Language Center

Throughout this past year, students studying Arabic for communication at the JICC have been treated to a wide variety of cultural events, with the goal of enabling them to more fully understand Arabic cultures and experience.  Last week, on May 5, students enjoyed an evening with Palestinian director Sahera Dirbas, a Palestinian director, originally from Haifa, who currently lives in Jerusalem. Students saw the film, “Jerusalem Bride,” which tells about the complicated fabric of life of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem today – the poverty, unemployment, problems of young couples in finding work and housing, and the difficulty in building a family. After the film there was a 1 1/2 hour discussion with the director on these and other issues.

Jerusalem Bride

On April 15, one of our long-time teachers, Dr. Anwar Ben-Badis, took students on a tour of the Musrara neighborhood, focusing on the history of Arabic culture in the neighborhood and contrasting it with the neighboring sections of the Old City. (The neighborhoods of Talbiye, Katamon and Musrara are examples of neighborhoods that are today distinctly Jewish, in the heart of west Jerusalem. However, for the first few decades of the 20th century, prominent Arab families, largely Christian, lived in these areas.) Anwar led participants to a number of houses built with Arab architecture, and told the story of each house. Another stop on the tour was the “Under the Bridge” coffee house outside of the Damascus Gate. Operated by two brothers, they shared with the students their experiences of leaving their houses. One brother still carries the keys to his house.

On February 25 Anwar led students on a tour the Old City, concentrating on Sufi sights. The Sufi movement grew from within the Islamic world in the 8th and 9th centuries. Sufi philosophy, which continues to be a part of the Islamic religion today, holds that God is found in everything, and everyone has a personal connection to God. Today Sufis live simply, wearing wool garments (the word Suf means “wool” in Arabic). The  Sufi centers is Israel today are in Jerusalem, Acco and Jaffa. The tour took students to special Sufi gathering sights (zawai), which were built by rich Muslims, and are often found beside mosques. They served as hotels, bath houses, health clinics, and religious schools. One of the zawaii today serves as a branch of Al-Quds University. One of the former bath houses holds a theater today, and another, a gallery.

Sufi tour

These tours were two examples of a range of cultural activities our Arabic students have been encountering over the course of the school year. Others included: a concert by the YMCA Jewish-Arab Youth Choir, lectures, poetry readings, and more. We are also holding cultural encounters with various Arab cultural figures, such as a poet, artists, musician, actors, etc.These events are helping to bring the Arabic language and culture alive, beyond the regular textbooks.

Concert at YMCA

The JICC has been offering Arabic language for communication almost since its establishment, thanks to the ongoing support of the Jerusalem Foundation. Since September we’ve been teaching over 120 students in 8 classes, over 5 levels in weekly classes. They cover the entire spectrum of the population – young people and seniors, professionals and students – all seeking to be able to use Arabic to communicate with those they share the city with.

Arabic classes at concert

In addition to these activities that are offered for all students, participants also expand their knowledge of local Arabic language and culture in other ways.  Some of the students, who teach adults Hebrew, have Arab pupils. They have organized for the Jewish students studying Arabic to meet up with the Arab students studying Hebrew, for each to practice the ‘other’s language and to get to know each other as well.

It’s such a joy to come back every year to these courses, a staple of the JICC’s annual programming, which are constantly filled to capacity. Indeed, the national daily newspaper Ha’aretz recently published a lengthy article about the plethora of Arabic-language classes popping up in Jerusalem, mentioning us quite extensively.

Arabic study article

We’re just now winding up the 2012 – 2013 year of Arabic classes or Hebrew speakers at the JICC. After 10 years of offering the courses, this year we had a bumper crop – 100 students in 7 classes over 5 levels!

These courses are not something we take for granted. When we started, we offered a pilot Arabic course in the Morasha Community Center, where we were based at the time, in parallel to a Hebrew course that was taking place at the Beit Hanina Community Center. The two groups met from time to time, which is no small feat, since it was then the height of the second Intifada. The peak event was a joint meeting at the old Beit Hanina Community Center, which was just a stone’s throw from the Qalandia military checkpoint, on May 15, Naqba Day (Day of the Catastrophe, the day after Israel declared its independence). Our students received the warmest of receptions, while just a kilometer north of there were violent outbursts at the checkpoint.

After the pilot years, with our growing partnership with the Jerusalem Foundation, we held courses at the Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education, who let us utilize their facilities. There was a beginner’s course and a (very small) intermediate course.

We’ve been hosting the courses at our current facility on Mt. Zion since we moved here at the end of 2006 (this is as far back as we’ve been documenting them on our blog). Since then, we’ve been growing from year to year, adding classes and levels, until we finally reached the 100 mark.

This year, too, we went back to the Hand in Hand School, this time on their new campus. They were looking for a group with Arabic advanced enough to engage in conversation with participants in their Hebrew class for Arabic speakers during the class breaks. (We tried it before with beginners; it wasn’t too successful) We were happy to expand the physical outreach of our classes. Thus, this year the 10 students in our most advanced class (level 5) studied at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education, which is now located in the southern neighborhood of Pat, just a few hundred meters from Beit Safafa. In parallel, at the JICC building, the other 6 groups in levels 1-4, continued learning.

What makes our classes so special? First, the teachers. They’re the ones who make the classes so enjoyable and effective for the students. They don’t just teach from the book (although there is a book, and students do learn to read and write), they bring their whole selves into the classroom and teach Arabic as their own – teaching their culture, bringing their stories from home and from their families, learning through songs (on CD’s), making it fun. They go on tours of the Old City. When the Old City is blocked off and classes can’t be held at the JICC, classes meet in students’ homes.

Second the students – all use (or are exposed to) Arabic on an almost daily basis. They’re students, teachers, volunteers, activists, workers in the field, and more. Maybe one could be you? But act fast, places are filling up. We already have at least 25 already signed up for next year.

Well, if you want to know more about the JICC Arabic courses, you need to click here and read the post from last year (let’s not repeat ourselves too much…). So we can focus on the updates for the 2011-2012 classes. This fall we have opened up 6 courses in Arabic: 2 in Level 1 (beginners), 2 in Level 2 (advanced beginners), 1 in Level 3 (intermediate) and 1 in Level 4 (advanced).

The groups meet on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the JICC building.

The goal of the courses is to train professionals who need to use Arabic in their professional capacities to communicate on a reasonable level, and the curriculum is designed for this purpose. Classes include a large component of discussions and listening to songs and other verbal material to practice. “After only 4-5 lessons, the teacher gave us a 30-minute lecture in Arabic – on the teacher’s family, on their pilgrimage to Mecca, etc. and we understood everything!” exclaimed one participant.

Teaching in progress

This year we have some 80 participants – students, professionals and activists who come into regular contact with Arabic-speaking residents and who need it to communicate with them.

“I enjoy the course immensely,” said another participant. “I don’t believe I’ll ever be fully fluent, but it does definitely help me to understand Arab culture and history. I am now more aware of the presence and (or absence) of Arabic all around me – on signs, in stores. It is also very interesting for me to see the similarities between Arabic and the language found in Jewish sources.”

The format is hence similar to previous years, but we (and more important, the participants) feel that the classes improve from year to year!

This fall we have opened up 6 courses in Arabic: 2 in Level 1 (beginners), 2 in Level 2 (advanced beginners), 1 in Level 3 (intermediate) and 1 in Level 4 (advanced). Last year we had “just” 5 courses, and in the last years, because of the demand, we find ourselves expanding the number of courses every year.

The groups meet on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at the newly renovated JICC building. This year, the participants enjoy the new heating and air-conditioning systems, audio-visual capacities for learning, new furniture and more. Following the renovations, we have now a much more adequate second floor for the courses – more space options for the classes, less noise and interruptions between the groups, and even more restroom stalls…

The goal of the courses is to train professionals who need to use Arabic in their professional capacities to communicate on a reasonable level, and the curriculum is designed for this purpose. Classes include a large component of discussions and listening to songs and other verbal material to practice. “After only 4-5 lessons, the teacher gave us a 30-minute lecture in Arabic – on the teacher’s family, on their pilgrimage to Mecca, etc. and we understood everything!” exclaimed one participant.

This year we have more than 70 participants – students, professionals and activists who come into regular contact with Arabic-speaking residents and who need it to communicate with them.

“I enjoy the course immensely,” said another participant. “I don’t believe I’ll ever be fully fluent, but it does definitely help me to understand Arab culture and history. I am now more aware of the presence and (or absence) of Arabic all around me – on signs, in stores. It is also very interesting for me to see the similarities between Arabic and the language found in Jewish sources.”

More on the JICC courses can be found in the blog post from last year.

This week marked the conclusion of most of the JICC’s Hebrew and Arabic language courses for 2009-2010. The Hebrew-Arabic Study Center provides languages courses in Hebrew and Arabic to promote efficacious and positive communication between Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem.

The Hebrew-Arabic Study Center programming is made possible through the partnership of the Jerusalem Foundation, and thanks to their support our courses are offered to the public at a heavily subsidized rate.

This year we held five Arabic courses (Palestinian dialect) for Hebrew speakers: two for beginners, two intermediate level groups, and one for advanced learners. Demand for Arabic language courses is high in Jerusalem; all of our courses operated at capacity this year, with 13-15 students in each course.

This demand is sparked in part by the unique approach of our programming – intensive language acquisition with an emphasis on the needs of professionals working with Arabic speakers in the city – answering an increasing demand for Arabic skills. The high quality of our two devoted teachers, Suha Kadri and Saida Rubhi, is another primary reason for courses’ success. Registration for 2010-2011 is already almost full …

Final Field Trip of the Advanced Arabic Course

At the same time, the JICC, together with the Kesher organization, provided Hebrew instruction for Arabic speakers. Our Hebrew language course was the first of its kind specially tailored to meet the unique requirements of parents of special needs children. Today, Jerusalem-based institutions providing medical and support services to special needs children are very Hebrew-centric. These parents joined this adapted course to help ensure that they could properly communicate with their children’s Hebrew-speaking medical professionals and caregivers and access the best possible services for their families.

On October 12 2009, we began our yearly Arabic courses at the JICC. This year, the beginners’ courses (two groups) started in October with the teacher Suha Kadri, while the intermediate and advanced courses started in mid-November, due to a maternity leave of the teacher Saeeda Subhi. These two excellent teachers have been working with us for four years, allowing us to offer probably the best and most extensive spoken Arabic courses in the city.

First day of Arabic Beginners Course – October 12 2009

The JICC is NOT a language school. Our courses are primarily intended for professionals and volunteers who are required to speak and understand Arabic in their daily work. We are the first city in Israel that claims that Arabic is a MUST for such professionals. This may sound obvious, right? But it is not the case in most parts of Israel.

When we began our courses we could hardly fill the beginners’ course, and there were not enough candidates for the more advanced courses. We opened one beginners’ course and one small intermediate course. Two years ago, we had three full courses – beginners, intermediate and advanced. Last year, the waiting list for the beginners’ course was so long that we were forced to open another course. This year, we had to add a second intermediate course. Altogether, we now have two beginners’ courses, two intermediate courses and one large advanced course (and, we won’t be surprised if next year we will have to expand the advanced course as well…).

We are very pleased to note the increase in interest in these courses and we are sorry for those who did not have a place in the current year and need to wait for next year. It is important to note that the courses are highly subsidized by the Jerusalem Foundation, who shares with us the vision of Arabic as a mandatory language for those who work with Arab population.