Palestinians/Arabs | The Jerusalem Intercultural Center

MiniActive – Seeing Physical Improvements Again

We’ve reported here in the past about the plethora of projects that the MiniActive women have been able to get done in their neighborhoods over the past several years. This has been an exponential increase over even the smallest improvements that had taken place previously.

Unfortunately, the past few months have been challenging – as the security situation became more tenuous, services from the municipality noticeably slowed. MiniActive women, however, did not give up. They continued to call, and began to write letters, and did not stop posting on their Facebook page. In addition, some of the posts from the MiniActive Facebook page were also translated into Hebrew on the 0202 Facebook Page and in English on the 0202 – A View from East Jerusalem Facebook page, which are followed by top municipal officials, journalists and human rights organizations. Regardless of the political situation, the municipality is required to provide basic services to its residents.

It seems as if this persistence is paying off. This past week MiniActive posted two instances of the municipality fixing local roads – something we haven’t seen for a long time. Here is one instance in Beit Hanina:

Road work in Beit Hanina

And another from A-Tur:

Road work in A-Tur

Naomi Roff2016-03-05T10:08:41+00:00February 24th, 2016|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

Healthcare Certification Training: Taking Stock

Over the past few weeks we’ve gotten some great news – that 6 more occupational therapists who took our course passed the Ministry of Health certification exam, and several more were very close. As the results continue to come in, we thought we’d take stock over the past 4 years of the program. We’ve really come a long way:

The program has increased the number of certified Arab paramedical professionals in East Jerusalem exponentially. Since it began in 2012, nearly 70 nurses, occupational therapists, and physical therapists to pass their Israeli certification exams. This includes 37 nurses, 24 occupational therapists and 6 physical therapists. Beforehand, only 1-2 would pass each year in each discipline. It would have taken many years to achieve these results otherwise.
The program has enabled us to more clearly map the situation of different paramedical professions in East Jerusalem, contributing to the knowledge of training in the Jerusalem area. As we developed courses for different disciplines, we have gained an in-depth knowledge of the state of diverse fields in East Jerusalem. This is the first time ever that any type of mapping has been done, and this information is now available for the first time to health care and educational institutions, as well as the Israel Ministry of Health.
The program has raised awareness both among Palestinian institutes of higher education and health care institutions in East Jerusalem as well as Israeli Ministry of Health. When we began the program, there was little compliance and even less awareness about the need and benefits of having staff that have passed the certification exam in their fields. Today, all the major health care institutions in East Jerusalem, Palestinian universities, as well as Ministry of Health, better understand this need. We believe this understanding will lead to an improvement in health care in East Jerusalem.
The program has opened a large window of opportunity for Arab women paramedical professionals to improve economic opportunities. After they pass their certification exams improves their access to employment rights, which includes an increase in pay and employment conditions.
As a result of the program, the JICC has earned a prestigious reputation for offering high-quality courses. Since we began these courses, graduates of the physical therapy and occupational therapy courses have had high rates of success in passing the certification examinations. As a result of this success, graduates, and even expectant graduates, of the different Palestinian universities have requested to register for courses well in advance.
Our reputation proceeds itself in expanding to new disciplines. As a result of the success of graduates of physical and occupational therapy, graduates of other paramedical professions – speech therapists and medical laboratory technicians – have requested we develop courses, which are now in various stages of development. Thus, we have expanded our offerings from two to six (also including physical therapy, speech therapy, medical laboratory technicians and medical Hebrew). We are also in regular contact with the medical faculty of Al-Quds University, ready to assist if needed.

A meeting of the nursing course

We’ve just started a new course for physical therapists, and are developing courses for speech therapists and medical lab technicians. We’ll keep you posted on further updates.

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the Hadassah Foundation for their support of this program.

Naomi Roff2016-02-20T08:37:40+00:00February 15th, 2016|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Health Services, Cultural Competence in the Workplace, Employment, Employment Accessibility, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Palestinians/Arabs, Supporting employment in East Jerusalem|

Qualifying Paramedical Professionals, Improving Health Care in East Jerusalem

Slowly but surely, we’re helping to improve health care, accessibility to health care, and paramedical professionals’ workers rights in East Jerusalem.

Yesterday we began a second course to train physical therapists to pass the Israeli Ministry of Health certification examination, which will take place in May 2016. This is part of our larger program to train recent graduates of paramedical professions to pass the Israeli Ministry of Health certification exams that we’ve been developing since 2012. Since the program began, we’ve helped some 70 nurses, occupational therapists, and physical therapists to pass their Israeli certification exams, when it would otherwise have taken many years to achieve these results.

This success has brought brought additional development – in light of the success in the first three fields. we were asked to develop courses for medical lab technicians and speech therapists. We’re in the process of doing so, and will be sure to provide updates here.

Physical therapists course

We have 20 physical therapists in the current course. Last time we were very successful – 6 passed, on a test that is considered very difficult even in the original Hebrew. We wish them success, Bi-najah, Be-hatzlaha!

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the Hadassah Foundation for their support of this program.

Naomi Roff2016-02-20T08:38:00+00:00February 8th, 2016|Blog, Education, Employment, Employment Accessibility, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Palestinians/Arabs, Supporting employment in East Jerusalem|

Cultural Competence at the National Insurance Institute in East Jerusalem

Would you believe that the East Jerusalem branch of the National Insurance Institute (NII) is becoming culturally competent? Yes, this is the same Israeli bureaucratic welfare institution that’s gotten a bad name for its being cumbersome and unwelcoming, especially for the city’s Arabic speakers. Being an Israeli institution in East Jerusalem these days, especially if people are looking to you for support, is also rather difficult.

This is where we salute the branch’s workers, especially the upper management, who recognized the complexity of this situation, and sought to better accommodate the public they serve. Several months ago we were approached by the director of the East Jerusalem branch to develop a system of cultural competency. This is the first cultural competency work that has been done in any NII branch throughout Israel.

East Jerusalem National Insurance Institute

Over the past year we’ve been meeting with and observing different staff members, adapting our training modules to the particular model of the NII. Last week (January 27) we had our first training session with the workers. Much of the session focused on social-political tensions in interactions with clients. Many of the workers were happy to have gained tools to enable them to do their jobs better.

This session was the first, and we’ll continue to follow up and mentor the management and workers. One of the subjects of future workshops will be ‘Linguistic Simplification,’ which means to simplify the often jargon-laden text of NII forms into simpler language that non-native speakers can understand. In fact, the West Jerusalem branch liked the idea too, and soon we’ll be giving a workshop on Linguistic Simplification for the West Jerusalem branch as well!

Stay tuned for further updates from the National Insurance Institute – Jerusalem.

Naomi Roff2016-11-25T13:54:09+00:00February 4th, 2016|Blog, Cultural Competence, Cultural Competence in Government Institutions, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Palestinians/Arabs|

Emergency Readiness Networks in Jerusalem – Expanding the Network

We’re proud to announce – another 3 neighborhoods (Old City, A-Tur (Mount of Olives) and Sheikh Jarrach) have finished their Emergency Readiness Network (ERN) training! A total of 64 Arab men and women are trained to be first responders in a wide variety of emergencies, such as fires, earthquakes, auto accidents, and more. Their role was and continues to be immeasurable in helping their local community, before the ‘official’ emergency responders are able to arrive.

The Old City Team

We now have a total of 11 ERNs, and we’re continuing to expand to more neighborhoods.

Training Exercise

We thought they’d be busy with a huge winter storm that passed over Jerusalem last week, just like the past few winters. In previous years the brutal storms – several inches of snow, cold temperatures, high winds – wreaked havoc on the physical infrastructure of East Jerusalem, which is weak to begin with. Each time, local ERNs worked round the clock to clear roads, distribute blankets, heaters and food, find solutions for those whose homes had flooded, rescue those who were trapped, take the sick to hospitals – in short, helping residents weather the storm as best as possible. Last week’s storm came and went without much fanfare, but we’re positive that the ERNs will be ready when it does.

Planning on map

Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation and the Sobell Foundation for their support for this program.

Naomi Roff2016-02-01T17:52:14+00:00February 1st, 2016|Blog, Emergency Readiness Networks, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Palestinians/Arabs|

Continuing Pope Paul VI’s Tradition Peacefully on Mount Zion

“Veni, Sancte Spiritus/ tui amoris in eis ignem accende,” – Come Holy Spirit, hug your believers in the fire of your love

Last week our Window to Mount Zion volunteers were part of an extraordinary joint prayer service that took place in the Room of the Last Supper (read here in Hebrew about it) on Mount Zion. Held every year during the last week of January, this was an extremely diverse gathering – Ethiopians and Copts, Catholics and Orthodox, Romanian, Armenian, Lutheran and other communities; Priests, nuns, students of theology and many laymen, shoulder to shoulder to pray for the unity of the Christian church. All 150 of them praying for Christian unity. This is no small feat, given the centuries-old history of rivalry and worse between the different divisions of the Christian church.

The event was led by the Benedictine monks from the nearby Dormition Abbey (read here in Hebrew about it). They read from the Bible: Isaiah’s prophecy: “My House will be a house of prayer all peoples,” sang psalms, read from the New Testament as well. Sermons were given in Latin, German, French, English, Hebrew and Arabic, each one with a message of unity in faith, hope for a better world and a determination to stand together against difficulties along the way. Our Window on Mount Zion volunteers, in coordination with both the police and the monks leading the service, served as ushers and made sure the service proceeded smoothly. Both the police and monks were extremely grateful for our assistance.

The event ended with the Lord’s Prayer. As participants left, Jewish passersby, on their way to worship at David Tomb, greeted the Christians, creating an atmosphere of coexistence, mutual respect and cooperation. This is exactly the type of relations we are striving for in the Window on Mount Zion project.

How did this tradition come about? In 1964, Pope Paul VI made his first papal visit to the Middle East since the Middle Ages, during which he visited various Orthodox communities. In January 1964 he conducted an historic meeting with the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, the first such meeting in 900 years! Since then, in an attempt to continue this improvement of relations, Christians around the world hold joint prayer services during the last week of January. In Jerusalem, this week was sealed with a joint prayer in the Room of the Last Supper, formally a neutral place, historically and religiously significant, and a sacred site to almost all the Christian communities in the city.

For a moment, it seemed as if Isaiah’s prophesy was coming true…

You can learn more about “Window to Mount Zion” in Hebrew at the site and at the Facebook Page .

Naomi Roff2020-02-02T04:02:48+00:00January 31st, 2016|Blog, Christians, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Jewish Religious Denominations, Mount Zion, Palestinians/Arabs, Ultra-Orthodox Jews|

MiniActive Women – Intensive and Unrelenting Activism for Change

Unrelenting Creativity – that has been the modus operandi of the MiniActive network since its establishment in 2012. And today, three years on, MiniActive women are continuing to find original ways to deal with a challenging situation. Garbage collection in East Jerusalem, always a sore spot, has become even more problematic over the past few months. The women still call the 106 municipal hotline, but many garbage piles remain.

Refusing to give up, the women changed their tactic. Since October, MiniActive women have engaged in a “We Don’t Want to Live in Garbage” campaign on their Facebook page. Each day several pictures of overflowing garbage ticks and makeshift garbage dumps are uploaded to the MiniActive Facebook page.

Original Garbage Receptacle

These are often shared by the 0202-A View from East Jerusalem Facebook page, that translates Arabic-language Facebook and Internet posts into Hebrew, which reaches a number of prominent journalists and local politicians. While collection has improved somewhat, we will continue putting pressure on service providers to provide fundamental services to East Jerusalem residents.

MiniActive Anti-trash Campaign, from January 19

May future news bring pictures of Jerusalem’s beauty – and not of its filth.

Naomi Roff2016-01-31T20:19:23+00:00January 29th, 2016|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

Window to Mount Zion – Solidarity in the Face of Adversity

We usually like to post positive news here, but in the Jerusalem everyday reality, not all is positive. This past weekend, in the middle of the night, the walls of our neighbors on Mount Zion, the Dormition Abbey and both the Armenian and Greek cemeteries, were littered with anti-Christian graffiti. (Click here for the news story from the Jerusalem Post.)

Graffiti on Dormition Abbey

In addition to across the board condemnation by both Jewish and Arab Israeli leaders, we, the residents of Mt. Zion, thanks to the Window on Mt. Zion project, released the following statement:

Dormition Abbey statement

“We, the institutions, organizations and individuals residing on Mount Zion, harshly condemn the writing of anti-Christian hate slogans on and around Christian sites on Mount Zion – Jerusalem, which took place tonight, January 17th 2016.
The vandalism included curses and violent threats. We, residents of Mount Zion, call on the public to preserve the security and mutual respect of the Holy Places to all religions on Mount Zion. When one of these places is desecrated, it affects not only the site itself, but also all other holy sites on Mount Zion. In addition, these repeated acts of desecration undermine the delicate fabric of coexistence in the Holy Land in general and in the Holy City of Jerusalem in particular.

On behalf of:

* The Diaspora Yeshiva on Mount Zion
* The Armenian Patriarchate, Armenian Cemetery on Mount Zion
* World Benei-Akiva on Mount Zion
* The Christian Department, the Ministry of Interior Affairs, the Room of the Last Supper on Mount Zion
* Arik Pelzig – Harp of David on Mount Zion
* The Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion
* Dr. Zigmond Zigler Cohen, Mount Zion resident
* The Jerusalem University College on Mount Zion
* Custodia Terra Sancta, Ed-Cenaculum Franciscan Monastery on Mount Zion
* The Jerusalem Intercultural Center on Mount Zion

This is probably the first time in the long history of Mt. Zion (at least 1000 years of inter-religious conflicts!) that a joint statement of the resident institutions of the mountain issued a shared condemnation against the desecration of a holy site on Mt. Zion! So, while we’re deeply saddened by this incident, as well as other tragedies that have happened in the past few days, we are proud of the Window on Mt. Zion program, which has enabled us to reach this unprecedented collaboration.

We’re operating the Window on Mt. Zion program in cooperation with Search for Common Ground’s Jerusalem office, thanks to a grant from the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). This amazing program has raised, in a few months, awareness about the different and varied religious sites on Mt. Zion – Christian, Muslim as well as Jewish – to thousands of people, young and old, Israelis and tourists, Jews, Christians and Muslims. The goal – to make Mt. Zion a place that welcomes people of all backgrounds and faiths to the very special sites that are of utmost importance to people of all faiths throughout the world.

The next day, an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish leader, Nahum Shlezinger, came to Mount Zion just to apologize in the name of Judaism, and to tell the Christians that the anti-Christian graffiti is not the Jewish way. Helped by the excellent cooperation between the local police and the church – as a result of our efforts, the connection was made and the dialogue between the Jewish leader and the Christian representative happened. You can see it here and on a Facebook post on the Window on Mount Zion Facebook page:

May we continue to bring only good news.

Naomi Roff2016-10-21T09:08:50+00:00January 20th, 2016|Blog, Christians, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Jewish Religious Denominations, Mount Zion, Palestinians/Arabs, Promoting Tolerance in Jerusalem, Ultra-Orthodox Jews|

First Ever Arabic-language Horticulture Therapy Course through MiniActive Women

We’ve been excited about the opening of the first Horticulture Therapy Course to take place in the Arabic language, in cooperation with the David Yellin Academic College of Education, for awhile. We’ve had to make some changes adjust to the ‘situation’ – the course was originally supposed to take place at the College in the west Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hakerem. But because it was difficult for many participants to leave their neighborhoods in general, and to leave their neighborhoods for west Jerusalem neighborhoods was even more difficult, we moved the course to a school for special education in Beit Hanina – the largest school for special education in East Jerusalem.

Learning Practical Part of Horticulture Therapy

Learning Practical Session of Horticulture Therapy

At the end of the course in May 2016, participants will practice what they learned by starting a therapeutic garden with the children. The course has been meeting for just over a month – and it was definitely worth the wait! Thus far they’ve gone from the beginning stages (above) to planting (below) –

Planting

To composting as well.

Composting in the course

We can hardly wait to see the fruits of their labors – as well as their work with the children afterward. Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for its continued support of MiniActive.

Naomi Roff2016-01-31T20:20:55+00:00January 15th, 2016|Blog, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

MiniActive Professional Development – Hebrew Courses

An integral part of the MiniActive network is to be in touch with municipal workers and officials. Much of the initial contact (calls to the 106 municipal hotline) is in Arabic, but the women found very quickly that in order to ensure that their complaints are followed through they must also have written and verbal contact with Hebrew speakers. This was no small obstacle, since many of the women knew very little or no Hebrew whatsoever.

Enter the ‘Speaking Hebrew’ project, a group of volunteers who seek to teach Hebrew to Arab women from East Jerusalem, with the classes taking place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem – Mount Scopus campus. We began working with the project last year, and this year we’ve reached record numbers! Four classes – 130 women – are studying Hebrew in 3 levels, and there is an additional class taking place in Sur Baher.

In class

It is sometimes challenging to enable the groups of 15 – 20 Palestinian women to pass the security guards at Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, but we – and they – have been undeterred by these temporary obstacles.

At the University gates

Naomi Roff2018-09-01T07:30:36+00:00January 8th, 2016|Blog, Courses, Effective Activism, Identity Groups and Conflicts, Language Center, MiniActive, Palestinians/Arabs|

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