Travel to Israel with NIF’s New Generations
February 29-March 8, 2008
Travel to Israel with NIF, the leading organization working to strengthen Israel's democracy and promote justice and equality for all Israel's citizens. Go behind the newspaper headlines and television sound bites to examine the social and ideological realities of contemporary Israeli life. Explore Israel’s sights and sounds, and discover the country’s mosaic of cultures and identities. Travel with emerging leaders of Israel’s dynamic social change movement. Through personal encounters, learn about key challenges facing Israel and the steps Israelis are taking to meet them.
PROGRAM ITINERARY
Note: This is a draft itinerary and subject to change
Friday, February 29
Check in to hotel, Tel Aviv
Opening session: Introduction to the group and the trip (NIF or ACRI speaker)
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), NIF’s flagship grantee, is Israel 's leading human and civil rights organization and the only organization dealing with the entire spectrum of rights and liberties issues.
Kabalat Shabbat with Bina OR optional services at Beit Daniel, Yafo
Bina stands for "Beit Yotzer Nishmat Ha'uma - A Creative Home for our Nation's Soul" coined by Haim Nachman Bialik. Bina strives to strengthen Israel as a democratic, pluralistic society, stressing Humanistic aspects of Jewishness.
Beit Daniel –The Center for Progressive Judaism in Tel Aviv serves as both a community center and a synagogue. Beit Daniel offers the greater Tel Aviv area a wide range of cultural and educational activities and religious services.
Group Shabbat dinner (either at hotel OR in a restaurant)
Overnight in Tel Aviv
Saturday, March 1
Breakfast in hotel
Free day in Tel Aviv: Optional tours of Tel Aviv Museum and Neve Zedek
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Israel's main art museum, first opened to the public in 1932 in the home of Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff. The Museum quickly became the cultural center of the Tel Aviv, presenting local and foreign artists. In addition to its steadily growing collections, the museum serves as a platform for free-thinking cultural and artistic exchanges.
Neve Zedek was one of the first neighborhoods to be built (in 1887) in the sand dunes outside of Jaffa. Previously somewhat dilapidated, the area has started to flourish as a center for artists’ studios, restaurants and cafés.
Lunch on your own
Dinner at Suzanna, a restaurant in Neve Zedek
Evening performance at Suzanne Dellal Center for the Arts (optional)
Overnight in Tel Aviv
Sunday, March 2
Breakfast discussion with NIF grantee, The Hotline for Migrant Workers
The Hotline for Migrant Workers is dedicated to promoting the basic civil and human rights of migrant workers and victims of human trafficking in Israel.
Checkout
Depart hotel for Umm El-Fahm,
Umm El-Fahm is the social, cultural, and economic center for a large percentage of the residents of the Triangle Region
Meeting with Mohamad Marazka, director of Shatil in the Triangle
Location: Umm El-Fahm Art Gallery
The Umm El-Fahm Art Gallery is the first gallery dedicated to Arab art in Israel. The museum aims to create dialogue between Arab and Jewish Israelis through art, as well as preserving and advancing local art.
Lunch at Al-Babur Restaurant, Umm El-Fahm
Drive to Ein Hod
Walking tour of Ein Hod/Ein Hud
Ein Hod is a picturesque artists’ village, the only one of its kind in Israel and one of the few such villages in the world. Nestled in natural vegetation and bordered by an ancient olive grove, it lies on the western slopes of Mt Carmel, in a breathtaking landscape looking out toward the sea and the Crusader fortress of Atlit.
Living Art - Explore the artists’ village of Ein Hod
Ein Hud was a Palestinian village on Mount Carmel. During the War of Independence, the Israel army occupied the village, and the inhabitants fled. One group of these villages fled to nearby family land on the mountain, and began building a new village named after the old one. Only recently has Ein Hud been recognized and been granted basic services, like electricity, by the Israeli Government.
Light dinner in Ein Hod/Ein Hud
Overnight in the Nazareth
Monday, March 3
Breakfast at Hotel with Nabila Espanioly, a member of NIF’s International Committee
Visit NIF grantee Eretz Carmel
Eretz Carmel, Promotes models of sustainable growth and revival of the environment, while at the same time preserving quality of life and building for a better future.
Lunch provided by NIF grantee Eretz Carmel
Visit Shatil office in Haifa, meeting with Fathi Marsud, Director of Shatil Haifa
Shatil, The New Israel Fund's Empowerment and Training Center for Social Change Organizations in Israel, was established by NIF in 1982 to provide NGOs with consulting and training in organizational development, advocacy, media and public relations, coalition building, resource development etc. With headquarters in Jerusalem and branches in Beer Sheva, Haifa and the Triangle, Shatil promotes community organizing as a primary strategy for social change; reaches out to strengthen constituencies on the economic and geographic periphery; facilitates coalitions among diverse communities; and fosters the building of institutions to promote long-term social change to benefit all Israelis.
Dinner in Nazareth at the Diana Restaurant
Overnight in Nazareth
Tuesday, March 4
Breakfast & checkout
Visit to Beit She’an, archeological excavation site
Lunch on the way to the Dead Sea
Visit with NIF project Green Environmental Fund
Green Environment Fund is at the forefront of Israel's environmental movement and the largest funder of environmental NGOs in Israel.
Free time at the Dead Sea
The Dead Sea is the lowest point on dry land in the world, and has the highest salt concentration of any of the world’s seas, salt lakes, or any stretch of water, and is in fact ten times higher than any other sea, thus making floating on its waters effortless.
Dinner at Kibbutz Ein Gedi
Overnight at Kibbutz Ein Gedi
Wednesday, March 5
Breakfast & checkout
Depart for Be’er Sheva
Visit Shatil office in Be’er Sheva
Building the Negev Civil Society – Meet with staff of Shatil Beersheva – the NIF empowerment and training center for social-change organizations, to hear about the challenges of the region and the wide range of populations that Shatil works with -immigrants from Ethiopia and the FSU, Bedouins, veteran residents of the development towns of the periphery, and others.
Lunch meeting with Hadra El-Sana, of NIF grantee Sidreh
Sidreh focuses on strengthening and empowering the population of Bedouin women for whom the transition from a traditional Bedouin lifestyle has resulted in their loss of a defined role and status in their community, and with the highest unemployment in the country. Sidreh comprises 2 branches: the educational branch organizes courses and the economic branch runs a weaving project.
Drive back to Jerusalem via Deir Rafat and Latrun vineyards
(Wine-tasting at the vineyards)
Arrive in Jerusalem
Dinner on your own and a free evening
Overnight in Jerusalem
Thursday, March 6
Breakfast in Hotel
Depart hotel
Meeting and tour of Hebron with Mikhael Manekin, Director of Breaking the Silence
Breaking the Silence: Soldiers Promoting Awareness of Activities in the Occupied Territories
Light lunch at NIF offices with Shatil staff. Lunch will be provided courtesy of “Women Cooking up a Business.”
Women Cooking up a Business – Unemployed Women Becoming Professional Chefs
offers realistic alternative economic opportunities to unemployed women in Kiryat Ha-Yovel
in Jerusalem. The project offers many economic options – from employment in restaurants, to
starting one’s own business or a cooperative.
Tour of the Separation Fence with Sarah Kreimer, Associate Director of Ir Amim
Ir Amim initiates informed public discussion and discreet discourse among decision makers, opinion shapers and the relevant publics, about the possible futures for Jerusalem. The organization aspires to a stable city, equitably shared by both Israeli and Palestinian peoples, a city that ensures the dignity and welfare of all its residents, a city which safeguards their holy places and their historical and cultural heritage.
Return to hotel and free time
Dinner on your own
Overnight in Jerusalem
Friday, March 7
Breakfast with guest speaker (we are currently looking into getting Aluf Ben, Bradley Burston or Lili Galilli of Ha’aretz to speak)
Tour of the Old City of Jerusalem
Lunch on your own
Tour of the Museum on the Seam
Museum on the Seam, is a unique museum in Israel, displaying contemporary art that deals with different aspects of the socio-political reality. Through the works of artists from Israel and abroad, who respond to the stress and tension between and within groups, the museum invites the visitors to examine the degree of influence of the social environment on the individual and vice versa.
Friday services at Kol HaNeshama synagogue
Kol HaNeshama is an active and vibrant center for Progressive Judaism in Jerusalem. The community is situated in Baka and serves the greater population of Sothern Jerusalem. Kol HaNeshama is a pluralistic, egalitarian, and spiritually welcoming community.
Group Shabbat dinner
Overnight in Jerusalem
Saturday, March 8
Breakfast at hotel
Optional walking tour of Jerusalem with NIF Executive Director in Israel Eliezer Ya’ari
My Jerusalem - A walking tour with long-time Jerusalemite and NIF Director in Israel, Eliezer Ya’ari (pass by Yemin Moshe and the King David Hotel & YMCA, walk to Musrara, continue through Rechov Hanevi’im – Beit Ticho, Ethiopian Church – to Nachla’ot)
Yemin Moshe was the first neighborhood built outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City. The neighborhood has cobblestone streets and picturesque homes, as well as galleries of local artists. The historic neighborhood of Musrara is on the border between east and west Jerusalem and home to diverse communities. In the heart of Jerusalem’s downtown, Nachlaot is one of the city’s older and more colorful neighborhoods, retaining much of its original 19th century architecture, narrow alleyways and cobblestone streets. Nachlaot has a multitude of synagogues representing the different communities of the neighborhood.
Closing luncheon
Goodbye
