Naomi Roff | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

MiniActive Women – Building Community Resilience with Online Lectures

The MiniActive Network of 1,000 Palestinian women has been working on a grassroots level to improve communities and their infrastructure in East Jerusalem since 2012, and in the process, they’ve been strengthening civil society, strengthening women’s place in the community, and building community resistance.

We’ve written several times about how MiniActive has strengthened community resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can see a few examples here, here, and here.

Over 80 participants on Zoom for an anti-stress workshops

On October 15, 2020 they continued to do so, with an online lectures about how to deal with everyday stresses, especially during current times. She spoke about how to deal with everyone at home, with children who are trying to study remotely, how to reduce stress and keep control of the household without everyone going crazy.

Over 80 women participated in the lecture, and feedback was excellent. Thank you MiniActive! May we have many more activities that help us get through this period together!

Here’s the post from the MiniActive Facebook page (in Arabic):

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-11-06T08:38:29+00:00October 20th, 2020|Blog, MiniActive|

Cultural Competence Training for Academic Institutions during COVID-19

The COVID-19 crisis has changed so many aspects of all of our lives. Since so much of our communication has become less and less face-to-face, the need for cultural competence and cultural sensitivity is more critical than ever.

Teaching lecturers how to navigate diverse classrooms, especially during COVID-19

This includes, among other places, the academic classroom. Like many college and university campuses around the globe, COVID-19 has turned the bustling academic campuses into spaces that are largely virtual. In Israel, the school year began with full online academic learning, and, as part of the preparations, the JICC Cultural Competency Desk was invited to lecture at the Zefat Academic College on how to teach online courses, with diverse classes, in a culturally competent manner.

Raising questions, discussing answers

How can lecturers hold classes online that will be both culturally competent and culturally sensitive, taking into consideration the cultural differences between students and faculty, as well as between the students themselves?

What aspects should be taken into account vis a vis the students, where not everyone might have a suitable Internet infrastructure, but they do have a strong desire and motivation to learn? How do you take attendance when everyone can choose a Zoom nickname and / or turn off the camera?

And most importantly – how can dialogue and the skills of listening and recognizing intercultural differences help a lecturer overcome these challenges? The culturally competent perspective and these questions were raised by Dr. Rachelly Ashwall in the online lecture held on September 15, 2020 for academic staff at Zefat Academic College.

Naomi Roff2020-11-20T14:05:32+00:00October 11th, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Academic Institutions|

Atta’a Center – Continuing Emergency Assistance during COVID-19 Outbreak in East Jerusalem

The Atta’a Assistance Center for the Rights of East Jerusalem Residents (also see its internet site) has been working tirelessly since the coronavirus crisis hit the region to help Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem to deal with the range of effects of the coronavirus on East Jerusalem – in health care, welfare, economy, and more. They’ve been:

Disseminating information, with Facebook posts about Ministry of Health guidelines, National Insurance Institute guidelines (for unemployment and welfare payments)
Helping residents individually with online forms, which are only available in Hebrew. This includes forms for furlough and unemployment, for discounts on property taxes, and a range of other forms.
Producing videos and website guides to help residents realize their rights.

We wrote about what they’ve been doing here, here and here.

Videos with healthcare leaders

Here are a few statistics:

Since mid-March, Atta’a has helped over 3,500 requests, which has helped resident receive an additional NIS 10 million, more than twice their regular annual average.
Between March – July, Atta’a posted over 30 posts to its Facebook page and to other popular pages in East Jerusalem about COVID-19, health guidelines, instructions on filling out various forms and other critical information. These posts received 224,235 views cumulatively
Between March – June 2020, the Atta’a web site had 9,534 views.

More recently, Atta’a has made videos together with the National Insurance Institute and with a health care leader for two videos (in Arabic).

Link to video held with member of National Insurance Institute:

Link to video held with Fuad Abu Hamed, owner of Kupat Cholim Branch in Beit Safafa:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the Rayne Foundation for its ongoing support of Atta’a, and to the Jerusalem Model and the Bader Philanthropies for their support of our emergency activities in East Jerusalem in response to COVID-19.

Naomi Roff2020-10-30T11:37:33+00:00October 3rd, 2020|Attaa, Blog|

Culturally Competent Community Work – JICC Setting Professional Standard

Just before the New Year, our Cultural Competency Desk, led by Orna Shani Golan, and JICC Director Dr. Hagai Agmon-Snir, together with Orit Yulzari, a community social worker, previously the head of the “Gisurim” program, and Dr. Orna Shemer, Lecturer in Community Social Work at the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published an article (in Hebrew) in the professional social work journal, Meidaos, called, “I Don’t Know, You Tell Me: A Culturally Competent Dialogue Model.”

Seven Step Dialogue Model

The article sets out a 7-step model for social workers in performing their everyday work in a culturally competent manner. These stages, which include, explanations and understanding of the problem and possible solutions by both the social worker and the service recipient can go a long way in providing effective social work services.

You can read the article here and the whole journal here.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continued support of Cultural Competency in Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2020-10-23T11:04:36+00:00September 30th, 2020|Blog, Cultural Competence|

JICC Arabic Language Center in Jerusalem Post

On September 20, 2020, The Jerusalem Post newspaper ran an article about a revolution in Arabic-language instruction, with a focus on Arabic for communication, especially at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Learning Arabic at the JICC

In recognition of the JICC’s leadership role in Arabic instruction over the past 15 years and more, we were mentioned in the article as well. Here is an excerpt:

The Center for Arabic Instruction at the Jerusalem Intercultural Center is one place in Israel where interest in learning Arabic has increased, according to the center’s director, Dr. Hagai Agmon-Snir.

When the center started teaching Arabic about 15 years ago, it was difficult to open two courses every year. Now, there are 15 to 20 courses at capacity, Agmon-Snir told The Media Line, adding that Israelis understanding that they need to learn Arabic has grown “by a thousand percent.”

He added that there are six or seven other places in Jerusalem teaching Arabic and that they are full, a point of pride.

While most of the students are Hebrew-speaking Israeli Jews, teaching classes on Zoom due to the coronavirus pandemic has even allowed for a few people abroad to enroll in the courses, Agmon-Snir said.

Agmon-Snir said that learning Arabic could be especially beneficial for Israelis doing business in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the two Gulf countries that officially established diplomatic relations with Israel at a White House signing ceremony on Tuesday.

“Arabic is not only a language, it’s a culture,” Agmon-Snir said. “If you get into it, you can make business that you couldn’t do before and this is going to be very important to businesspeople who are going to work over there.”

You can read the full article here.

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

Naomi Roff2020-10-23T10:48:16+00:00September 27th, 2020|Blog, Language Center|

Little Prince – Even Rosh Hashanah Greetings Have a ‘Cleaning Up Jerusalem’ Theme

Every year, the Jerusalem Municipality wishes its Jewish residents a Happy Jewish New Year for Rosh Hashana. We’d like to take a minute to do the same:

Happy New Year from the JICC

This year, in keeping with his promise to make cleanliness in Jerusalem a top priority (you can read about that here, here, and here), even the Municipality’s New Year’s Greeting has a ‘Cleaning Up Jerusalem’ Theme. It was written about in the Ma’ariv daily online newspaper, here. This main priority of the Municipality towards cleaning the city, is the result of the effective cross-cultural activist group gathered in our the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together initiative.

You can see the short Municipality Happy New Year video here:

We’d like to express our appreciation to the Municipality on all levels for their cooperation on the issue of clean streets. We’ve shown that, together, change is indeed possible!

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the US Embassy in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for its continued support of the Little Prince!

Naomi Roff2020-10-23T10:55:19+00:00September 25th, 2020|Blog, The Little Prince - Cleaning Jerusalem Together|

Little Prince – Building Partnerships with the Municipality in Cleaning Up Jerusalem

In mid-August, we reported here about developing the joint work between residents from different neighborhoods and the municipal Sanitation Department. This is the result of the effective cross-cultural activist group gathered in our the Little Prince – Cleaning Up Jerusalem Together initiative. The goal is to promote the common goal of cleaning the city, while maintaining the principles of public participation: transparency, fairness, broad and informed decision making, and more.

Every meeting is a Zoom meeting these days

On Thursday, September 10, 2020, we held a second working meeting (via Zoom, of course!) with municipal officials, this time with the Enforcement and Policing Division. Ilan Sasson, Director of the Department, explained the current situation to the residents, and all spoke about wanting to employ and train many more city inspectors who oversee not only construction, parking, and business regulations, but also make sure that municipal ordinances for clean streets are also being followed. (There is currently a shortage of manpower in the department.)

In order to change residents’ habits from dirtying streets to maintain clean streets and supporting the work done by the Sanitation Department, it was agreed that it is necessary to significantly increase the number of tickets given for littering throughout the city. In order to streamline the work of the inspectors and keep Jerusalem clean, we were asked to assist the Municipal Supervision Division, by making a list of public places where residents regularly dump garbage (for example: playgrounds, parks, bus stops, street benches, etc.) and the times of day there are usually people there who are littering. The municipal inspectors will make sure to send inspectors to those places.

We are very grateful to the Jerusalem Municipality, which sees the residents as a resource and uses them to promote common interests such as cleaning up the city.

And here’s the post that was published in the Little Prince’s Facebook group:

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the US Embassy in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for its continued support of the Little Prince!

Naomi Roff2020-10-23T11:15:08+00:00September 18th, 2020|Blog, The Little Prince - Cleaning Jerusalem Together|

MiniActive – Finding New Ways to Help East Jerusalem Palestinians Fight the Coronavirus

During the first wave of the novel coronavirus, East Jerusalem was barely hit. Unfortunately, as noted here and here, this time around, the picture is vastly different.

Examples of posts

The MiniActive network of 1,000 Palestinian women from East Jerusalem is rising to the call. In addition to videos that were made and disseminated on Facebook (you can read about that here), they are also helping in a citywide effort to establish an Arabic-language website that will collect all the relevant information from numerous sources in one space.

Part of this effort includes a question and answer section, which will be uploaded to the site. Until now, they’ve raised 19 questions, and all the relevant bodies are in the process of answering them.

Questions include: “Why are there people who manage to cancel the forced quarantine?”

This refers to a public process whereby residents receive SMS messages, “You’ve been found to have been near someone who was diagnosed with COVID-19. You must self-quarantine at home until XXX date.” These messages are based on contact tracing methods, and legally require anyone who receives them to self-quarantine at home until the noted date. The answer to the question? If you can prove that you were NOT at that particular place at the particular time noted (While this method has been largely successful, there are sometimes mistakes.), and the person who you were supposed to have been in contact with is NOT a close family member or other member of your household, then the quarantine can be cancelled.

Another question: “If a person was diagnosed with COVID-19, how are the rest of the members of the household supposed to be checked? Are they to go to a local testing station or to have Magen David Adom test them at their homes?”

The answer – they need to have MDA come to their homes to test them. As soon as one family member is diagnosed, they must not be going out of the house so as not to spread the disease even more.”

Here are posts from MiniActive’s Facebook page telling about these Q&A sessions:

And many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-10-09T11:45:27+00:00September 15th, 2020|Blog, Effective Activism, MiniActive|

MiniActive – Online Anti-COVID-19 Workshops

We’ve written here, here, and here about how the MiniActive network of 1,000 Palestinian women in East Jerusalem is helping to fight this wave of the coronavirus.

Yet another direction their taking is through online testimonials, followed by sincere and honest questions and answers.

First Zoom session with 50 participants

They are doing this through Zoom sessions every few days for women in the network, each time discussing a different aspect of how the coronavirus has affected the lives of different women.

Many participants tuned in to hear about coronavirus in the family first-hand

On August 30, for example, one woman – one of MiniActive’s volunteer regional coordinators – discussed how it was for her and her family to live through the coronavirus. Nearly 50 people attended this Zoom session. Here’s a Facebook post from MiniActive about it:

In a second session, a woman, who accompanies her sick son to tests and treatments at the hospital, described how one should – or should not – act in hospitals and medical centers, especially during the coronavirus crisis. She also spoke about how things many people do – which are not according to the guidelines – serve to spread the disease and make matters much worse. There were some 30 women who participated in this session. Here’s the Facebook post from the MiniActive page regarding that session:

MiniActive plans to continue these sessions, each time focusing on a different aspect. In the near future, for example, the project will feature a doctor to speak about some of the medical aspects. We’ll keep you posted!

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and to Natan for their ongoing support of MiniActive!

Naomi Roff2020-09-19T10:32:44+00:00September 11th, 2020|Blog, MiniActive|

Atta’a Assistance Center Opens Branch in Issawiya

The Atta’a Assistance Center for the Rights of Palestinian Residents (also see its internet site) has been striving to help all Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem since 2004. For some time, in addition to its web site and Facebook page, and in addition to (pre-COVID-19) regular workshops and lectures, Atta’a provided one-on-one assistance at three centers around Jerusalem: Sur Baher, Wadi Joz and Beit Hanina.

For some time, Atta’a has sought to expand into the neighborhood of Issawiya. Now, despite, or maybe because of the additional complexities brought upon us by the coronavirus crisis, Atta’a was finally able to open a branch there.

Photograph of Issawiya, Photo credit here

Issawiya is a complicated neighborhood, with many many problems. It is a Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem located on Mt. Scopus, with approximately 20,000 Palestinian residents. It was part of the territory conquered in Jerusalem by Israeli forces during the Six Day War. The village falls under the jurisdiction of the Jerusalem municipality and its citizens have the status of permanent residents in Jerusalem.

In Issawiyah the housing is crowded, infrastructure is poor, and few residents have full access to the rights guaranteed them by international law. Their daily life continues to be disrupted by closures, restriction on movement, hostile police raids and use of excessive force. Since the summer of 2019, needs have become even more urgent in Issawiya. Unrest and friction between neighborhood residents and the ‘Israeli establishment’ – Municipality, police, etc. – have been the source of a great deal of tension. For example, the local community center, which is operated by the Municipality, was set on fire, since it is seen as a symbol of the Zionist occupying forces. Schools were closed, and children are questioned.

So, despite all the the extra pressure Atta’a is under because of the coronavirus crisis, it opened up a branch in Issawiya in August. It is located in a ‘neutral’ area of the neighborhood, which is accepted by everyone and enables everyone to feel safe going there. It is open for 3 hours a week, as coronavirus restrictions allow, and also receives Whatsapp messages to coordinate in advance.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the Rayne Foundation for its ongoing support of Atta’a, and to the Jerusalem Model and the Bader Philanthropies for their support of our emergency activities in East Jerusalem in response to COVID-19.

Naomi Roff2020-10-30T11:34:57+00:00September 9th, 2020|Attaa, Blog|

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