Summing Up and Celebrating Ono’s Jerusalem Social Change Programs in 2021
Ono Academic College’s Multicultural Campuses in Jerusalem, led over 15 free programs designed for all the people living in the city and especially for the students studying, in both East and West Jerusalem.
Nearly 1,900 people took part in these programs including about 700 students (550 of them students of the Hebrew University, Shalem Center, Azrieli College, Lev Academic Center, Bezalel, David Yellin, Efrata, Hadassah College and a variety of Palestinian institutions. This is in addition, of course, to the ongoing non-academic activities (conferences, study tours and the programs geared to provide continued accessibility of the Israeli academy for populations historically excluded from it, especially the population of East Jerusalem).
These programs (many profiled here in previous posts) included:
• A time (a pen) for peace – a creative writing workshop in Hebrew and Arabic leading to joint writing projects
• There IS someone to speak with – Jewish – Arab debate seminar
• When the cannons thunder, the students speak – Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians speak in real time about learning together during the time of conflict
• One God, one father, one land – meetings of religious leaders and communities of believers in Judaism and Islam about how to stop the violence
• Not just humus – a free course about the Arab minority in Jerusalem
• Close relatives – weekly telephone conversations between secular and ultra-orthodox women of Jerusalem about life in general
• A tribe of brothers – meetings between secular and ultra-orthodox students
• How do we get out of this? – Ultra-orthodox and secular students discuss the Coronavirus crisis
Ono wishes to thank everyone who helped organize, initiate and execute and above all – Tova Markowitz the campus director, Merav Koren who managed the administration, Naomi Oren, Ihab Joabi, Itzik Efrati, Uriel Sinai and all the other campus administrators and academic staff who worked hard throughout the year.
