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Programs

Jerusalem is a city with many needs and a quickly changing reality. During its development, The Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center endeavors to meet the city of Jerusalem's needs, in a way that corresponds with the rapid changes and opportunities for growth that occur in the city. Therefore, there is great diversity in The Center's areas of activity, which are all bound together by that fact that they are responses to an urban need related to the multiplicity of identities and voices in the city, through professional assistance to the city's communities and organizations.
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Community Dialogue Projects
The Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center is developing a unique method for a multi-cultural community development termed ”Community
Dialogue”. Community Dialogue emphasizes the
ways in which various voices in the community affect the public sphere,
and it endeavors to create a meaningful social partnership between
these voices, while taking into consideration the similarities and
differences between these voices' needs. The social partnership which
the Community Dialogue process strives to achieve is based on a shared
responsibility to the community and its environment; shared ownership
over community assets and shared passion to develop the community. The
Center utilizes principles and techniques of Community Dialogue
approach in a variety of projects of which it is part of.
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Community Coalitions
Community Coalitions
are
composed of organizations (formal and non-formal) from the public,
business and "third" sector that are interested in being involved with
a certain community subject. Some of the organizations come from the
community in which the coalition is being formed, while other
organizations operate on a wider scale (municipal, national, etc.). The
uniqueness of the community coalitions which the Inter-Cultural Center
encourages lies in the fact that they combine organizations with
different and sometimes even opposing viewpoints on the subjects the
coalition deals with.
The Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center's approach to building community
coalitions is based on two main sources. The first source is the
knowledge gained, through the Jerusalem
New-York Dialogue Center,
from The Center's partners in New-York, particularly Bob Kaplan (JCRC)
and Prof. Terry Mizrachi (Hunter College), which specialize in this
field. The second source is the community dialogue method developed by
the Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center, which sees community coalitions as
one of the tools in the community dialogue's "tool box".
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The Arabic-Hebrew Studies Center in Jerusalem
One of the most significant obstacles that stand in the way of those
interested in creating dialogue in Jerusalem, is language differences.
Nearly all the Hebrew-speakers in the city do not speak basic Arabic
(Spoken or Standard); Nearly all the Arabic-speakers in the city cannot
understand, speak, read or write Hebrew. The Jerusalem Inter-Cultural
Center, working together with the Jerusalem
Foundation,
has set as a goal the emphasis of the need to study the language of the
other in Jerusalem. To this end the Hebrew and Arabic Study Center has
been founded, where students of both languages learn, in constant
dialogue. In addition, programs assist language studies through the
internet are being built, and there are efforts to use innovative study
programs to teach Arabic in schools.
The Jerusalem
Inter-Cultural Center's
main focus in this activity is the training of professionals operating
in areas which require the Jewish-Arab connection.
Speaking
generally, the Jews who work in the field of Jewish-Arab collaboration
usually do not speak Arabic. This lack of knowledge harms the
professional quality of the processes in the field and weakens the idea
that Hebrew-speakers should know the Arab language. In addition, The
Center encourages different bodies to provide every city resident with
meaningful training and opportunities to learn the language.
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Jewish-Arab Cooperation Projects
The Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center, along with the Jerusalem
Foundation,
encourage the development of a new approach to work being carried out
in the field of Jewish-Arab collaboration, based on the special
character of Jerusalem's population, its unique position, and the
status of East Jerusalem's residents. Indeed, the Jewish-Arab encounter
in Jerusalem is different in many ways than the Jewish-Arab encounter
in Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian encounter. In order to implement
this new approach in a substantial part of the work being carried out
in this field in the city, project managers that work in this field in
the city are accompanied and provided with professional training, in
order to create a learning network of professional project managers
that work in Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center and the Jerusalem Foundation's
policy emphasizes creating spaces of opportunities to meet and act
together, in the field of Jewish-Arab encounter.
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The Jerusalem-New York Dialogue Center
The Jerusalem New-York Dialogue Center (also known as the NYJER
Project) creates a unique partnership between professionals in the
field of developing a multi-identity community in Jerusalem and
New-York. This is an initiative of the Jerusalem Inter-Cultural Center,
the CAUSE-NY
which operates as a part of JCRC-NY and The Jerusalem New-York
Partnership (which belongs to the Jewish
Agency and the UJA-Federation
of New-York).
The basis for this partnership is joint study and work in the field of
developing a multi-identity community. The Jerusalem New-York Dialogue
Center enables professionals to acquire new practices, to broaden their
network of associates in the country and the world and to initiate new
projects within their area of expertise. The project mainly addresses
field and academic experts in the area of community development,
community social workers, projects managers, group moderators in the
field of multi-cultural work, agents of change, managers and staff of
community development organizations.
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