Skip to main content

מיסודם של עיריית חיפה     •    משרד החינוך והתרבות    •   סנט העיר החופשית ברמן
من تأسيس بلدية حيفا           •         وزارة المعارف والثقافة               •            برلمان المدينة الحرة بريمن.
Founders: Haifa Municipality • Ministry of Education and Culture • Senate of the Free City of Breme

Joint Activities of the Jewish and Arab Sectors

Over the years, the Foundation has worked to promote dialogue and understanding between Arab and Jewish residents of the city through various cultural projects. In addition to the Foundation's annual support for the Holiday of Holidays Festival (see under Plastic Arts / Museums and Galleries - Support for Cataloging Exhibitions / Beit HaGefen), the Foundation supported many joint activities:

  • Jewish - Arab youth and student meetings

At the initiative of Ort Carmel School Committee, Jewish-Arab youth meetings were organized among various schools.

During the meetings, the guests toured the hosting school and its surroundings, ate lunch together and met for personal conversations.

As the responses of the participants in those meetings were very positive, Haifa Arts Foundation saw fit to encourage this project, and therefore for several years helped Ort Carmel School by covering the travel expenses of the guests, as well as other expenses.

  • Arabic language tour guides at the Maritime Museum

The Foundation's management responded to the request of the Maritime Museum in Haifa to assist in funding Arabic language tour guidance for Arabic speaking visitors. Most of the visitors who speak Arabic are students of the schools who were unable to make the most of their visit to the museum because of the language barrier.

  • Arab-Jewish Community Evening

Haifa Arts Foundation subsidized tickets for high school students of Arab schools and students of oriental courses from schools in Haifa, for the play that was at the center of the annual Gala Evening of the Arab Friends of the Haifa Foundation, House of Bernarda Alba, by Federico Garcia Lorca, performed by Al-Midan Theater and starring Salwa Nakkara, Mohammad Bakri and others.

In addition, the Foundation subsidized admission tickets for students for another play by Al-Midan Theater, The Barber from Baghdad.

  • Support for a project in cooperation with the Ghetto Fighters' Museum

Leo Baeck School and the Italian School in Haifa held an activity at the Humanistic Center at the Ghetto Fighters' House, in the belief that joint work on the subject of the Holocaust would contribute to a dialogue and will help create mutual understanding. In addition, these encounters led to personal acquaintance between students from different cultures. Activities in this framework included the following components:

  1. Exposing the educational approach and working methods of the Center for Humanistic Education.
  2. A continuous workshop over several months, for students who chose to deal with the Holocaust, was held once a week, with a regular coach.
  3. Neighbors Seminar - a two-day seminar dealing with the meanings of being neighbors in a mixed city. The seminar is unique for Haifa students.
  4. A multi-cultural summer seminar, co-organized by Jewish, Arab and Druze graduates from all Holocaust-related workshops dealing with current issues such as the struggle against racism and protection of minority rights. At the same time, the workshops dealt with the history of the Palestinian people.
  5. Meetings of seminar graduates, once every three months, at which the Jewish and Arab students discussed current issues.
  • Translations

The Foundation has approved giving awards for translations from Arabic to Hebrew, and vice versa, in order to bring Israeli Jewish culture closer to that of the Arab world.

FaLang translation system by Faboba