The Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center Blog

Our annual two-day conference on Jewish-Arab dialogue through the performing arts has just ended today. This was the fifth conference, and we could see how it matures from year to year (read about previous years here). About 70 participants from all over the country joined the conference and improved their skills in music, theater, using arts in Arab-Jewish dialogue and more. We will write a more detailed description later on, when the pictures are ready, and after we all rest a bit…  : )

At the end of the conference we received great feedback from the participants, which encouraged us to declare that we will definitely hold the 6th event next year. And of course, we continued the tradition of offering a joint Jewish-Arab concert open to the general public at the end of the conference. The hall was full with 600 Jerusalemites and others who came to listen and dance to the music of Ehud Banai, George Samaan and Salem Darwish. It was a great finale for a very successful conference.

The conference was created together with our partners - the Jerusalem Foundation and the International YMCA, and with the help of an anonymous donor.

More to come….!!!

Today we had the second day of the Open Space event (which consists of two evenings - on Dec 10 and 16 - see the update on the first evening). Most of the participants in the first evening, as well as a few new faces, showed up and continued the discussions on the future of Ramot. Upon their arrival, the participants received the summaries of the discussions from the previous event written by the discussion groups themselves.

Ramot Lay Leaders and Professionals at the Open Space

The second session was devoted to suggesting new implementation initiatives. Groups were formed to define these initiatives and ensure followup. The Ramot Community Council is committed to convening the groups in order to implement the Open Space outcomes. The Open Space steering committee will meet to make certain that the events would not remain a one-off activity, but that they would really be the beginning of profound participatory democracy in the neighborhood.

Ramot Open Space Banner

In 2008, the Ramot Community Council asked the JICC’s assistance in creating a  participatory community development process in the neighborhood. The selected model was Open Space Technology, a powerful methodology that encourages large groups of participants, in this case residents, leaders, activists and professionals, to engage in the process with both their passion and responsibility for action. In recent posts we updated on the preparations towards the two-sections Open Space event.

Assembly of the Ramot Open Space

Today we had the first day of the Open Space event (which consists of two evenings - on Dec 10 and 16). About 100 residents, staff members, and a few others that see themselves as involved in the neighborhood, came and actively participated in discussion groups on topics they themselves have raised. We were happy to see involvement by the local youth, including four 12-year old primary school students who came ready with their discussion topics and ran a few of the discussions as real pros…

Putting a discussion topic on the agenda

Diverse issues were raised: transportation, cleaning the neighborhood, education, activities for young adults, parks and much more. Each discussion group concluded with a summary paper of the main points discussed and first recommendations. There were two sessions, with 6-10 concurrent discussions.

A Discussion Group

The summary papers were typed and will be soon available on the Ramot Community Center website. They will also be distributed to the participants towards the next evening that will conclude the event.

Another Discussion Group...

The slogan of the event was “Now it is in our hands” and the main message that came out of it was that together, the residents and the staff of the community center can create a change in the neighborhood - with passion and responsibility.

Yet Another Discussion Group...

Since 2004, the Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center has a strategic partner in New-York - Cause-NY (of the JCRC-NY), headed by Rabbi Bob Kaplan. This partnership is available through our shared program, the New-York Jerusalem Experts Exchange, connecting experts and professionals in Israel, New York and other places around the world. Professionals involved in this network work in the fields of diversity, coalition building, community organizing and dialogue.  The program is funded by UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Agency For Israel.

One aspect of this fascinating exchange is our joint facilitation of a series of webinars on topics that interest a specific community of activists globally. Previous series were on issues such as cultural competence in health, cultural competence at the workplace, community resilience and more. The new series we started this week deals with ”Tikkun Olam” and involves Israeli and Jewish experts and volunteers from all over the world who focus on helping people outside the Israeli/Jewish community.

Tikun Webinar 1 snapshot

The first webinar was on “the Jewish Response to Genocide” (see the Israeli and American invitations). The 30 participants were from the US, Israel, London and San Paulo. The first presentation was by DR. WILLIAM RECANT, Assistant Executive Vice-President, the Joint Distribution Committee. He focused on the “Agahozo Shalom Youth Village”, for kids who survived the genocide in Rwanda. This village is based on a similar project that was conducted in Israel in the 50’s for kids survivors of the Holocaust.

Next, RUTH MESSINGER & GITTA ZOMORODI, respectively the President and Senior Policy Associate of the American Jewish World Service, gave a presentation about their work in Darfour. The last presentation, by YIFTACH MILLO, Director of ASSAF, the Aid Organization for Refugees & Asylum Seekers, provided an analysis of genocide as a recurring phenomenon in modern Africa.

Altogether this was an excellent opening to the series. The next webinar in this series will be held in mid-January 2009.

Following previous meetings on adapting Clalit’s clinics to Ethiopian patients, the representatives of Clalit and the JICC discussed today the detailed plan for cultural competence in serving the Ethiopian community in Jerusalem. The meeting was very fruitful, and based on many insights, a detailed workplan is currently being formulated. First training will be held in February in the Ir Ganim neighborhood, followed by similar two-days trainings in all relevant clinics. In parallel, signage and other adaptations to this community will be applied.

At the meeting we’ve received an update that according to schedule all the relevant clinics are now fully equipped to provide the “Tene Briut” tele-interpretation services in Amharic. It is important to emphasize that unfortunately, up to this point, this is the only tele-interpretation service existing in Israel in any language!. It is our hope to find the means to create tele-interpretation services in additional languages, such as Arabic and Russian.

On October 2 we reported in the blog on some achievements in the community dialogue process in Talpiot Ethiopian Community. The first was in solving the issue of language at the main HMO Clalit health clinic in the neighborhood. The second was the agreement by all relevant agencies to enable the Ethiopian community to have a weekend synagogue in a public location called Beit Hakehila (the Community Hall). These were certainly good news, although we estimated that the story was not over, and that other issues awaited their resolution in this neighborhood.

Indeed, during the holidays, a few issues challenged the mutual trust that needs to be built between the relevant stakeholders. The “weekend synagogue” model was found to be a source for many conflicts, some of which we have described in the previous blog posting. It is important to note that this model is used all over Jerusalem where religious communities are granted permission to use public facilities for their purposes, when these are not in use during the weekends, for example public schools. In Succot, although they were explicitly asked not to do so, the Ethiopian community built a Succah in the yard of Beit Hakehila. The municipality, which owns the place, perceives this and other incidents as violations of the ontract signed by the Ethiopian community for the use of the place. Since the episode occurred during the municipal elections campaign, municipality officials did not react this time. Politics, as we have seen many times in Jerusalem, is a significant player in the field. The elections have now passed and we will soon witness the next steps in this story.

And as if this is not enough, a new dispute emerged. The Ethiopian community asked that its members would be allowed to use another neighborhood public venue, Beit Lazarus, for private celebrations. It should be noted that in the Ethiopian community, religious life-cycle ceremonies (weddings, Bar Mitzvah, etc.) are a public event where the celebrating family invites all the community to participate. Having a public/private celebration in the middle of the village was an option in Ethiopia, but it is not so in Talpiot, where most of the residents are not Ethiopians. The alternative is to hold the celebration in a public facility, which the authorities allocate for that purpose.  However, in Talpiot such a solution was not achieved yet and the community asked that celebrating families would be able to rent Beit Lazarus for their events. The community Council that owns the place did not approve the request, stating that this public facility cannot be rented out for private purposes.

Practically, the community asked to use the place on Dec. 5 and Dec. 12, and threatened to hold demonstrations and protests if their requests were not answered. Last week, we found ourselves - the mediating team of Mosaica and the JICC - in meetings and conversations with the head of the Ethiopian community and the heads of the relevant authorities. However, it seems that the current lack of trust, resulting from the contract violations by the community at the synagogue, prevents such negotiations from being productive. Our experience shows that what is currently required is a process, that will probably be challenging for all sides, for the examination of the events that happened in the last months as well as their consequences for the trust building process.

Additional meetings will take place this week trying to decipher the way to resolution.

To continue the community process around education in Tsur Baher, we held today another meeting at the office of the head of the municipality Education Department.

Yet this was a different meeting, where the Tsur Baher school principals were invited to present their schools, including facts and issues that can affect decision-making in the future. This was the first time that a group of municiapl officials and community residents sat together to listen to such comprehensive presentations.

The meeting lasted two hours. At its conclusion it was decided that the next meeting in January will be held in Tsur Baher and will focus on responses to the main issues raised in the presentations.

After a year-long process it seems at this point that some trust and common understanding is shared by the stakeholders of this process.

In recent posts we updated on our process with the Ramot Community Council to create a  participatory community development process in the neighborhood, using Open Space technology.

The Ramot Community Center is currently investing much effort to publicize the community meetings that will take place on December 10 and 16. Meetings are being held with school boards, youth movements, community organizations, synagogues and all other entities that can be part of the process. We meet regularly with the community worker/organizer of Ramot to help and guide the process. It is our hope that this process will serve as an important landmark in community participation and in affecting the fate of this neighborhood.

Look here for the invitation to the Open Space events. This invitation calls anyone and everyone that lives in Ramot, or feels that they want to impact the future of this neighborhood, to join us for these events.

Rabbi Bob Kaplan, Director of Cause-NY (of the JCRC-NY) and our New York partner in the New-York Jerusalem Experts Exchange, toured Acco today as part of his visit in Israel. Rabbi Kaplan presented to local leaders and mediators the inter-identity crisis intervention model he uses in NYC. With the help of the Gishurim Project, a Community Dialogue and Mediation Center is currently being established in Acco. The meeting was set in order to help the center in its research and development process for designing the optimal implementation of such an institute in Acco. The recent events in Acco highlighted the urgent need for community dialogue and mediation in the city.

Acco

About 40 participants from various identities and agencies arrived to the meeting where  Rabbi Kaplan and Dr. Hagai Agmon-Snir (JICC’ director) presented various models from NY and Israel.

Kaplan and Agmon-Snir at the Acco meeting

The principal invitees to the meeting were the Imam of Acco, Sheikh Samir Asi and the Chief Rabbi of the city, Rabbi Yossef Yashar. They both had to attend a meeting with Israel’s President, Mr. Shimon Peres, on the same morning, but Rabbi Yashar saw it as important  to open the meeting and discuss some of the issues with Rabbi Kaplan.

Acco Chief Rabbi Yashar and Rabbi Kaplan

Following the main assembly, the Community Dialogue and Mediation Center staff conducted a working session with the visitors from NY and Jerusalem, where next steps were formulated and peer consultation with the JICC and CAUSE-NY was put in place.

Acco Community Dialogue Center staff with guests

The 14-weeks long Distance-Learning Community Dialogue Course concluded today. The course consisted of five distance-learning units and five face-to-face meetings. The twenty participants requested an on-going peer group that will accompany their community dialogue initiatives. We hope that the Gishurim program that sponsored the course will be able to provide this service. The course facilitators, Dr. Orna shemer and Dr. Hagai Agmon-Snir, will probably facilitate these peer meetings.

Feedback Session of the Community Dialogue Course

In their feedback, the participants stated that the course has significantly leveraged their ability to plan and initiate responses to community conflicts and opportunities. During the course they presented and discussed the various initiatives they were developing in their community dialogue and mediation centers. This was the first ever community dialogue course of the Gishurim project and we hope it will be repeated in the future.