The Program; Ma’ase Olam

After a week of orientation in Givat Chaviva (a retreat center north of Tel-Aviv), the program I signed up for turned out to be very different then the reality. While I thought the emphasis for this program would be around social justice and human and civil rights in Israel, it is actually centered on teaching English in the Akko school systems. Ma’ase Olam is a program which combines two organizations, Mercaz Ma’ase and New Israel Fund (NIF).

With that said here is a synopsis of what I’ve been doing here in Israel so far…

I arrived Sunday, September 4^th, which happened to be the day after the largest (around 400,000 people) protest in Israel, the “Tent Protest”. Here’s a link describing Saturday night’s events. http://972mag.com/live-j14s-massive-march-of-a-million-protest-underway/

Also if you do not know what the “Tent Protests” are here’s another link which explains a little bit about how it started and what they are doing. http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/52718/daphni-leef-how-a-woman-a-tent-became-israels-top-story

On Wednesday, September 7 we (the five participants in my program, Ma’ase Olam) met with the Shatil/NIF half of our program. We were introduced to all the different components of Shatil’s New Israel Fund. (Religious pluralism, human rights, policy change, creative writing expression, ect). This took place in Jerusalem where we also had a tour of different neighborhoods which house different sects of Judaism; Ashkenazi and Sephardic. However these neighborhoods were divided even further- into their countries of origin, there was a Hungarian neighborhood, Moroccan, Yemen, German, Polish, the list goes on and on. The tour and discussions were about the positives and negatives of having such separate quarters for the different cultures of Judaism. It was very interesting in the end. Later on in the day we met with a lady who works for IRAC (Israel’s Religious Action Center), IRAC’s main goal is working toward pluralism in Israel. Here is a link to their website. http://www.irac.org/

The next day we toured and met with different organizations in Tel-Aviv/Jaffo. This is where we had the opportunity to talk with the people involved with the Tent Protest. It was extremely exciting to be there. All along Rothchild Street (which is the main road in Tel-Aviv) there were tents simply lined along each side of the road. I talked with a man who does not have a home; he has a job, something with building houses, but cannot afford a place to live. He was very optimistic about the protest because he said it brought together homeless people as well as the upper middle class. During lunch we met with this woman’s organization in Jaffo which deals with Arab woman empowerment. The organization educates women in all areas of life, but focuses on educating them in order to find a job and contribute to the family’s income. After lunch we had a tour of Jaffo from a resident of the city. He told us about the complexities of Israelis and Arabs living in the same city.

Friday, September 9 we left Givat Chaviva and drove to the city of Akko! It was very exciting finally arriving in Akko, seeing our apartment, and walking along the beach. (Since the beach is across the street from our building). We had a few issues with our apartment during Shabbat, mainly our gas did not work therefore we couldn't cook any food, however, us being the create individuals that we are, we made unique salads and ate thawed pizza. In the end though, we had a very memorable Shabbat.

Since Shabbat we have been exploring Akko, both the old city as well as the new section. We were invited to one of our neighbor’s wedding receptions the other day. It was a lot of fun, we didn't stay for very long since we couldn't speak the language (Arabic) and no one really spoke English, but we met a lot of the people in our neighborhood which is always nice. We have also been taking Ulpan (Hebrew class), and meeting with people who are in charge of the “Young Adult” center in Akko. Tonight we are invited to another wedding reception; a Moroccan Israeli is getting married. It should be a lot of fun, she told us to come hungry so I’m excited.