The Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center Blog

We just published an article at the Jerusalem Post and Search for Common Ground (SFCG) News service, focusing on the need for preparing today Jerusalem for potential peace scenarios. Here are the links and the text:

The Jerusalem Post (English).

PDF (English).

Hebrew, Arabic.

Text:

Prepare Jerusalem for peace now
June 26, 2010

By HAGAI AGMON-SNIR

Last month, a Home Front Command exercise was carried out in Israel. The emergency systems were tested for their response to various scenarios in case war breaks out. That same week, someone jokingly disseminated a message on the Internet regarding an emergency exercise that would be carried out to test responses for when peace breaks out. In this imaginary exercise, calming sirens would be sounded and the general public would be required to respond to the cheerful scenarios that may unfold in this new and unfamiliar situation.

In Jerusalem, the idea of preparing for peace should not be a topic of jokes. We are so preoccupied with the struggle over what the city would look like following a permanent status agreement that we are ignoring the fact that present-day Jerusalem is declining before our eyes, becoming a city in which life would be difficult even when peace finally arrives.

In east Jerusalem, Palestinian children suffer from a severely underfunded public education system. As a result, most will not find employment that can afford any kind of social mobility.

Health issues – such as development checkups – are often neglected, and health problems that should be addressed in childhood will become a future economic and social burden, even in times of peace.

Chaos in the material aspects of life is sorely evident in east Jerusalem, where things like dense construction around roads which preempt any future expansion and collapsing sewage systems are creating an irreversible reality on the ground. The poverty and neglect in east Jerusalem will not only cause hardship for the Palestinians living there but will also affect the Jews in west Jerusalem whether the city remains united or divided, because if the city remains united, the need to rectify these problems would affect the funding for the western neighborhoods; if it is divided, poverty and neglect in the east would quickly become fertile ground for crime and terror against the Jews in the west of the city.

In west Jerusalem, the nonharedi Jewish population is dwindling. The city does not attract an economically strong population or young people who are not haredim, as there a few job opportunities. It remains very attractive to the haredim for religious reasons, but they are economically weak. The deterioration of west Jerusalem is bad news for everyone: A Jerusalem that is home to large populations that are economically weak will be a miserable city for all those still left in it.

DESPITE ALL these threats to the future of the city, too often Jerusalem’s municipal decision-making process is shaped by considerations that contradict local interests and cater to global politics. One example is Jewish construction beyond the Green Line. The construction in Ramat Shlomo in north Jerusalem and in Gilo in the south made headlines across the world. Yet, anyone who has taken part in Israeli- Palestinian negotiations on Jerusalem knows that in any reasonable scenario, these neighborhoods will remain on the Israeli side. Moreover the construction in these neighborhoods is of high importance to the Jewish sector in the city, since construction for haredim in the north and for non- Orthodox in the south decreases the need for the haredi population to move into the secular neighborhoods in southern Jerusalem.

Reducing this pressure would strengthen west Jerusalem and this in turn, would benefit the residents in the east. Whether Jerusalem is united or divided, economic and employment cooperation between the two parts of the city keeps them intertwined and interdependent.

However, as Israel refuses to differentiate between legitimizing the building in Gilo and legitimizing the settling in the heart of the Palestinian neighborhoods, the Palestinians and the rest of the world do not make this distinction either. The world hears about Jews who enter homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood after its Palestinian inhabitants are evicted. The result: worldwide political pressure to stop the construction in Gilo and Ramat Shlomo, the same construction that can contribute to the prosperity of the city.

Israel, in response, toughens its stance on Palestinian construction in Silwan. This brings only harm to all the residents of Jerusalem Almost 800,000 people live in Jerusalem, from a variety of religions, nationalities, religious outlooks and ethnic groups. When peace comes this diversity can turn into a wonderful resource for anyone who is interested in visiting or living in Jerusalem – if only we could save the city from its current decline.

For this to happen the decision-making process on the municipal level must shift to a professionalism dedicated to improving services for all the residents of the city, one that sets aside global considerations. A greater focus on these issues at the municipal level will make Jerusalem friendlier to its inhabitants. And paradoxically, focusing on its own population’s needs can help turn Jerusalem, even in the eyes of the world, from a political burden into a universal resource.

The writer is the director of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center and can be reached at hagai@jicc.org.il. This article is published in conjunction with the Common Ground News Service and forms part of a special series on Jerusalem.

By Naomi Roff Kohn, The Jerusalem Foundation:

Year after year participants in the Speaking Art Conference for Jewish and Arab arts professionals, held every December for the past 6 years, respond that they wish to stay in touch with the friends and contacts they meet at the conference. Responding to this feedback, and in an effort to expand the impact of the Conference to continue throughout the year, on June 17, 2010, the Jerusalem Foundation and the Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center hosted a full-day seminar for dozens of Jewish and Arab Speaking Art participants at the JICC main office on Mt. Zion. Participants from all 6 previous Speaking Art conferences were invited to attend.

In the morning some 25 Jewish and Arab participants – musicians, actors, movement professionals – took part in a photography workshop, led by Yoram Peretz, a professional photographer, instructor at Kaye College in the Negev and experienced group facilitator, especially in multi-cultural settings. Participants, working in 3 smaller groups, raised questions such as: ‘How do I view the ‘other’? How do I want the ‘other’ to view me? How does each of us translate the concept, ‘meeting / encounter’?’

Photography workshop - June 2010

After lunch they enjoyed a tour of David’s Tomb, the room of the Last Supper, and Dormition Abbey, all of which are located near the JICC offices on Mt. Zion. For many it was the first time they were introduced to these unique sites, which are holy to Jews, Christians as well as Muslims. David’s Tomb is noted in both Jewish and Muslim tradition and has religious significance for both religions. Christian tradition notes that Jesus’ Last Supper took place in a room above David’s Tomb. In addition, the Virgin Mary is supposed to have fallen asleep on Mt. Zion for the last time; on this spot the beautiful Dormition Abbey now stands.

“This seminar came about as an effort to expand the impact of the Speaking Art Conference, and explore possibilities to strengthen it for the future,” said Nadim Sheiban, Director of the Projects Department of the Jerusalem Foundation and one of the initiators of the conference. “For example, we tried the photography workshop today and, because it is an important medium that enables dialogue between Jews and Arabs, we are considering adding that to the Conference. I know participants were enthusiastic about their experiences today; we will bear this feedback in mind when we get to the detailed planning stages.”

After the informative tour of the Mt. Zion area participants went to work. One group discussed the macro – they worked together to examine the overall vision for the conference and how to create a synergy between professional development for artists and Jewish-Arab dialogue. A second group discussed the micro – specific suggestions for new disciplines, different kinds of workshops, different moderators and guest facilitators, etc. for the upcoming Speaking Art Conference. In future meetings of the Speaking Art Steering Committee these suggestions will be discussed and implemented, if feasible.

Evening Concert - June 2010

The day came to a close in the JICC’s charming garden, with a Oud and Canoun concert, led by renowned oud musician, Sameer Makhoul. As the concert progressed, participants joined in, the fruits of informal practice gatherings since the last Speaking Art Conference. Some contributed on their musical instruments (violin, guitar, darbouka drum), some in song, and some in dance.

Evening Concert - June 2010

“A number of the participants [of Speaking Art] make contacts at the conference and they wish to continue to meet throughout the year,” said Hagai Agmon-Snir, Director of the Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center. “Many indeed meet on an informal basis. I’m glad that we were able to bring together a strong core of people, most of whom have participated in the conference for several years, to get people excited and thinking about the one to come.”

This report was published at the Jerusalem Foundation website.

As a part of our project Cultural Competence in Health in Jerusalem, supported by the Jerusalem Foundation, the Alyn Children Rehabilitation Hospital has decided to open a Muslim Prayer Room. It is important to note that it is the first Muslim prayer room in a non-Arab hospital in the city, and the second in Israel. It is a result of a deep understanding of the importance of prayer to the healing process.

Opening of Alyn Muslim Prayer Room

Community leaders from Tsur Baher, Fuad Abu Hamed and Sheikh Issam, were consulted to ensure that the room was well adapted to the special religious needs of Muslims. These leaders generously helped us to know how to furnish the room allocated for use as a prayer room and gave gifts of Korans and prayer carpets. Alyn Hospital made all the necessary adjustments to ensure that the room included a feet bathing corner, a special clock that shows the time of prayer each day and other essential furbishings. Appropriate signage in Hebrew and Arabic marks the location for visitors, patients and staff.

Today was the formal opening; a few weeks of pilot operation showed that the room is already well used by the Muslim community of the hospital. We at the JICC are very proud to be a part of this initiative of Alyn. Experience shows that patients who feel that the hospital is open to their spiritual needs respond much better to medical treatments.

We hope with time to convince other hospitals in Jerusalem similarly to allow people of all religions room for prayer and reflection in a respectful way.

Getting people to work together, in a challenging political environment, is one of JICC’s most important tasks.

Recently, alongside the many requests from East Jerusalem Palestinian residents to help them meet with officials responsible for the city’s Master Plan, we received a similar request from Jerusalem’s Chief Engineer Shlomo Eshkol to meet with East Jerusalem leaders to discuss it.

Today, it happened. Careful preparation made by Ezadeen Al-Saad, JICC’s head of the East Jerusalem desk, ensured that close to 20 of the main leaders from most East Jerusalem neighborhoods came to the meeting with Shlomo Eshkol at JICC.

May 5 City Engineer Meeting on East Jerusalem

These community leaders came from Beit Hanina, Shuafat, A-Tur, Silwan, A-Tori (Abu-Tor) and Tsur Baher. The city planning situation in East Jerusalem is hard to tackle as we are dealing with problems that have not been addressed for over 40 years.

The Master Plan Maps at the City Engineer Meeting on East Jerusalem

As it was the first time in years that leaders from so many neighborhoods in East Jerusalem came together to discuss solutions, this meeting set the stage for future meetings. Many ideas for the future emerged. First, those who came will continue to meet with the City Engineer to solve city wide issues. Secondly, there will be local district meetings to solve neighborhood planning issues. And lastly - the forum is considering meeting together to tackle other East Jerusalem issues as well.

In mid-December 2009, we were approached by the Mayor’s bureau with an interesting request. For many years, churches and clergies are harassed in Jerusalem by extremist Jews. These harassments include spitting, cursing, offensive graffiti, trashing dead cats to the gardens of the churches etc. There are mainly two geographical areas in which this phenomenon occurs. One is the Mea Shearim neighborhood, an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish area in which there are some old active churches - e.g. Ethiopian, Polish, Romanian and Russian. The other is the Old City of Jerusalem - mainly the Armenian Quarter and Mount Zion (where, by the way, the Jerusalem Intercultural Center is physically located).

Recently, the representatives of the churches at the Mea Shearim area approached the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Jerusalem Municipality and asked them to make an effort to stop these hate crimes. A meeting was arranged with the Mayor, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and churches’ representatives to discuss the issue. Prior to the meeting the Mayor’s bureau requested that we, with our connections, will approach the leaders of the Eda Haredit, one of the extreme Ultra-Orthodox groups in Jerusalem. “Chances are slim” - they told us at the bureau - “but maybe you will be able to get their cooperation in the matter”. As a reminder, the Eda Haredit boycotts the Municipality as an illegitimate regime in the city, and throughout the years has led many struggles and demonstrations against it, including in the past few months. On the other hand, a formal statement by this extreme body may affect most of the less-extreme ultra-Orthodox Jewish world.

So we gave it a try… We knew that the Halachic (Jewish Law) part was easy. According to the Halacha, such hate crimes are sinful due to many reasons. But we did not have a way to know whether the Eda Haredit Rabbis would agree to write a condemnation against these deeds. Indeed we used our connections, and to our great surprise we got a fast response saying - ”of course, we will write such a formal statement”. Moreover, a member of the innermost circle of the Eda’s management, Rabbi Shlomo Pappenheim, was assigned to attend the meeting at the municipality to ensure that the Christian representatives will receive the clear message directly. We received the letter within a few days from our request:

A translation of the letter (thanks to Rabbi David Rosen):

Beth Din Tzedek of the Orthodox Jewish Community

26A Strauss St.

Jerusalem

Fax:02 6221317

Tevet 7, 5770
Dangerous Provocation

Recently repeat complaints have been heard on the part of non-Jews from other religions regarding assaults and insults with which irresponsible youth have harassed them in the city and in particular in the vicinity of Shivtei Yisrael St.

Aside from the Desecration of the Divine Name involved in this which is a very serious sin indeed, such provocation of gentiles is forbidden by our rabbis and may also heaven forbid lead to tragic consequences for the Jewish community at large, May the Ineffable One have mercy.

We thus call on all who are in a position to act to end this shameful phenomenon through means of persuasion, to rally forward as soon as possible to eliminate this blight, so that our camp may be one of peace.

And may the Holy One Blessed be He spread His tabernacle of mercy, life and  peace over us and all Israel and all Jerusalem; and we wait for and look forward to the coming of our righteous messiah speedily in our days, amen.

Signed this day by the ecclesiastical court of justice, here in the holy city of Jerusalem

Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch (the Head of the Beth Din Tzedek of the Orthodox Jewish Community)

Rabbi Naftali Herzka Frenkl

Rabbi Yakov Mendel Yaravitsh

The meeting at the Mayor’s office was very good. Rabbi Pappenheim talked convincingly about the Jewish approach to harassment and was very empathetic towards the harassment stories conveyed by the clergies. On the way out, Rabbi Pappenheim discussed with us possible next steps. This was very interesting as from the point of view of the Municipality, the meeting was the end rather than the beginning of the process. But Rabbi Pappenheim thought differently, and since the meeting we are making efforts together with the Eda and himself to prevent future harassment events. It is important to emphasize that mostly these incidents are not conducted by members of the Eda Haredit, but what drives the leaders of the Eda to continue the process is their leadership role and a sense of shared responsibility.

A few days following the meeting, we got another letter from the Eda:

The second letter was very similar to the first, except for three significant alterations. First, Rabbi Weiss, the main leader of the Eda Haredit is now himself signed on the statement. Second, the letter refers to acts against gentiles not only at Mea Shearim but also at the Shimon Hatzadik area. When we called to check about this change, we found that it was made since there are also harassments of Muslims at Sheikh Jerah and the Eda leadership added this locale to make sure it would be widely understood that the letter is against the harassment of both Christians and Muslims. Third, the statement now gives a clear directive for all those who are able to act to prevent further harassment.

The full story was covered in the press. First, the Ultra-Orthodox newspaper “Bakehila” published a long article with photos from the meeting with the Mayor and the clergies (in Hebrew). Then it was covered in Haaretz in Hebrew (http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1139305.html) and in English (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1139705.html). Our involvement was mentioned in all of these articles. Here is an excerpt from Haaretz:

Poland’s honorary consul in Jerusalem approached Avraham Kroizer, the mayor’s adviser on ultra-Orthodox affairs. The latter turned to members of the Eda Haredit and to Dr. Hagai Agmon-Snir, director of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center, closely tied with the group. [our emphasis]

Eda Haredit representatives denied that members of their community were involved, but said it was possible that “fringe youth” who had participated in the demonstrations were causing the problems.

In recent years, and particularly in the past few months, there have been several incidents in which Palestinians have also been attacked in the area separating the western and eastern parts of Jerusalem. Agmon-Snir and Kroizer said it was not by chance the appeal had been made to the Eda Haredit, even if they were not responsible for the attacks, because rabbis from that community could lead other ultra-Orthodox to follow in their footsteps. [our emphasis]

This is not the end of the story, as we continue the process to minimize such hate crimes in Jerusalem.

In an article we published recently, we described our model for resident participation in decision making in East Jerusalem. This model aims to respond to the anomalous relations between Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and the Israeli establishment. We focused on our special role as a non-partisan liaison agent who facilitates the dialogue between the two sides. At the end of the article, we pointed to one of the issues we have been working on - the Silwan Mother and Baby Center, that was shut down in December 2008, creating a void of baby care (including immunizations, growth control, etc.) for around 100,000 residents.

Indeed, last year, we received a request from residents in Silwan to help them in this case. We contacted the Jerusalem municipality and created a dialogue channel that involved all professional levels at the municipality, as well as all relevant portfolio holders at the Municipality Council. As a result the two sides achieved the following understanding: the municipality will fund the reopening of the center in 2010, while the residents will help in overcoming obstacles such as finding an appropriate location for the clinic in the village and spreading the word about the renewal of the service.

However, a week ago we found out that at the final stages of approving the municipal budget for 2010, the funding for the Silwan Mother and Baby Clinic was cut out. This story was covered on Haaretz Newspaper, December 20, 2009, in Hebrew and in English. Here are two citations from the article:

Professional workers in the municipality’s community authority recently recommended to the mayor that a well-baby clinic be opened in Silwan, which would also serve the residents of adjacent Arab neighborhoods such as the Old City, Ras al-Amud and Abu Tor. The recommendation came in the wake of discussions they had held with residents of Silwan under the aegis of the Inter-Cultural Center in Jerusalem [emphasis added]. It was suggested that a clinic be opened in the Jewish Quarter at the same time.

Haggai Agmon, director of the Inter-Cultural Center [emphasis added], a non-profit organization that works to assist the city’s different ethnic groups become involved in communal life, says that “the urgent need to open a well-baby clinic in Silwan was agreed upon by both sides but to my great surprise, someone took it off the budget at the last minute.”

In the following week, we helped the residents and the municipality officials in their efforts to retrieve the budget. In between, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), sent a letter to the Mayor, reminding him that there is a Supreme Court decision from 2001 demanding adding more Mother and Baby Centers in East Jerusalem. Nevertheless, so far the budget item has not been restored.

This is very disappointing, and maybe typical of the situation in Jerusalem. However, as a non-partisan organization that identifies issues that are important to all sides - we will continue to work in the coming weeks and months, with the residents and with municipality officials, towards the reopening of this important service for babies. In the course of last week, we found out how much support we have on all sides for our actions, and although we haven’t completed the mission yet, we feel that we are on the right track.

In the last two days, December 9 and 10, we held the 6th Speaking Art Conference in Jerusalem. The conference is organized annually by the Jerusalem Foundation and the Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center (read here about last year’s conference) and was conducted this year once again at the Jerusalem International Y.M.C.A.

The Jerusalem Foudnation wrote a comprehensive report of the conference and you can get to it here. We at the JICC were very happy to hear the wholehearted feedback from the 65 Jewish and Palestinian participants. The conference participants worked in three groups: music, theatre, and for the first time this year, a movement group that was a great new addition to the other two. The project managers were Hanan Ohana and Ezadeen Alsaad from the JICC.

The conference concluded with an exhilarating concert by David D’aor and Lubna Salame, who performed together in front of an enthusiastic audience of 400 people in the Y.M.C.A concert hall. This was a unique show, as it was the first time that the two of them gave a full concert in a joint bi-national bi-lingual arrangement. During a rehearsal that took place several days before the event we recorded two of the songs for the innovative concert. The first is D’aor’s song, “Take Care of the World, Child” that was translated to Arabic by Salame a few years ago. Here is the song - performed by both:

The second song is D’aor’s most recent piece that was just put out to the media - “The World I Draw”. Lubna Salame translated it especially for the Speaking Art concert, and they sing it here together:

Needless to say, we are very pleased to be the ones who brought them to work together. And it might as well be only the beginning of them working and performing jointly in the future.

For pictures - look at our gallery!!

We just published an article, together with the Alquds Dialogue Center, at Search for Common Ground (SFCG) Newservice, on our model for resident participation in East Jerusalem. Here are the links and the text:

SFCG: English, Arabic, Hebrew.

PDF (English).

Text:

03 September 2009

JERUSALEM - All over the western world, community empowerment programmes encourage resident participation by involving community leaders and organisers in decisions about the city in which they live. What could be better than the authorities and residents coming together to take joint responsibility for municipal challenges? It seems that in East Jerusalem, all this is not so straightforward.

For those who aren’t familiar with East Jerusalem, the Palestinian residents living in this part of the city constitute a third of its population. Their neighbourhoods and villages have been neglected for years by the Israeli establishment. In fact, significant discrepancies between East and West Jerusalem exist in every area of life.

In theory, the Palestinians could take action and change their situation. Most of them hold permanent residency rights and are eligible to vote in municipal elections and run for municipal office. They can also join a variety of frameworks that would allow them to influence municipal institutions such as parent committees, activist groups working to improve infrastructure together with municipal officials, committees within community administrations which encourage resident involvement and more.

Yet their level of involvement is very minimal. Instead, frustration and despair, and, to a large extent, passivity and acceptance of the situation have taken over. However, if we speak to residents across the city, we will discover that they are very aware of their rights and obligations. In order not to lose their residency rights, they pay municipal taxes consistently (if they don’t pay this tax, they could lose proof of residency within the city boundaries) and are very keen to realise their rights to healthcare, education, housing etc.

There are many reasons for their lack of involvement. First, any cooperation on the part of the residents with the Israeli authorities may be construed as a stamp of approval for the continuing occupation. Secondly, the various arms of the Israeli establishment discourage leadership in Jerusalem which “could get out of hand”. And third, regional and local chaos generates a sense that circumstances are determined by events that are beyond their control. As a result, the dominant approach is to refrain from involvement, while waiting for an outside source to come and save them.

So when seeds of a new approach emerge it is important to take note. For example, in the neighbourhood of Tsur Baher, which is a village in the southeast of Jerusalem, a group of residents came together a few years ago and set up a “committee supporting education”. The committee works to improve the educational systems in the village which are operated by various elements – the Jerusalem municipality, the Islamic Waqf, UNRWA etc.

Instead of waiting for change, the group held a week of educational activities in the village, the pinnacle of which was a day of discussions in the form of “an open space meeting”, which was moderated by the Jerusalem Intercultural Center. The event was widely attended by local residents, principals, teachers, students and key figures in the area of education in the village and beyond, including senior education officials from the municipality.

In other cities this would not constitute anything new but in Jerusalem an initiative led by residents of the eastern neighbourhoods is rare and many people within the establishment were surprised by its success.

What was novel about the event was the statement that informed the whole event: “We are partners to the change that has to happen in the village”. Instead of just accusing the authorities and demanding that they take action and allocate resources, there was a request to look for joint solutions – to be shared by both the authorities and the residents.

In a city like Jerusalem, this kind of development tends to give rise to a great deal of suspicion. The education administration within the municipality which is responsible for East Jerusalem panicked because collaboration with residents is no small nuisance for a dysfunctional system. In the village itself there were voices calling to boycott any dialogue with the municipality which is part of the apparatus that serves the occupation. There were quite a few figures from both the village and the municipality who did not attend events organised by the residents – the necessary conceptual shift that they would have needed to make was too far-reaching, at least for now.

To overcome these suspicions, the activists turned to two organisations to mediate between them and the establishment: the “Al Quds Dialogue Center”, which is a Palestinian Jerusalem-based organisation, and the “Jerusalem Intercultural Center”, a pan-cultural Jerusalem-based organisation. On the one hand these organisations work to persuade the establishment that collaborative efforts with the residents will assist in the provision of services. On the other hand, for the residents, they help clarify the distinction between collaborative efforts on the one hand, and accepting the occupation and cooperating with its messages, on the other.

The process makes for a very delicate balancing act in an extremely sensitive political climate. The tense atmosphere gives rise to mutual suspicions. Are the groups of activists what Israel calls “a hostile terror-supporting organisation” or are they “collaborators, agents of the Israeli occupation”? These suspicions have concrete implications. Any mistake could put the activists in harms way. Therefore, mediating organisations are extremely important in making a collaborative effort possible.

Education in Tsur Baher is just one example. Similar initiatives are beginning to emerge in other neighbourhoods and areas of life such as rubbish disposal, a mother and baby centre in the village of Silwan, Arabic translations of municipal forms, pedestrian crossings and road safety programmes for school children.

We hope we are witnessing the development of a new model for the advancement of the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, a mechanism that can improve their quality of life until a permanent and just solution is found for the city and the region as a whole. Perhaps also this type of model could be implemented in other places in the world which share a reality similar to that which exists in Jerusalem.

###

* Fuad Abu-Hamed, a resident of Tsur Baher, is the chairperson of the Alquds Dialogue Center (http://alquds-dc.org), a businessman and a social activist. He can be reached at bsafafa@zahav.net.il . Dr. Hagai Agmon-Snir is the director of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center ( JICC, http://JICC.org.il) and can be reached at hagai@jicc.org.il. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

We just published an article at the Jerusalem Post and Search for Common Ground (SFCG) News service on our cultural competency program in Jerusalem. Here are the links and the text:

SFCG: English, Arabic, Hebrew.

The Jerusalem Post (English).

PDF (English).

Text:

A call for cultural competency in Jerusalem’s medical services

A few years ago, my mother underwent hip replacement surgery. Before she was discharged, the surgeon gave her quite a few instructions for the period following surgery. There were some necessary accessories and equipment: a wheelchair, special pillows and devices to help lift objects. These were available for almost nothing from Yad Sarah, an organization founded by haredim that lends medical equipment to those who need it.

“If you don’t follow the directions I gave you and you don’t use the equipment,” said the surgeon, “your leg won’t function the way it’s supposed to and the effects of the excellent and expensive surgery will be wasted.” Today my mother traverses the country with her new hip and any memory of the fracture has been erased.

Lying next to my Jewish mother in the hospital were Palestinian mothers from east Jerusalem who had also fractured their hips and received hip replacement surgeries. Most of them, like my mother, were covered by national health insurance, which made them luckier than their sisters from the West Bank and Gaza who are not entitled to these benefits. The women from east Jerusalem were given the same instructions my mother received and were also sent to Yad Sarah, which has branches serving east Jerusalem for the Palestinian population.

Yet there is good reason to suspect that, unlike my mother, many of them are limping today. Research carried out in hospitals in Jerusalem shows that about half of the Arabic-speaking patients do not understand the instructions they are given for post-treatment care because they are given in Hebrew.

One third of Jerusalem’s residents are Arabic-speaking Palestinians, both Muslim and Christian. In times of need, these residents will almost always choose to go to hospitals in west Jerusalem. At some of these medical institutions, more than half of the patients are Palestinian, yet none of them are provided translation services into Arabic or any other language. Occasionally, medical staff improvise and ask an Arab hospital worker or a visitor who speaks both Hebrew and Arabic to translate, making them privy to the patient’s personal medical details. It’s not unheard of for the patient’s child to act as a translator, telling his or her mother that the doctor recommends an abortion or that a suspicious lump was found in her breast.

In addition to the lack of language services, none of these establishments provide religious services to Muslims or Christians. Nurses complain about Muslim men washing their feet in sinks designated for hand washing. The simple solution - low sinks for feet-washing before prayers - cannot be found at any of these places. On the other hand, Jews may receive visits from a rabbi, have meals provided by various religious organizations according to their specific kashrut needs, or pray in an in-hospital synagogue.

RECENTLY, THE Jerusalem Intercultural Center hosted senior directors from the Coney Island Hospital in New York City, introduced to us through our collaborative work with Rabbi Bob Kaplan of CAUSE-NY, an organization committed to the availability of health services in New York. In compliance with the law, signs at the hospital appear in five languages, and anyone entering the hospital is entitled to receive hospital services in his or her own language. Sometimes a translator is present in the room and other times (with more obscure languages) translation is provided through a phone service, called tele-interpretation.

The hospital has a synagogue, a Christian church, a mosque and a Hindu temple - in accordance with the needs of the communities that it serves. Kosher food is provided for Jews and halal food for Muslims. In the case of Indians and Pakistanis, the food is prepared and spiced in a way that is suitable for their palate.

Is this hospital anomalous? Not at all. In the past 15 years the “cultural competency” approach has become widely practiced in health systems in North America, Australia and Europe. It has simply skipped over Israel, despite much evidence showing that medical services adjusted to culture, religion and language improve the quality of care and the outcome of treatment. And, of course, such an approach is far more just and ethical.

Shocked by this state of affairs, the Jerusalem Intercultural Center and the Jerusalem Foundation have launched an initiative to encourage cultural competency. The need, by the way, exists not only for the Palestinian population in the city, but also for the Yiddish-speaking haredi community (which comprises about one quarter of the city’s residents), as well as people from a variety of other backgrounds who speak languages like Amharic, Russian, French and Spanish. We are only at the beginning of the road, but already there are medical institutions, such as Alyn hospital (for pediatric rehabilitation) and Clalit Health Services, that are now building up cultural competency in their facilities.

We hope that by introducing cultural competency into the medical services in Jerusalem we will help reduce the current inequality that exists in this field. Moreover, we believe that this is a way to teach the people of this city the value of accepting the other, being considerate of those who are different from us and to encourage people to think in terms of human rights even in a city as fraught with tensions as Jerusalem.

The writer is the director of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center and can be reached at hagai@jicc.org.il. The project Cultural Competency in Jerusalem is sponsored by the Jerusalem Foundation. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service in collaboration with The Jerusalem Post.