Our host during our day in Beit Shean, Orna Badar, proudly showed us two recent changes in Beit Shean neighborhoods that demonstrate what can happen when a local community is empowered. A community center has been established with meeting rooms and a playground, and a lower income neighborhood has safer and more attractive walkway corridors among their houses. Bridge to the Future's philosophy involves working on four areas of social capital: human resources, economic assets, Infrastructure, and political strength. Neighborhoods are encouraged to decide what they need most, and to take responsibility for making it happen.
Bridge to the Future's model was based on work that Orna did with an Arab village called Jazer-Ezarke, located on the other side of the country near Caesarea. Over six years she has worked on capacity-building projects with the residents of this village. Orna told us that such a project always had a time frame and was never intended to be permanent presence jn the village. We talked candidly and in depth about the cultural differences that make this work challenging. Finally, we heard about a project we could not visit since it is primarily about relationship building: the Transjordan Border Initiative, which created connections between Israeli Arab and Jewish women and Jordanian women.
Over lunch with Jonah Herzel, the director of these neighborhood based programs, we heard how building leadership, responsibility, and credibility within neighborhoods increases the willingness of governmental agencies to direct more resources towards these neighborhoods.
Orna also took us to see two of the economic drivers of Beit Shean, of which they are very proud. Beit Shean's nickname is "the gate to the Garden of Eden" and at Eden Farms, Sion Deko proudly showed us how the way God designed a growing season is being extended by new greenhouse technologies using passive solar heating that enable a year round growing season. They are also doing ground breaking research on stopping weevil damage to date palms, that date farmers around the world are watching with great interest.
The second economic driver for this area is tourism, and we enjoyed the new tourist reception center that awaits tourists coming to see one of Israel's most extensive Roman ruins, located right inside Beit Shean. Rain prevented us from having more than an overview from the viewpoint, but we were very impressed with the accessibility of the site and the knowledge of the guide.
At dinner we we met by Beit Shean native Lior Balavie, who took us to dinner and showed us gracious hospitality. We talked with him at length, not only about the programs he oversees that connects Beit Shean with the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, but about his personal story.
Later that evening, Lior took us to meet two women who would not consider themselves "heroes," but whose passion and commitment to their work and community is remarkable. We had coffee at the home of Chava, an Ethiopian Jew who emigrated to Israel in the early 90's. Ethiopian Jews trace their ancestry from Biblical times when, as Jews, they were forced to flee the land now called Israel to Egypt, and then eventually settled in Ethiopia. As Ethiopians, they really didn't fit in because of their Jewish identity. When some of them realized that their ancestry entitled them to be included in Israel's mission, to take care of Jews all over the world, they began a long journey through Ethiopia and Sudan to come to Israel.
Also in the room was Talia. Talia had lived much of her life on a kibbutz, but when she met Chava and became involved with the Ethiopian women of Beit Shean, she got excited about starting a theater group with the women. The "plays" would be created from the women's stories and there would be no professional actors but the women themselves. The theater group served several purposes; it gave the Ethiopian women an opportunity to tell their stories; it provided a place of support and connection, and it helped to forge deep bonds of friendship between women whose cultural differences may have been insurmountable.
For Chava, her Jewish identity was indisputable; and being in Israel had given her an opportunity to both practice her faith and to thrive. For Talia, her relationships with these women have been a bridge across cultural differences to understand and celebrate part of her own Jewish identity.
Meeting the staff and volunteers who are doing all this work in Beit Shean and seeing the difference it can make was very inspiring. These are the kinds of heroic projects that will build and heal Israel from the inside.
Location:Beit Shean
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