Monthly Archives: July 2021

Dealing with Social and Political Tensions at the Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem

The tension from the recent Guardian of the Walls operation did not go unnoticed at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem. Guided by the principles of cultural competency, half of the museum’s instructors are Jewish, and half are Palestinian. The instruction team knows how to adapt the content to the various audiences that visit it – secular, religious, and Ultra-Orthodox Jews, Jews and Arabs, Israelis and tourists, and the museum’s exhibits contain information in three languages ​​- Hebrew, Arabic and English.

The intercultural encounter at the museum invites quite a few conflicts and challenges for instructors – including social and political tensions. For example one instructor described a discussion with ultra-Orthodox students about an exhibit that describes a different perception of the length of existence of the world than that which the ultra-Orthodox students hold. During the operation, Palestinian instructors described their fear of going to the Museum, located in central Jerusalem, and groups’ fear of coming into the western part of the city. There were also numerous cancellations, or demands such as one school principal’s request that there be no  Jewish groups at the Museum during their visit. There were instructors who wear a Hijab, who felt that Jews did not want to receive instruction from them because they were Muslim. Or Jewish and Muslim groups who called out racist chants to before entering the museum. These issues and challenges were difficult for instructors to deal with without appropriate tools.

Diverse staff - talking about Diversity

Diverse staff – talking about Diversity

At the beginning of July we met with a group of museum guides – Jews and Palestinians, Hebrew and Arabic-speakers, for a two-session workshop. The guides acquired tools for dealing with intercultural group encounters, effective dialogue that helps each side to ‘see’ the other, and how to conduct a dialogue in socially or politically charged situations. Together with Orna Shani Golan, Director of the Cultural Competency Desk, the instructors developed responses for how to deal with groups conflict between groups, based on political or religious differences.

This is just the beginning of cultural competency work with the staff of the Science Museum. A future workshop is planned as part of the new instructor training, and additional work will be done with with instructors who teach classes to mixed groups of Jewish and Palestinian children, to ensure that the program is culturally competent.

2021-08-22T06:26:16+00:00July 20th, 2021|Blog, Cultural Competence|

Window to Mount Zion – Bringing Improvements to Mount Zion

We’ve the Window to Mount Zion project here, as well as recent efforts to maintain the different sites, here and here.

On July 6, 2021, the Council for Conservation of Heritage Sites in Israel, with funding from the Jerusalem Development Authority, placed an explanatory sign at the Dajani Family Cemetery on Mount Zion. The sign explains the history of the Dajani family cemetery on Mount Zion – the family’s heritage and its members who are buried in the cemetery next to David’s tomb. It is written in Hebrew, Arabic as well as English, shows the uniqueness of Mount Zion as a sacred international heritage site for three religions.

Ms. Dajani in front of the new sign

This sign is a milestone in many ways. First, it shows that public authorities recognized the rich, diverse history of Mount Zion and the numerous narratives of the place, and seek to display this diversity to all. Second, it is yet another step in the Municipality’s (Mayor Lion’s) promise to maintain and upkeep the entire area of Mount Zion. We hope that these trends continue into the future and that Mount Zion receives the resources it deserves.

Here’s the post from the Window to Mount Zion Facebook page:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, the Nitzan Fund and the US Embassy’s American Center Jerusalem for their support of Window to Mount Zion.

2021-09-24T14:31:46+00:00July 18th, 2021|Blog, Mount Zion|

Cultural Competency for On-Call Emergency Welfare Workers

What do you do when there’s an emergency late at night that requires welfare services? This is exactly what the on-call workers of the Jerusalem Municipality’s Welfare Department are for. The on-call workers, who are all social workers, respond to a multitude of incidents, including: delivering difficult news, domestic violence cases, treating youth who have run away, and answering emergency telephone calls on various issues. About 150 on-call workers took part in cultural competency workshops via Zoom – some 100 on-call workers (in three workshops at the end of June) who work in West Jerusalem, and another about 50 workers who provide services in East Jerusalem, in a special workshop which took place on July 8 delivered in Arabic for drives of the east of the city (on 8.7.21).

workshop for west Jerusalem on call workers

Workshop for on-call workers

During the workshops participants raised inter-cultural challenges they faced when they’re on-call, which is different than their everyday work – lack of familiarity with the callers and their cultural characteristics; the rapid transitioning between the vastly different cultures and backgrounds of callers; the sometimes-opposing approaches between welfare and community services; dealing with callers’ sometimes first encounters with welfare services; the objections that arise on the background of cultural perceptions versus the authority of the social worker to carry out legal orders, and more.

One on-call worker told that she had to inform an ultra-Orthodox family about the mother’s death on Friday afternoon, right before the Sabbath. She was surprised with the family’s preoccupation with burying the mother as quickly as possible, and that they weren’t open to her attempts at grief support. Another on-call worker recounted the time that she tried to move an elderly man living in unfit conditions to a shelter, and how there was significant opposition from the family.

Participants were given tools to enable them to have a culturally competent and effective encounter: to think before the encounter what cultural sensitivities they may encounter and what is the effective response to those sensitivities and tools for deepening intercultural dialogue that helps facilitate effective and sensitive care.

שתי השאלות

Two questions – helping social workers be culturally competent

This is the first workshop we’ve led for on-call workers. We hope that future workshops will preserve and strengthen this knowledge and skills.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their ongoing support of Cultural Competence in Jerusalem!

Cultural Competency in the English Department

We’ve written before about cultural competence in academia (here and here, for example). On 21.6.21 we traveled as far as Sapir College in the south for a second meeting (the first took place on Zoom) about cultural competence in teaching.

Cultural competence in academic teaching workshop

Cultural competence in academic teaching workshop

The lecturers, who teach English in diverse classes, deal with cultural gaps in teaching on a daily basis, and were very interested in what can be done to bridge those gaps. Many of their students come from the Bedouin sector; for a lecturer born in the US, these gaps seems insurmountable.

During the meeting, the lecturers raised different incidents they’d encountered – entire groups that turn off their cameras during Zoom classes, copying as characterized by different groups, not doing homework, and and more.

Practicing cultural education

Practicing cultural education

The lecturers also spoke about their experience of teaching under tension – such as during Operation Guardian of the Walls this past May. One lecturer shared that while teaching a class via Zoom the virtual background of one of the students showed a map of Israel with a keffiyeh. The lecturer did not know how to deal with the situation – should they say something or not? We discussed the issue in the meeting, and practiced how to use the model of effective dialogue model and tools for dealing with social and political tensions, which was developed at the Jerusalem Intercultural Center.

Simulation with a professional Actress

Simulation with a professional Actress

In the last part of the workshop we held simulations developed from the incidents shared by the lecturers. Hanin, a professional actress, simulated Muslim students, one was was afraid to make a presentation in front of the whole class, and the other was suspected of copying. The lecturers had an opportunity to use the tools for culturally competent teaching learned during the two workshop sessions.

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