Before you learn another language, it often sounds like this:
However, Arabic is an official language of Israel, and the fact that relatively few Jewish Israelis are able to communicate in Arabic creates gaps in understanding and communication, right from the get-go. Since we believe that learning the language of the ‘other’ enables one to gain insight and understanding of his or her culture, we at the JICC have been operating Arabic-language courses for over 10 years. They are indeed, one of our longest-running programs. We continue to be the largest Arabic school in Jerusalem, and maybe the largest in Israel.
Studying Arabic
On September 1 we started up the Arabic classes once again, with our veteran teachers Anwar and Suha, and our newer addition, Gali. This year we had another record-breaking year – 16 classes over 5 levels – some 240 people registered! That is definitely a new high.
And here’s where studying Arabic with us can take you. As we were gearing up for the year our long-time teachers Anwar and Suha were in contact with some of their veteran students. Anwar called one of his students, Anat, who had been in his class from level 1 through level 4, but who hadn’t signed up for level 5 this year. “Anwar,” she said, “Because of the Arabic I studied with you at the JICC, I’m in Greece for the year, helping Syrian refugees. I’m actually able to communicate with them, and help them. Thank you for opening up this opportunity.”
Anat, we’re so happy you’re able to put your Arabic to good use.
Many thanks to the Jerusalem Foundation for their continued support of this program.
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:
