July, 2020 | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

Living Safer Living Longer for Young Families through Zoom

As the world moved to Zoom, as did Living Safer, Living Longer.

Since June, we’ve held two workshops on Zoom for young families. There were about 10 families at each meeting. After each one, about 60% (6 of them) call the receive further guidance in making their homes safe.

Young Families Workshop.

Here’s one example: After an online lecture, a young father called Living Safer, Living Longer Director Aliza Shabo-Hayut with a question – he and his wife were going away for the weekend and he’d like for his mother – who would be watching their young son – to receive direction in maintaining a safe household. So we called her, and provided the necessary guidance. The weekend went by fine, and all were well.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continued support of Living Safer, Living Longer.

Naomi Roff2020-08-09T15:34:26+00:00July 30th, 2020|Blog, Living Safer Living Longer|

Santé Israël – Go-to Site for Updates on the Coronavirus

We’ve posted here, here and here how Santé Israël has been helping French speakers – in Israel and even abroad – navigate the health care system in Israel.

Current page on coronavirus

Yesterday, on July 26, the Santé Israël web site broke its record – with 580 entrances to the site in one day! This was after posts on Facebook reached 7,500 people, with 600 engagements. This, too, was a record for the Facebook and website pages.

How did the word get out to so many people?

Well, there seem to be a number of factors. Over the previous week, Santé Israël director Marie Avigad shared the post to 50 groups and pages serving the French-speaking community in Israel. She also spoke about the coronavirus landing page at a Qualita Forum meeting. She also discussed it in a WhatsApp group for professionals and invited them to check out the web site. This was also just after many of the guidelines had changed, so there were a great number of people looking for reliable, comprehensive information, which can be found on the dedicated page for the coronavirus.

Keep up the good work Santé Israël!

Here’s the record-breaking post:

Many thanks to the Pharmadom Foundation for their continued support of Santé Israël over the years.

Naomi Roff2020-08-13T04:41:41+00:00July 27th, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence, Santé Israël - French internet platform on the Israeli healthcare system|

MiniActive Youth: Providing Critical Enrichment in the Shadow of COVID-19

It wasn’t easy to be a young person in East Jerusalem this spring. As COVID-19 hit the region, East Jerusalem Parents Associations took an unprecedented step – they were the first to close schools in early March. And when restrictions were lifted in May, and Jewish schoolchildren returned to school, children in East Jerusalem did not – schools stayed closed until the end of the school year.

A festive day to kick off the summer

So when the month of Ramadan finished (end of June) and July came around, Palestinian children in East Jerusalem were going quite stir crazy. Fortunately, MiniActive youth was there to fill the void, with activities planned in accordance to Ministry of Health restrictions.

Activities kicked off with a special event, replete with clowns, and games, and parachutes and fun.

MiniActive Youth also met to work outside, helping in two different places.

Working outdoors, improving the environment

This past week MiniActive youth also started another environmental project. The curriculum was designed especially to reduce tensions that built up as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

For now, the girls are also able to meet inside

Here’s a post from the MiniActive Facebook page:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Model for their support of this summertime initiative for youth. And many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-07-31T09:45:45+00:00July 24th, 2020|Blog, MiniActive|

Saying Goodbye to J. Elichay

Suha Taweel Kadry is one of our veteran Arabic teachers, as part of our Language Center, one of the largest schools of Arabic for Communication in Israel. This year, in 2019 – 2020, we had 240 students in five levels.

Yohanan (J.) Elihay, photo credit here

On Saturday, July 11, J. Elihay, the author of books used by the JICC, died at the age of 94. In response, Suha published an opinion piece in the Ha’aretz Daily newspaper. Here are a few sections from that piece.

Born as Jean Laraouh, he was a French linguist and monk who moved in 1956 to Israel, where he changed his name to Yohanan Elihay. He researched spoken Palestinian Arabic for decades and did his best to use the knowledge he acquired to serve as a bridge between the two divided peoples living in Israel. He won the Yigal Allon Prize for Exemplary Pioneering Activities last year.

Many Arabic teachers are familiar with his books. They all agree he was a kind person who loved the Arabic he researched and was endowed with generosity and a love of mankind. All who knew his books were amazed by the Frenchman’s expertise and by his comprehensive knowledge of both Arabic and Hebrew. Besides his linguistic talents, he was blessed with a well-developed sense of humor.

At the same time, both of their relationships with Arabic and Arabic culture were and continue to be complex. His books expressed chauvinistic views Palestinian society; she told herself that it was part of the era that he lived.

Over the last two decades, in my work as a teacher of Arabic as a second language, I had the opportunity to meet Elihay twice. The first time, we invited him to speak with my Arabic students at the Jerusalem Intercultural Center. I met him the second time at a lunch that one of the students organized in honor of the publication of his last dictionary. I was disappointed in the first meeting by his request to speak with the students in Hebrew.

“I don’t feel the Arabic flowing in my mouth, like it used to,” he explained. I convinced myself that age was taking its toll.

And despite these conflicting feelings, she is saddened by the loss.

As I write these lines, and from the moment his death was announced, my telephone is being flooded with messages from students who felt the need to stop for a moment to show their respect for him. It is strange that I was the conduit through which they chose to express their feelings of loss. And it is even stranger that I feel his absence and the need to part ways, even though we didn’t know each other personally. Perhaps, and it is comforting to think of him this way, this non-Jewish land knew how to love him back. May Allah have mercy on him!

You can read the whole piece in English here, as well as the Hebrew and Arabic versions here and here respectively.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its continued support of our Language Center over the years.

Naomi Roff2020-08-08T05:12:11+00:00July 19th, 2020|Blog, Language Center|

Diversity and Inclusion in Times of Crisis – Jerusalem Foundation Switzerland Panel

The Jerusalem Foundation has been a strategic partner since the JICC’s establishment. So when our director Dr. Hagai Agmon-Snir was asked to participate in a panel session for Jerusalem Foundation Switzerland, we were honored, and of course, agreed to speak.

Panel discussion about diversity and inclusion in times of crises

Here is how the Jerusalem Foundation described the panel:

The Jerusalem Foundation has implemented a variety of projects in Jerusalem during the Corona crisis to support those in need.

After an intense time, we would like to step back and look at the biggest challenges and the most important lessons learnt these past few months.

What is the impact in relation to diversity and inclusion of such a crisis on a city, that already has many challenges to overcome in normal times?

Join the journalist and author Peter Hossli in conversation with Hagai Agmon-Snir PhD, Director of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center, Shai Doron, President of the Jerusalem Foundation and Ruth Bloch-Riemer PhD, Member of the Board of the Jerusalem Foundation Switzerland.

Here’s a video of the entire session (in English). And of course, thank you to the Jerusalem Foundation for your continued support for the past 20 years!

It was also posted on the Embassy of Switzerland in Israel’s Facebook feed:

Naomi Roff2020-07-31T09:55:55+00:00July 15th, 2020|Blog|

Santé Israël: Helping French-speaking Olim during Coronavirus Pandemic

For many, dealing with the coronavirus included staying at home. For others, it entailed leaving an old home to find a new home in Israel. Santé Israël helped them get set up on the health care front. Moving to a new country is always difficult and learning the health care system is essential. Doing so during a worldwide pandemic, when health care systems are stretched to the max and rules and regulations are constantly changing and different in different locations, is even more critical. Santé Israël was and continues to be there to help.

Helping French-speaking Olim at all times

According to data from the Jewish Agency and immigrant organizations, there has been a significant rise in interest to immigrate to Israel among French Jewry. In order to provide information about life in the country to potential immigrants, the Qualita organization for French-speaking olim has created a website called Préparation à la alyah (preparation for aliyah): https: //www.preparation-alyah.com/

Through the website, applicants can schedule zoom meetings with people around the country, who can answer questions in a range of areas. who are in the country, and who can give answers to their questions in various fields. Santé Israël coordinator Marie Avigad invited to participate in the project to provide health information.

On Tuesday 30.6, she had her first Zoom session. It was with a woman who in the middle of the aliyah process. She’d heard about the website via an ad on Facebook. She had a very interesting aliyah story.

She, her husband and their 8-year-old daughter arrived in Israel on March 3, at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis. They thought they’d be in Israel for a short while, and would be able to wait out the crisis in Israel, in a place they felt was ‘theirs,’ near people ‘like them.’ The next day, all flights out of Israel stopped, and they couldn’t go anywhere.

They stayed in Tel Aviv, and as time went on they decided to stay and make aliyah. They’ve almost finished the process. She asked for information about the health system in general and how to obtain health insurance. During the Zoom session she wanted to write down everything Marie said, but she didn’t need to. Using Zoom’s ‘Share screen’ feature, she was able to show her in real time all the information she needed: how to register with the National Insurance Institute, registering with an HMO, how to pay for the HMO, what is covered by the different types of insurance, how to change HMO’s if necessary, well-baby clinics, French-speaking doctors that are listed on the Santé Israël web site, and more. She was very grateful for the help she received.

Many thanks to the Pharmadom Foundation for their continued support of Santé Israël over the years.

Naomi Roff2020-08-13T04:38:31+00:00July 10th, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence, Santé Israël - French internet platform on the Israeli healthcare system|

Diversity and Inclusion at Work for the LBGTQ Community

The month of June is Pride Month. To help celebrate that month and to raise awareness about the LGBTQ community in the workplace, we held a Zoom meeting about diversity and inclusion in the workplace for the LGBTQ community on June 29, together with the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity.

Including the LGBTQ in the workplace

The discussion, moderated by our own Rachelly Ashwall, included Hila Goldstein Porat, from the Optibus Company, Alon Madar, Director of the LGBTech, and Noa Tron, Director of the Israeli Forum for Employment Diversity. Hila spoke about the employer’s standpoint; Alon spoke about how the LGBT community deals with diversity in the workplace, and Noa spoke about the complexity of integrating members of the LGBT community alongside all the other identities in the workplace.

After the session Alon thanked us:

This was a significant opportunity to present and discuss the inclusion of LGBT people in employment, in a way that hasn’t been done until now…Thank you Rachelly and Hagai…who, together with Noa … brought the subject of inclusion of LGBT people in employment to light, and helped us bring it to the fore in a significant way.

Here’s a video (in Hebrew) of the Zoom meeting:

Many thanks to the many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Natan Fund and the U.S. Embassy Jerusalem, Tel Aviv Branch Office and U.S. Consulate General Jerusalem for helping us to advance tolerance and cross-cultural activism in Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2020-08-08T05:15:17+00:00July 5th, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in the Workplace, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem|

Monthly Archives: July 2020