Deliberative Democracy | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

Toward a Cooperative Community Café on the Jerusalem Railway Park

How do you want to see your green open spaces? That was the question we raised when we first began working with residents from neighborhoods that line the Jerusalem Railway Park about eight months ago, at the beginning of March, thanks to the support of the UJA-Federation of New York. Using Open Space Technology, a number of initiatives were raised, which we continue to follow up on today.

One of the initiatives that has gained momentum has been a Cooperative Community Café . A Community Café would be planned and operated by residents, for residents, and residents will make all the decisions – regarding what kind of food / drink will be served and at what prices, when it will operate, and what kind of activities will take place there. The goal of the Community Café is to create an informal meeting point for residents in a pleasant and casual atmosphere. All proceeds from the sale of food and drink will be dedicated to the operation and development of the Café, and not for profits.

On September 28 we held a meeting for the leading team that seeks to establish the Community Café in the Jerusalem Railway Park. The goal was to review a number of different models from around Jerusalem and other cities in Israel, and determine what is best of the Railway Park. Below is the comparison of the different characteristics of the various models.

Railway Park Community Café

We distributed a number of tasks among team members before the next meeting, including finding an appropriate name. Any suggestions?

Naomi Roff2016-03-19T11:41:48+00:00November 23rd, 2014|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Larger Baka Community Council, Railway Park, Rehavia|

Working Together to Improve our Environment in Gilo

With assistance from the UJA – Federation of New York, we’ve been working in the Gilo neighborhood for the past five years, helping the Gilo Community Council. Utilizing principles of deliberative democracy, we’ve been helping residents to take initiative and responsibility for their communities. Most of our efforts have until now focused on parking and education issues. Other initiatives have focused on public – private spaces (PPS’s), but on a small scale.

Since January we’ve been helping local activists who reside in the area of Tirosh St., a long street that includes a number of PPS’s, in planning on which issues to deal with, what to do and how to go about doing it. After several meetings, they held a major, community-wide clean-up and renovation event on June 27, 2014, with help from the Jerusalem Municipality. You can see all this documented in a short video.

everyone helping

In all more than 160 took part – 100 children from the neighboring schools, and 60 residents. The residents were in charge from beginning to end – they were in touch with the Municipality, they organized the volunteers, they were in charge of the implementation. The Municipality worked hand in hand with the residents, preparing the area beforehand, and providing tools and work materials. Moving forward, there’ll be continued work on that PPS, most likely in smaller groups to make upkeep easier to maintain.

Kudos to all involved! We can’t wait to see more initiatives coming out of that area.

Naomi Roff2014-10-13T09:05:52+00:00July 31st, 2014|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Gilo Community Dialogue, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Jewish Religious Denominations|

The JICC Calming the Waters in this Time of Crisis

It’s been a difficult few weeks here in Jerusalem and in Israel in general. First the kidnapping and murder of 3 Jewish high school boys who had been studying in a yeshiva in the West Bank, then the kidnapping and murder of an Arab boy in Jerusalem, which sparked demonstrations in Jerusalem and even throughout Israel. And then missiles and air strikes and increased fighting.

Jerusalem Dome of the Rock

We have been working to ease tension and conflict, and to promote civil engagement in Jerusalem’s future, since we were established in 1999. Thus, when tensions heightened and reached breaking points, we were there, trying to help residents re-gain order, first in their everyday lives, and then on a community and city-wide level.

Over the past few weeks we’ve played a key role in Jerusalem. We helped to spread a message of calm and a return to routine, through our broad network of contacts throughout the city. In consultations with key figures we advised using a range of methods that successfully brought quiet to the streets relatively quickly. These consultations also returned routine services – garbage collection and sanitation, for example – back to the residents, reinforcing the feeling that everyone wished to get back to normal as quickly as possible.

It seems that these actions – and the influence of their messages – proved true in the field. Shuafat, the neighborhood where Muhammad Abu Khdeir (the Arab boy who was kidnapped and murdered) was from, became completely quiet during the day and incidents at night decreased quickly as well. Outbursts of violence and vandalism in different Arab neighborhoods were handled similarly, with similar calming results.

As soon as the military activity began in Gaza (July 6) and the missile attacks throughout Israel, including Jerusalem, we moved into a different mode of operation. We summoned the independent Emergency Readiness Networks that we helped to establish in East Jerusalem, which are a central component of the readiness of East Jerusalem in any emergency situation (from the snow storms in December 2013, to potential rocket fire like there is today) , and they continue to be on alert today. We are also helping many community councils in west Jerusalem that needed help in responding to the current crisis. For example, in the Greater Baka’a Community Council we helped to draft information and special messages of calm from the Community Council, which offered volunteer psycho-social professionals to help neighborhood residents. We advised other community councils regarding their responses to the situation as well.

In addition, because of our deep and extensive work in cultural competency in the health care system, we prepared special guidelines for health care workers for when social and political tensions are high, as they are now. In more normal times, hospitals and health care systems are often rare examples of coexistence and cooperation – between Jews and Arabs, religious, secular, ultra-orthodox (Haredi) Jews, etc. However, in times like now, when tension is palpable throughout the country, the situation inside hospitals and other health care institutions is affected as well. Indeed, in the past, there have been numerous instances of verbal and physical violence within hospitals, between patient and caregiver, between patients, and in rare cases, between caregivers. The guidelines help to delineate a professional response to prevent these situations and to deal with them quickly and effectively when they occur.

While today most of the attention is not on Jerusalem, we continue to work hard to maintain an everyday routine – and quiet. Under the circumstances it has become a state of “Emergency – Routine”. Much of the work continues to rely on the MiniActive and Emergency Readiness networks. The Emergency Readiness Networks continue to be on alert, ready to spring into action if necessary. The MiniActive groups continue, especially now, to contact service providers and report problems and demand repairs and improvements, which are able to take place because of the relative calm in the city. A lot of the work is being in contact with as much of the network as possible; the situation is not easy for any Jerusalem resident. Both Jews and Arabs are feeling the polarization and tension in the air.

Let’s hope for better times to come, soon.

Naomi Roff2019-11-16T13:41:16+00:00July 22nd, 2014|Blog, Courses, Cross-Cultural Communication Trainings, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services, Deliberative Democracy, Effective Activism, Emergency Readiness Networks, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Inter-Cultural Community Dialogue, Jewish-Palestinian/Arab, Larger Baka Community Council, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

‘The Railway Park Is in Our Hands’ – Continued

We reported before about the exciting developments that we’re leading, thanks to the support of the UJA-Federation of New York, together with the Community Councils of Greater Baka’a, Gonenim and Ginot Ha’Ir. Now, almost three months later, we held a follow-up meeting, to see what progress has been made on the various projects that were discussed.

21 May 2014 Railway Park Meeting

This time there were about 20 participants, all those and more who committed to advance different projects on the Railway Park that runs from the First Station near Liberty Bell Park to Teddy Stadium. Participants discussed projects such as:

The Social Platform, which is being advanced by the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School for Bilingual Education, together with the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.
Plants in the Park
Friends of the Park, who will be concerned with sanitation and other needs, and who will be the Park’s first line of defense in communicating with the Municipality.
Guided tours of the Park

Other ideas that were raised include:

A cooperative Cafe, similar to the Bar-Kayma in Tel Aviv
Establishing an Internet site for the Park
Live music
Communal painting drives

“What was noticeable was the creativity that rose out of a group of very different people, who all love the park,” said our own Na’ama Afek-Barzilay. “There were people there who had not been able to come to the first meeting. There were people there who told that they had moved into the area because of the park. The important take-away from this is that the future of these initiatives in the park really are in the hands of residents. The community professionals will lend their assistance, but their success is based on the residents.”

Naomi Roff2016-12-14T19:19:12+00:00May 25th, 2014|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Jewish Religious Denominations, Larger Baka Community Council, Railway Park|

Deliberative Democracy in Gilo – Continuing the Process

We’ve described before (here and here) our efforts of bringing deliberative and participatory democracy methods to solve everyday problems in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood, thanks to the assistance of the UJA-Federation of New York. Recently, we’ve been helping to lead a new process of community initiatives, concentrating on two streets – Tirosh and Odem. This is done, of course, through our partner in Gilo, Gilo Community Council.

What? Only two streets? Bear in mind that Gilo is a huge neighborhood, both geographically and demographically (some 30,000 residents). Thus, Tirosh and Odem streets comprise more than 2,000 residents, according to the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies.

We held our first meeting on January 29, 2014, with about 30 residents, which raised initial concerns and issues that the residents sought to solve. Two weeks after that a number of residents toured the neighborhood together with the city planner assigned to southern Jerusalem, to go over the complaints and issues that were raised in the meeting.

Discussing issues for improvement

On March 9 a second meeting was held, encouraging residents to take the lead in solving problems that are important to them. Seven initiatives were born at this meeting; a follow-up meeting to see how they are progressing is scheduled for next week, May 19. The initiatives included:

Creating a recycling / composting center on the street;
Safety of pupils going to school;
Improving the public garden on Tirosh St.
Sanitation on the street;
Deal with issues of traffic and road safety;
Cultivating greenery and plants in the neighborhood;
Improving signage on Odem and Tirosh Streets.

Going into detail, formulating a plan

Stay tuned for more updates!

Naomi Roff2014-05-31T16:53:33+00:00May 12th, 2014|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Gilo Community Dialogue|

First Time in Jerusalem – Participatory Urban Planning in Talpiot/ Arnona

We began working with the Greater Baka’a Community Council, and particularly the area of Talpiot / Arnona, as part of our Deliberative Democracy Program that is supported by the UJA – Federation of New York, some two years ago. We first began with task teams, several groups which worked on specific issues. Response to this renewed community activity was so enthusiastic it inspired residents to band together with a range of local organizations to produce a 90th birthday celebration for Arnona last year.

Participants in Talpiot-Arnona Vision

This year we are entering into a new stage of community development in Talpiot / Arnona. It goes far beyond the very welcome social initiatives to build social solidarity that we sparked last year, and it reaches into the realm of real tachlis, practical planning that will show real results on-the-ground. The Talpiot / Arnona area was slated to receive a new master plan, and the area was chosen to be a citywide pilot of including residents in building a community vision, and contributing in a tangible way to how their neighborhood is going to look in the future. This is the first time where residents’ visions will turn into planning principles, which will then be translated to a master plan, which will provide guidelines for how the neighborhood will look and operate for the next 20 years!

Idea Board

Our first meeting was held on March 26, 2014. It included some 40 residents, community professionals and municipal officials. It was mostly a brainstorming session, one in which all wishes and needs were put on paper, to be revised and refined as the process continues. Vision statements ranged from a desire for cooperation and collaboration among all groups in the neighborhood – religious, secular, etc. – to grow social-cultural programming to increase a feeling of community solidarity in the neighborhood; to a desire for community public buildings to hold activities; to efficient responses to transportation; to making the neighborhood a green neighborhood; to preserving the quiet nature of the neighborhood to improving the safety of the neighborhood, and more. All of these statements will guide the professional city planners when they plan out the future infrastructure for the neighborhood.

Naomi Roff2014-05-09T18:58:34+00:00March 29th, 2014|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Larger Baka Community Council|

Social Entrepreneurship on the Jerusalem Railway Park: Deliberative Democracy at its Best

How do you want to see your neighborhood, your city? And what can you do to get there? Often, in our everyday routines, especially after watching / reading / listening to the news, it is difficult to see how we can have an influence. The JICC’s Deliberative Democracy program seeks to change that.

Over the past few years, with assistance from the UJA-Federation of New York, we’ve been working intensively with a number of community councils to help residents influence and improve – and take responsibility for and ownership of – their neighborhoods, and their city.

As a result of our successful work in individual communities, we were asked to lead a larger process led by three community councils in the southern part of the city – Ginot Ha’ir, Baka’a, and Gonenim. The mission – enabling residents in neighborhoods that include the new Jerusalem Railway Park to fully enjoy and take ownership of this new pearl on the Jerusalem landscape. Here’s the flyer that was posted all over the Internet and social media:

The story of the Railway Park itself is one of social activism (more about it here and here). The park runs along the section of the old Ottoman-era Jaffa-Jerusalem rail line, and includes the neighborhoods of German Colony, Baka’a, the Talpiot Industrial Zone, Katamonim and Beit Safafa, ending at Malcha’s Teddy Stadium and the new train station that is in use today. After being cancelled in 1998 the tracks fell into disrepair, and had become an eyesore and garbage dump. Several years ago a group of environmentally-conscious residents, community activists and architects, successfully lobbied to turn this area into a massive urban park instead. After intense lobbying, this plan was accepted by local and national planning authorities. After several years of construction and support by the Jerusalem Municipality, the entire length of the park is just being completed.

With such deep roots in the community, it is only natural that the next step, injecting community activities and responsibility, along the course of the park, would involve the community as well. On March 5, we held a town meeting for residents from all communities that border the Jerusalem Railway Park. In all there were some 50 people, coming from the northern to the southern tips of the Park. All came to discuss events, initiatives and characteristics that they wish to see in the Park.

We used Open Space Technology for this event, which enables participants to raise and choose the issues they are passionate about, and work to advance them. Residents broke up into a number of groups. They ranged from a music festival, to a Purim parade, to growing edible plants along the Park, to Jewish-Arab relations to security and cleanliness. All groups are now forming plans of action of the different initiatives in order to bring them to fruition. The evening was so successful that we got this thank you from the different Community Councils:

Naomi Roff2016-03-19T11:42:12+00:00March 10th, 2014|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Jewish Religious Denominations, Jewish-Palestinian/Arab, Larger Baka Community Council, Palestinians/Arabs, Railway Park|

Haredi Society – A Democratic Society?

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish (Haredi) society is often thought of as a closed, hierarchical society. One in which each community asks questions of its Rabbis, and acts only after gaining approval from them. Definitely not the model of a democratic society.

And yet, we’ve found it’s possible to utilize democratic principles to build community in the Haredi neighborhood of Romema. We’ve worked with other neighborhoods on deep democratic processes, we’ve worked before with Romema and we’ve worked on Haredi issues. But we believe this is the first time that deep deliberative democratic principles for community building have been used in a Haredi community!

Last week we kick-started a process of deliberative democracy in Romema with two town meetings using the open space methodology – one for men, and, a week later, one for women. (This was the major way we adapted our ‘standard’ methodology to Haredi cultural morés.)

Some 250 women and 100 men attended the meetings. They discussed issues such as: traffic infrastructures and public safety, planning and public infrastructures (in different complexes, on different streets), sanitation, playgrounds and sports fields, curbing break-ins, and more. Residents divided into dozens of task teams, each with its own leader, which will work on each of the issues that is close to their hearts. You could feel in the air the passion and responsibility of the people who came. Open Space Technology is many times believed to be relevant to open societies with open communication, flat hierarchy and democratic tradition. In these evenings we found out that it suited very well the Haredi residents of Romema.

Romema isn’t a stranger to community-building activities. The community center has been partnering with the Jerusalem Foundation and the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) – Israel, but in areas concentrating on children, youth and education. In previous processes, deep democracy was not utilized. This is the first time that issues raised affected all areas of everyday life, and all ages. The first time that such a broad spectrum of problems was tackled, that such a broad spectrum of residents participated. We wish them luck, and we’ll continue to post updates. We thank the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jerusalem Foundation for enabling us to guide this process. It is just the beginning – community work will require now to shadow the many teams that were born in the two events, helping them to reach their goals.

Naomi Roff2017-03-21T10:57:44+00:00July 20th, 2013|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Inter-Cultural Community Dialogue, Romema, Ultra-Orthodox Jews|

Neighbors…. Haredi and non-Haredi in Kiryat Hayovel and Rehavia

Neighbors. Neighbors can be a problem, even in the best of communities. But what happens when neighbors move in who are very different from you? Or when old-time neighbors’ families grow and grow, and seem to be taking over the very nature of your neighborhood? From the ‘other’ side – you’re just looking to living in a nice neighborhood with your family – what’s all the fuss about?

This has been the dynamic in two Jewish neighborhoods – Rehavia and Kiryat Hayovel – that we’ve been working in recently. Both are traditionally secular / national religious neighborhoods – in fact, they’re considered bastions of these populations in Jerusalem. Recently, Kiryat Hayovel has seen an influx of new Haredi residents. In Rehavia, there has always been a Haredi community, but in recent years more and more Haredi families were getting in the neighborhood, changing the demographics. In a city where the Haredi population is growing quickly and non-Haredi populations are feeling threatened, this can definitely cause tensions.

However, if one of our goals is to work to preserve a diverse Jerusalem, tensions are the last thing we need. So in an effort to assuage building tensions between the Haredi and non-Haredi residents of Rehavia and Kiryat Yovel, and thanks to the support of the Jerusalem Foundation and the UJA-Federation of New York, we’re working with 2 very special neighborhood forums.

In Rehavia, we’re working together with the local community council with a group of 20 Haredi and non-Haredi residents, many of them are the leaders of their communities. This includes a fascinating combination of young and older people, national religious, as well as Haredi and secular, men and women. By the end of the second meeting we’d come up with a Summary of Principles for working together. This of course doesn’t mean that individual – and sometimes far-reaching – issues have been solved. But right now we’re focusing on the ‘how we handle issues’, before we move on to the ‘what is the solution’. This includes sometimes basic statements, such as ‘live and let live’, ‘mutual respect’, ‘love of the neighborhood’ and an ’emphasis that we’re all one people’. But we all know that when tension threatens to boil over we need simple, basic principles to guide us through. This group has met twice, and will continue to meet. It has been decided to significantly expand this forum, so that broader agreements can be made and more people and groups can be represented.

In Kiryat Yovel the situation is a bit different. The entrance of Haredi families, even as a small percentage of the population, has raised numerous battle cries against the ‘Haredization’ of Kiryat Yovel, which arises in various forms from time to time. The group in Kiryat Yovel is still smaller – 8 people, all are main leaders – and thus far the two meetings have consist of ‘getting to know you’ conversations. Yet, because Haredi-non-Haredi relations are much terser than in Rehavia, the very existence of these meetings is of utmost importance. While Kiryat Yovel is a tougher nut to crack, we believe we’re on the right path, creating a safe haven for dialogue and conflict resolution. In the last meeting, two Neighborhood Council members hugged each other at the end. This was an unusual occurrence, since one was Haredi and the other was secular who is very active against the Haredization of the neighborhood. “Finally, here, I can give you a hug,” said the Haredi Council member. Another, a secular woman, requested that Haredi women come as well, so that she wouldn’t feel lonely. Currently there is no other place this could happen.

In both neighborhoods, there is energy to continue the processes, and a feeling of hope that is very important for the future of these communities, as well as for Jerusalem.

jicc2014-04-04T12:57:50+00:00May 30th, 2013|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Inter-Cultural Community Dialogue, Jewish Religious Denominations, Kiryat Yovel, Rehavia, Ultra-Orthodox Jews|

Happy 90th birthday Talpiot-Arnona!

We’re feeling a bit of parental pride these days. With assistance from the UJA-Federation of New York, we’ve been working intensively with residents in the Talpiot – Arnona area in methods of deliberative democracy. The goals – engage residents in their community, enable them to take ownership of their community, making it a place they want to be, and stemming years of negative migration of Jerusalem’s young families and professionals.

When we began, the Arnona-Talpiot area was officially part of the Greater Baka’a Community Council catchment area. However, residents did not cross Derech Hebron to the main Community Council facility to receive services, nor did the Community Council staff make efforts to include Talpiot-Arnona residents in its activities. From a community standpoint, it was dormant – no community events; its commercial centers were quiet, barren places; no more than 3-4 children were found in playgrounds at one time.

Last fall we began working with the Community Council, the newly-elected neighborhood committee members from the area, and interested residents. We helped them form several task teams that concentrated on bringing about practical change throughout the neighborhood in a number of areas: the environment, public spaces, Jewish-Arab coexistence, local security, forming community gardens, and more.

This activity seemed to wake up the community, and developments were quick to come. This process had given residents a chance to take responsibility for their neighborhood, to influence the public sphere, to initiate projects, to become a part of the decision-making process, together with the Community Council, and they scooped up the opportunity. The original task teams bore additional ideas for action, which, in a period of only a few months, led to the idea of a huge, neighborhood-wide event, open to the entire city, celebrating Arnona’s 90th anniversary. The fact that the event grew from idea to fruition in only a few short months – returning vibrancy to the neighborhood – is a tribute to the transformation that has taken place over the past year.

Entertainment for the whole family in the commercial center

The positive ripple effects were felt near and far. Residents rallied to the cause. Institutions, organizations, businesses and local artists – all wanted to be a part, to contribute to help make the event an amazing one. Their reward – a renewed sense of community in Arnona, a feeling of pride and solidarity.

The afternoon – evening of May 23 was chock full of events, from the fairs and performances in the neighborhood commercial center to community garden to Shai Agnon’s house to exhibits in artists’ homes, to tours of the community. (Click here for the event’s web site in Hebrew). “We are happy to invite you to a community event, the product of the community processes we held over the past year,” reads the invitation’s accompanying letter. “Over the past months we have held a number of meetings with residents in which task teams were formed that deal with many areas. [That’s where we came in, by the way.] We are surprised to discover how diverse and how many community institutions there are in the neighborhood…We invite everyone, children and adults, to participate in the event and to enjoy a wonderful chance to start on a new path in the neighborhood.”

Arts and crafts in the commercial center

We can safely say the event accomplished its goal. People came out from their hibernation, met friends and neighborhoods, got to know a little about the neighborhood in which they live. The commercial center has never seen so many people. People attended the artists’ open houses, as well as tours of the neighborhood. Indeed, the feeling of pride and excitement – and a new beginning – was palpable at all the event venues.
Residents, together with institutions in the neighborhood and staff from the Community Council, were the ones who did all the work. But we’re still taking kvelling rights on this one, and we’re proud of our part in the process.

Performance in the community garden

jicc2014-04-11T16:11:42+00:00May 23rd, 2013|Blog, Deliberative Democracy, Inter-Cultural Community Dialogue, Larger Baka Community Council|

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