be able to work within the existing infrastructure to provide services in a way that responds differently to the different needs. In the third approach, infrastructure is built from the start with the different needs of different people in mind, to enable each to meet his or her particular needs in the best way possible.

Ours is the third approach, and in that way MiniActive is helping Jerusalem become more culturally competent. We’re so proud of their accomplishments and dedication, especially in the complex situation in Jerusalem. We’re so happy that tens of thousands of people around the world will be able to learn about MiniActive as well.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their full partnership in developing all aspects of Cultural Competency, as well as in developing the MiniActive project.

MiniActive Youth – Improving the Environment in Sur Baher

MiniActive youth continue to do fantastic work throughout Jerusalem, painting murals and improving the environment.

Beginning to paint

Beginning to paint

This time, their project was in Sur Baher.

Improving an entire street in Sur Baher

Improving an entire street in Sur Baher

At the request of residents, the youth decorated the walls on either side of this residential street. The residents themselves prepared the ‘canvas,’  first painting it white. All the girls needed to do was come and paint the pictures. Looking great!

Painting flowers and butterflies

Painting flowers and butterflies

Read more about previous MiniActive Youth projects here and here.

And our favorite cartoon characters

And our favorite cartoon characters

And here’s the post from the MiniActive Facebook page (Arabic):

Here’s another post, mid-project:

And here’s the final project – this time all six paintings!

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its continuous support of the MiniActive project.

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