Blog | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

Passover and Easter Together on Mount Zion

Mount Zion’s religious ceremonies are the subject of much excitement and attract pilgrims from all over the world. One of the most special times in in the spring, around the Passover and Easter holidays.

The week before Easter is especially busy. On April 13, the Thursday before Easter, the Custos, Guard of the Holy Places for the Catholic Church performs a ceremony in which he washes the feet of 12 excellent students of religion, exactly at the place where Jesus washed the feet of his 12 disciples.

This year, the date was extra special, since it took place both during the Passover holiday, when a large number of Jewish tourists came to Mount Zion, and during the Christian Orthodox Holy Week. Hundreds of tourists from different faiths visited Mount Zion on that day, many of them for the washing of the disciples ceremony.

Window to Mount Zion volunteers were there, as always, helping the Police to help keep order, explain what is happening to all passersby (of all faiths), to contribute to a more tolerant atmosphere during the ceremonies and to make everyone’s visit more pleasant during , and to join in the celebrations. All in all, this year’s ceremony went smoothly and quietly, a stark contrast to last year, when the ceremony coincided with the Jewish festival of Purim, which was quite a noisy affair. Click here to read about last year’s ceremony.

Here’s a short video from the ceremony:

Before Window to Mount Zion was established this and other Christian ceremonies had been the source of a great deal of tension, so we’re grateful for the progress that Window to Mount Zion volunteers have made. They have become such an integral part of ceremonies on Mount Zion, it seemed almost natural (and we were greatly honored) that one of the Window to Mount Zion volunteers was almost part of this important ceremony. A German speaker was needed, and Yael was the only one in the crowd. Similarly, an Arabic reader was also needed, and we called upon Ibrahim, a Muslim worker for our neighbor, the Diaspora Yeshiva. However, in the end neither participated because it was necessary to read part of Christian liturgy and they weren’t Christian. Still, it was an honor to be considered an integral part of the ceremony.

Here’s Yael’s Facebook post (in Hebrew) about the ceremony, and about Window to Mount Zion in general:

Many thanks to the volunteers of the Window to Mount Zion project for their continued dedication. May we have many more peaceful religious ceremonies thanks to your help!

Naomi Roff2017-05-19T16:15:20+00:00April 23rd, 2017|Blog, Christians, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Jewish Religious Denominations, Mount Zion, Palestinians/Arabs, Ultra-Orthodox Jews|

The Writing is (not) on the Wall

It’s not nice to wake up during the Passover holiday to ugly graffiti:

Hate graffiti on the Railway Park in southern Jerusalem

Especially if it’s racist graffiti that says, ““Arabs, go home,” and “We want revenge.” It also had “Kahane was right,” Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the outlawed Kach movement that called to expel Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian territories, who was assassinated in Manhattan in 2012.

Fortunately, a group of activists, part of our network of activists for tolerance that include residents, city council members and the Municipality, were quick to act. They called the Municipal hotline, and within a few hours the graffiti was cleaned.

Working hard to blot out racism

But they didn’t stop there. They replaced the graffiti with other signs, full of love and acceptance.

We love our neighbors, in Hebrew

Here’s an independent post of what happened. The incident was even reported in both the English and Hebrew YNET web sites, which are associated with the most widely read national daily newspaper, Yediot Acharonot.

Hebrew article in Yediot Acharonot national newspaper

We were doubly interested in this process, since we’ve been helping residents and activists along the Railway Park initiate community-building activities along the park almost since its opening. Coupled with this cooperative work to promote tolerance, we’re pretty proud of this network of activists, which acted quickly, independently, and effectively, with our support and encouragement.

Sign initiators and helpers – best way to spend a school holiday

Even Yael Freidson, the Ynet reporter who first reported the racist graffiti, tweeted, when she saw the final result, with a hashtag that says “these are things that make me happy”. Indeed, the tolerance activists of Jerusalem managed to make lemonade out of lemons. They demonstrated that Jerusalem has an efficient and sustainable network of tolerance!

#אלה_דברים_שאותי_משמחים @Roi_Yanovsky pic.twitter.com/ImChU12Ft7

— Yael Freidson (@YaelFreidson) April 13, 2017

Of course, the incident was posted on our Jerusalem Tolerance Facebook page:

Many thanks to the UJA-Federation of New York for its support of our efforts both with residents along the Railway Park and to promote tolerance throughout Jerusalem. Many thanks also go to the Jerusalem Foundation for their support of our work.

Naomi Roff2017-04-14T16:57:32+00:00April 14th, 2017|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Jewish-Palestinian/Arab, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem, Railway Park|

Meeting in the Square for Interreligious Discussions

Last Thursday was a special day in the world of inter-religious activities and working toward tolerance in Jerusalem.

It started off with a great group of Jews, Christians and Muslims, Praying Together in Jerusalem, who get together monthly for interfaith prayer. This month, after their inspiring prayer, they joined other groups that we work with, Speaking in the Square and Meeting Place of the Yerushalmim Movement, for an an unforgettable evening of dialogue and tolerance in Zion Square. Later, ‘Living Together,’ a group of religious leaders from around Israel, joined in on the discussions.

Many faiths speaking in the square

Peta Jones Pellach was one of the organizers of the Praying Together in Jerusalem event. Afterwards, she wrote this in a blog post for the Times of Israel:

“After introductions, I posed the questions, “Can we be friends with people of other faiths? Isn’t his dangerous? Isn’t it also a little ingenuous – after all, don’t we always hold back a little in interfaith friendships?”

My Muslim friend was incensed! Of course you can have deep friendships with people from other faiths! She was passionate. The interchange led one of the young Jewish participants to exclaim that she was overcome with emotion. This was her first genuine interfaith experience. Indeed, none of the participants in the circle was prepared to acknowledge that interreligious friendships can be challenging. Whether or not it is always true, this group felt that difference in religion was not a barrier to a positive relationship.

The conversation flowed. Many of the Jewish participants took the opportunity to ask Christians about their faith and the Christians were delighted to be able to explain their beliefs.

….This is unity through diversity.”

Here’s the Facebook post of the event:

Here’s the link to the full post:

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/we-need-to-talk/

Many thanks to the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jerusalem Foundation for their support in helping us to promote tolerance throughout the city.

Naomi Roff2017-04-14T17:03:24+00:00April 7th, 2017|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem|

ALYN Rehabilitative Hospital – Still a Model for Fully Integrated Cultural Competency

Ten years ago we began working with the ALYN Hospital, helping to turn their facility into the first fully culturally competent health care institution in the country. Today, cultural competency is a relatively common concept not only in the health care field, but also in welfare, academia, community work, and even the Israel Police.

Opening of Alyn Muslim Prayer Room

The Israel Religious Action Center was so impressed of the success of ALYN, that it recently made this video, briefly explaining the process that the hospital went through. Indeed, when organizations ask us of a good example in the field of cultural competence, we often send them to Dr. Maurit Beeri, ALYN hospital director, to get her insights on the process and the excellent outcomes they have.

We’re proud to be part of this process. Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation, our long-time partner in cultural competency.

Naomi Roff2017-04-07T18:05:39+00:00April 3rd, 2017|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services, Identity Groups and Conflicts|

MiniActive Celebrating its Volunteers

On Thursday, March 23, MiniActive again celebrated its volunteers. This time, they took them on a special picnic to the Canada Park, about 45 minutes outside of Jerusalem. A year ago they celebrated the Family/Mother/Women day with their families in Jerusalem)

How do you get 120 people to smile all at once?

The 120 women were honored by the presence of writer Nuzha Abu Ghosh who told then some of the historical events in the history of the village of Emmaus. Then they toured the area, its ancient and more modern ruins,

What was this oh so long ago?

And held a scrumptious picnic lunch.

Looks yummy

Many thanks to the MiniActive volunteers for their hard work and persistence throughout the year.

Continuous work

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

And here is the post in English (thanks to 0202):

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

Naomi Roff2017-04-14T17:22:30+00:00April 1st, 2017|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

Gearing Up for Jerusalemite Day

Jerusalem Day. Every day in Jerusalem is a meeting point between East and West, of Walls and Gold. Jerusalem – surrounded by hilltops, the subject of wonder. Jerusalem – with many, many different peoples.

Between the clichés and the syndrome (click here to read about Jerusalem Syndrome), everyday Jerusalem – and the Jerusalem of our dreams – awaits.

Gearing up for Jerusalemite Day

We believe that Jerusalem Day is an ideal day to celebrate all that is special, unique and diverse about Jerusalem. Last year, we began this celebration, with A Different Day in Jerusalem, list of 50 events celebrating the diversity of Jerusalem. This year, we seek to build on that tradition, with “Jerusalemite Day – a Celebration of Diversity in Jerusalem”.

Principles of Open Space Technology

Last Thursday, March 16, we held, at Beit Yehudit – Ginot Ha’Ir Community Center, the first meeting for initiatives that seek to organize something on Jerusalemite Day. We had some 25 activists, all seeking to be part of this special production.

Small groups to advance individual initiatives

Some projects looking to be part of the action include: using music to build bridges, using religious texts as the basis for inter-religious encounters, a diversity march / happening, encounter between different ethnic groups, and much more.

Thinking big

In addition to this meeting, we’ve put out a general call for initiatives to be carried out. Thus far we’ve got about 40, and expect dozens more by Jerusalemite Day, May 24.

Many thanks to the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jerusalem Foundation for their ongoing support of our efforts to promote tolerance in Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2017-04-07T17:53:50+00:00April 1st, 2017|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem|

Window to Mount Zion – Cleaning the Dejani Cemetery

Adjacent to the David’s Tomb complex is the Dajani cemetery. It is an historic Muslim cemetery where the Dajani family, a well-known, well-established Jerusalem family, buried its family members. This includes a former Mayor of Jerusalem and other VIPs.

Before the Clean-up March 2017

For a long time this cemetery stood locked and neglected, and was an eyesore to anyone (some 2 million tourists (!) per year) who visited the area of David’s Tomb.

Organizing the volunteer workers

Until Window to Mount Zion decided to to something. Window to Mount Zion organized a unique clean-up mission, together with our volunteers, the Jerusalem Municipality, the Israel Police, and the Dajani family. Thanks to our volunteers, all the different bodies came together for the project.

Hard at work

The clean-up took place on Monday, March 20. They weeded, cleaned up, and cleared away tree trunks and other unnecessary vegetation and garbage that had sprouted and multiplied over the years.

Eran, one of the volunteers, had a special experience. Together with a descendant of the Dajani family, he cleaned up the area around the grave of Abd el-Kadr Tahbub, who was the supreme judge of Jerusalem. Together, they also read the special poem that was written on his gravestone.

Cleaning up a special grave

Work in the cemetery isn’t finished. In the future, we also seek to map the cemetery and fix some of the gravestones that have been damaged over the years.

Here’s the Facebook post (in Hebrew) about the work:

Many thanks to all the partners who helped take part in this special cleanup – the Jerusalem Municipality, Israel Police, the Dajani family, of course the volunteers. Here’s to additional fruitful, intercultural and inter-religious partnerships in the future.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continuing support of our efforts to promote tolerance in Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2017-04-07T17:46:19+00:00March 26th, 2017|Blog, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Mount Zion, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem|

The Tolerance Train Comes Round Again

We described here (and here) the first Tolerance Train Stop, which took place on January 19, by the Ruach Nachon pre-army preparatory program, the Citipass company that operates the light rail, and with our mentoring.

Next stop – Tolerance Station!

On Sunday, March 19, we had another one, this time with Boyer High School. Students also underwent a special workshop on tolerance before heading out onto the street.

This is part of what they hope is to become a monthly tradition. Ruach Nachon also seeks to open other Tolerance Train Stops along the light rail line.

Many thanks to the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jerusalem Foundation for their continuing support of our efforts to promote tolerance in Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2018-02-10T07:02:45+00:00March 24th, 2017|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem|

The Little Prince – Dutifully Making Sure Jerusalem is Clean

“It’s an issue of discipline,” the little prince explained afterward. “After we finish the morning washing up, we must dutifully make sure that the planet is clean.”

This passage comes from The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Svetlana Fedotenko, founder of the Gonenim Music Center and a former participant in our leadership training seminar, who died last year, had been inspired by this passage, and dreamt for a long time to create a project that will put residents in charge of keeping our streets clean. (Click here for more about Svetlana).

We, too, were inspired by Svetlana’s dream, and last week we took some steps to make that dream come true.

Meeting for the Little Prince

We have seen how, of all subjects, garbage can be a unifying factor. We saw it when our MiniActive project banded together to fight for improved sanitation in East Jerusalem. We’ve seen it in the French Hill – Issawiya area, where Israeli and Palestinian residents banded together to successfully fight the placement of a landfill in their backyards. We saw in city hall, how the one issue that brought secular and Haredi city council members together was the subject of garbage collection. (Below is more information about the French Hill – Issawiya situation)

We had the first organizing meeting last week. More than 25 active residents and community leaders – astoundingly, 1/3 Arab, 1/3 Haredi and 1/3 secular/religious (Don’t remember a time when that EVER happened on its own!) – met at the JICC. We heard about the current awful situation – in collection, in enforcement, in recycling, in teaching toward cleanliness and in teaching toward reduction of waste. We heard about fantastic initiatives that are already taking place, and concluded that such initiatives, together with mutual learning and assistance, can really change the city.

Another picture

The group is already beginning to act, and we believe that in another month we’ll be able to invite anyone for whom this subject is close to his heart – residents, professional, community center, educational framework, environmental groups, NGO’s – to join this initiatives. In honor of Svetlana, we’re calling the program The Little Prince.

We’ll be waiting for you, after the morning washing up…

Naomi Roff2017-03-25T07:55:43+00:00March 13th, 2017|Blog, Cultural Competence, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Jewish Religious Denominations, Jewish-Palestinian/Arab, Palestinians/Arabs, The Little Prince - Cleaning Jerusalem Together, Ultra-Orthodox Jews|

0202 – It’s Been Two Years?!?!?

Almost unbelievable, but true. 0202 – Points of View from Jerusalem, which we’ve been mentoring since the start as part of our effort to increase tolerance in Jerusalem, just celebrated its second birthday. And as a birthday present to itself, it made this great short movie:

In two short years, 0202 has grown from one page to three, now featuring Arabic news items translated into both Hebrew and English, as well as a special Ultra-Orthodox-to-general Jewish population page. These pages have together garnered 100,000 followers and reach an audience of 120,000 people per week in Israel and around the world.

0202 site-header – different glasses…..

0202 has impacted Jerusalem offline as well: In addition to having become a credible source of information for Jerusalem municipality members, Israeli journalists, and human rights organizations, we have actually been the cause for change in municipal actions in East Jerusalem.

We’d like to thank the Leichtag Foundation for its support of 0202, as well as the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jerusalem Foundation for their support of all our efforts to promote tolerance in Jerusalem.

And for our Arabic/Hebrew listeners, here is the video with subtitles in these languages:

Naomi Roff2017-05-02T07:01:26+00:00March 10th, 2017|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem|