DOCSLIB.ORG

Frontier Jerusalem: the Holy Land As a Testing Ground for Urban Design

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Frontier Jerusalem: the Holy Land As a Testing Ground for Urban Design In 1969, a couple of years after Israel seized East Jerusalem from Jordan, seventy of the world’s leading writers, philosophers, theolo- gians, artists, architects, and urban planners accepted Mayor Teddy Kollek’s invitation to join the Jerusalem Committee, an internation- al urban think tank that would supervise Is- rael’s unilateral unification of the city. Accord- Frontier Jerusalem: ing to architect Moshe Safdie, “such figures as Louis I. Kahn, Buckminster Fuller, Sir Nicholas The Holy Land Pevsner, Bruno Zevi, Lewis Mumford, Dennys Lasdun and Lawrence Halprin” agreed to do- as a Testing Ground nate their time because of “the aura of Jerusa- 1 for Urban Design lem and the Mayor’s personal commitment.” There was, however, an even more compelling reason: Jerusalem offered an irresistible test- Alona Nitzan-Shiftan ing ground for a discipline in crisis. The Western concept of urban beauty as an objective of modern planning had been established in Jerusalem by the British Man- date’s colonial regime. Its commitment to the “visual idea” of Jerusalem emanated from a Western imagination linking the city’s Orien- talist physical beauty to its spiritual virtuous- ness. Escaping contemporary Euro-American urban renewal, inner-city highways, and sprawling suburbia, late-twentieth-century architects sought in Jerusalem’s Orientalist authenticity salvation from a familiar and ubiquitous modernity. Israel represented a new frontier, an opportunity to gain what the West had already lost: the production of “the first 20th-century urban place.”2 Lewis Mumford, the famed author of The Culture of Cities, also wrote Kollek. Long disillusioned with the modern movement’s approach to cities, Mumford believed its ad- vocacy of order, zoning, and scientific urban form accelerated rather than ameliorated the fragmentation of the metropolis. Hence he sought in Jerusalem, in “its [indisputable] pres- ence and person,” the key for a renewed sense of urban unity which, “[d]espite all present 46 divisions and antagonisms,” could be found in district during the British Mandate. The 1949 “the structure of the city, its topography, its soil, armistice cut off Mamilla from East Jerusalem its ancient walls, its historic sites.” Mumford and the Old City, which were awarded to Jordan, confessed, “I feel that in Jerusalem not merely leading to degeneration into a dilapidated the fate of Israel, but the destiny of the world in neighborhood of small businesses and auto- the centuries to come may actually be at stake.”3 repair shops. In 1965, the Israeli government The salient questions for Mumford signaled its intention to rehabilitate Mamilla’s and his colleagues were these: How can cities 28 acres with an architectural competition.4 become and / or remain identifiable entities A bird’s-eye view of the winning proposal, by manifesting distinct personae? How can a Michael Kuhn, reveals an array of modernist city’s spatial and material presence alleviate forms — low- and high-rise, neatly designed the alienation associated with modern urban rectangular buildings — arranged along a main life? Their decade-long preoccupation with thoroughfare with elevated walkways and sepa- these issues had given rise to the nascent rate traffic systems for pedestrians and vehicles. discipline of urban design. Charging Jerusa- The main street spans the valley leading to lem with the mission to safeguard the “pres- the Old City, whose silhouette skims the sky.5 ence and character” of an exemplary city via Kuhn’s proposal came under attack modern development, architects and planners soon after the war ended. National officials turned the newly unified city into their testing wanted the Mamilla area to accommodate the ground for the new discipline. historic character of the Old City and tourists Urban design promised to take into seeking an authentic, Orientalist Jerusalem. account the efficient, sustainable, and profit- Architects condemned the proposal’s obvious able city that modern architects and planners modernity, a blatant obstacle to the “unity” envisioned without neglecting the emotional, they earnestly sought with age-old East Jeru- aesthetic, and symbolic needs of individuals salem. In 1972, Moshe Safdie, a member of the and communities that modernists allegedly Jerusalem Committee, was commissioned to ignored. Thus they focused attention on the create a new plan for Mamilla. urban place as a locus of formal, spatial, and Safdie proposed a megastructure built social identity. Places would induce a feeling of into the landscape, with major transportation belonging and social connectedness, urban de- facilities and several parking floors hidden be- signers argued, only if professionals addressed neath terraced gardens, part of a park leading specific human senses in three-dimensional from the Hinnom Valley to the Old City’s walls. spaces. This approach demanded new skills Projecting over major roads, the paved landing rooted in design methodology and encour- at the top of the park would lead eastward to aged architects to return to the rudimentary the nearby Jaffa Gate, or westward to a sunken functions of their discipline — designing form, pedestrian path bisecting the terraced gar- space, light, and movement — while imbuing dens and leading to Mamilla Street. The latter their aesthetics with moral conviction. would turn into a pedestrian mall punctuated The Mamilla neighborhood provided by several openings overlooking the majestic an excellent case study. Located at the top of vistas of the Hinnom Valley and the Old City. the Hinnom Valley next to the Jaffa Gate — a An adjacent residential village and a major ho- main entrance to the ancient Old City — it tel would follow the contours of a vernacular had been Jerusalem’s most vital commercial Palestinian village. Incorporating open green 47 Michael Kuhn, Mamilla commercial center, 1965. Moshe Safdie, Mamilla complex, 1970s. spaces and a handful of existing buildings Who would be the ultimate narrator slated for preservation, this project disguised of Jerusalem’s story? Mayor Teddy Kollek or the and thus suppressed the visually and politically residents of the city, Jews and Arabs? The Jeru- problematic seam between old and new.6 salem Committee or the Israeli government? The transition from Kuhn’s Mamilla The answer was neither simple nor clear. The project to Safdie’s exemplifies the evolution of government was interested primarily in territo- the urban design debate in Jerusalem and its rial politics, the possession and demographic political implications. Kuhn conceptualized judaization of the Old City. Kollek was invested Mamilla as an extension of West Jerusalem’s in cultural politics: legitimization of Israeli rule central business district. But the very moder- over the entire city by “beautifying” it, thus nity of his plan — its focus on efficiency, func- securing for the international community its tionality, and profit, and its indifference to the “visual idea” of Jerusalem. Jewish residents de- character, forms, materials, spaces, and activi- sired functional urban infrastructure and sym- ties of the ancient city — caused its downfall bolic connection to the city’s Biblical past. Arab after the city’s unification. It was unfit for the residents refused to participate in any planning story that Western critics and Israeli preserva- debates as long as East Jerusalem was occupied tionists wanted Jerusalem’s post-1967 “places” — a condition they considered temporary. to tell about their past. The Jerusalem they After 1967, a return to colonial ideas desired was an Orientalist, place-bound city about the city meant that one particular history in a late-twentieth-century built landscape would have to be chosen to guide contempo- that would solve their anxieties about mod- rary town planning. Why was the Orientalist ernist cities. Seizing this opportunity for both narrative chosen over more recent ones — their beautiful, sensual, beloved city, and their those of the multicultural Ottoman Empire or professional crisis, architects and planners the British Mandate, or the ruling Israeli state’s? accepted responsibilities of urban designers The answer can be found in the words to mitigate the alienating forces of modern- of the American architect Louis Kahn, who ism, confirm their “visual idea” of Jerusalem, declared, at the Jerusalem Committee’s first and tell the story of an antiquated, mysterious, meeting, that “Jerusalem deserved the aura symbolic, and pristine Jerusalem. of the immeasurable.”7 When he and his col- 48 leagues arrived in Jerusalem, though, their 1 Moshe Safdie, “The New search for its urban aura was already colored Jerusalem: Planning and Politics,” Book Review, Journal of the Society by their own Eurocentric concepts of Jerusa- of Architectural Historians, 36:2 lem as a “visual idea” expressing the city’s (May 1977), pp. 130–133. virtuous spirituality. Urban design, which for 2 Philip Johnson, “An Open Letter Kahn was architecture at its best, was the to Mayor Kollek,” New York Times, means to give this idea an appropriate form. February 26, 1971. Introducing what Safdie called the 3 Lewis Mumford to Teddy Kollek, “world of visual and aesthetic determinants,” December 1970, quoted in Arthur Kutcher, The New Jerusalem: Planning architects became complicit, indispensable and Politics (London: Thames & agents in the “beautification of Jerusalem,” Hudson, 1973), p. 9. the quintessence of Kollek’s cultural poli- 4 The Government and the Jerusa- tics. Safdie’s Mamilla project exemplified this lem Municipality announced in 1965 phenomenon. It attempted to situate East a competition for the rehabilitation of what was then considered East Jerusalem in modernity while confirming the Jerusalem, i.e., the area spanning relevance of its built forms, in-between spaces, from Mamilla in the North to Abu and topography, and their overall relationship Tur in the South, and bounded by the City Walls to the East and King to the city’s landscapes and contemporary David Street to the West. Mamilla architecture. Simultaneously, it helped Kollek was the only area of the competi- maintain the Western world’s traditional tion that was subjected to a massive erasure and new construction.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • HOUSTON REAL ESTATE MISSION to ISRAEL March 3-9, 2018
    Program dated: May 24, 2017 HOUSTON REAL ESTATE MISSION TO ISRAEL March 3-9, 2018 D a y O n e : Saturday, March 3, 2018 DEPARTURE . Depart the U.S.A. Overnight: Flight D a y T w o : Sunday, March 4, 2018 TLV 24/7 . 12:00 p.m. Meet your tour educator in the hotel lobby. Enjoy lunch at Blue Sky, with it’s a wide selection of fish, vegetables, olive oil and artisan cheese, accompanied with local wines and overlooking the stunning views of the Mediterranean Sea. A Look into Our Journey: Tour orientation with the Mission Chair and the tour educator. The Booming Tel Aviv Real Estate Market: Take a tour of various locations around Tel Aviv with Ilan Pivko, a leading Israeli Architect and entrepreneur. Return to the hotel. Cocktails overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Combining Business Abroad and Real Estate in Israel: Dinner at 2C with Danna Azrieli, the Acting Chairman of The Azrieli Group, at the Azrieli Towers. Overnight: Tel Aviv D a y T h r e e : Monday, March 5, 2018 FROM RED ROOFTOPS TO HIGH-RISERS . The Laws of Urban Development in Israel: Private breakfast at the hotel with Dr. Efrat Tolkowsky, CEO of the Gazit-Globe Real Estate Institute at IDC. Stroll down Rothschild Boulevard to view examples of the intriguing Bauhaus-style architecture from the 1930s; the local proliferation of the style won Tel Aviv recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage site and the nickname of ‘the White City'. Explore the commercial and residential developments with Dr. Micha Gross, the head of the Tel Aviv Bauhaus Center.
    [Show full text]
  • Campaign to Preserve Mamilla Jerusalem Cemetery
    PETITION FOR URGENT ACTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS BY ISRAEL Campaign to Preserve Mamilla Jerusalem Cemetery www.mamillacampaign.org Copyright 2010 by Campaign to Preserve Mamilla Jerusalem Cemetery www.mammillacampaign.org PETITION FOR URGENT ACTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS BY ISRAEL: DESECRATION OF THE MA’MAN ALLAH (MAMILLA) MUSLIM CEMETERY IN THE HOLY CITY OF JERUSALEM TO: 1.The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Ms. Navi Pillay) 2. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief (Ms. Asma Jahangir) 3. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (Mr. Githu Muigai) 4. The United Nations Independent Expert in the Field of Cultural Rights (Ms. Farida Shaheed) 5. Director-General of United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (Ms. Irina Bokova) 6. The Government of Switzerland in its capacity as depository of the Fourth Geneva Conventions INDIVIDUAL PETITIONERS: Sixty individuals whose ancestors are interred in Mamilla (Ma’man Allah) Cemetery, from the Jerusalem families of: 1. Akkari 2. Ansari 3. Dajani 4. Duzdar 5. Hallak 6. Husseini 7. Imam 8. Jaouni 9. Khalidi 10. Koloti 11. Kurd 12. Nusseibeh 13. Salah 14. Sandukah 15. Zain CO- PETITIONERS: 1. Mustafa Abu-Zahra, Mutawalli of Ma’man Allah Cemetery 2. Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association 3. Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights 4. Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights 5. Al-Haq 6. Al-Quds Human Rights Clinic 7. Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) 8. Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Internally Displaced in Israel (ADRID) 9.
    [Show full text]
  • Israel and Judah: 18. Temple Interior and Dedication
    Associates for Scriptural Knowledge • P.O. Box 25000, Portland, OR 97298-0990 USA © ASK, March 2019 • All rights reserved • Number 3/19 Telephone: 503 292 4352 • Internet: www.askelm.com • E-Mail: [email protected] How the Siege of Titus Locates the Temple Mount in the City of David by Marilyn Sams, July 2016 Formatted and annotated by David Sielaff, March 2019 This detailed research paper by independent author Marilyn Sams is one of several to follow her 2015 book, The Jerusalem Temple Mount Myth. Her book was inspired by a desire to prove (or disprove) Dr. Ernest Martin’s research in The Temples That Jerusalem Forgot. Ms. Sams wrote a second book in 2017, The Jerusalem Temple Mount: A Compendium of Ancient Descriptions expanding the argument in her first book, itemizing and analyzing 375 ancient descriptions of the Temple, Fort Antonia, and environs, all confirming a Gihon location for God’s Temples.1 Her books and articles greatly advance Dr. Martin’s arguments. David Sielaff, ASK Editor Marilyn Sams: The siege of Titus has been the subject of many books and papers, but always from the false perspective of the Jerusalem Temple Mount’s misidentification.2 The purpose of this paper is to illuminate additional aspects of the siege, in order to show how they cannot reasonably be applied to the current models of the temple and Fort Antonia, but can when the “Temple Mount” is identified as Fort Antonia. Conflicts Between the Rebellious Leaders Prior to the Siege of Titus A clarification of the definition of “Acra” is crucial to understanding the conflicts between John of Gischala and Simon of Giora, two of the rebellious [Jewish] faction leaders, who divided parts of Jerusalem 1 Her second book shows the impossibility of the so-called “Temple Mount” and demonstrate the necessity of a Gihon site of the Temples.
    [Show full text]
  • The Space of Contested Jerusalem the Middle East, Has Been a City of Quarters
    The Space of Jerusalem is regarded as one of the classic divided cities,1 contested by two peoples, Contested separated by ethnicity, nationality, language Jerusalem and religion, with concrete and visible fissures embedded in the urban fabric. The Wendy Pullan terminology is widely used, by the Conflict in Cities research team as much as anyone else; nonetheless, the complexity of a city like Jerusalem increasingly calls to question the term ‘divided’, with its implied sense of clearly separated sections or two halves roughly equal to each other.2 With respect to Jerusalem, what do we really mean by divided? And if it is a divided city, what form does this take today, for clearly Jerusalem is not the same city that it was in 1967. Over forty years of occupation have produced a situation where the Israelis and Palestinians do not have equal rights and opportunities, and confusion and shifting policies underlie the way the Entrance to the tunnel under the Hebrew city has changed over time. This murky University, Mount Scopus. Source: Conflict in situation is particularly evident, although not Cities. always made explicit or addressed, in the Jerusalem Quarterly 39 [ 39 ] Map of Metropolitan Jerusalem showing settlements, villages and separation barrier. Source: Conflict in Cities. spatial qualities that characterise and differentiate the Palestinian and Israeli sectors. Significant historical residues are still in play in Jerusalem today, yet, much of what is understood as the city’s current urban space has been shaped by the conflict, and conversely, also impacts upon it. It would be fair to say that today the spaces which Israelis and Palestinians inhabit in Jerusalem are radically different from each other, although the divisions between them are not always simple or obvious.
    [Show full text]
  • My Aunt's Mamilla
    My father’s eldest sister has always served in My Aunt’s Mamilla my mind as a potential family encyclopedia. Helga Tawil-Souri “Potential” because I never had the opportunity to spend much time with her. She had come and visited us in Beirut once in the mid 1970s – I vaguely remember. My grandmother, with whom I spent much of my childhood, would often mention Auntie M. under a nostalgic haze, perhaps regret, that her first-born was so far away. That longing tone for her eldest led my other aunts, my father, and my uncles to joke that Auntie M. was their mother’s favorite. For years Auntie M. endured only in my imagination. Whatever tidbits I had caught about her were extraordinary, a fusion of new world mystery and old world obscurity. She lived in faraway places that sounded utterly exotic: Sao Paolo, Etobicoke, Toronto; that they always rhymed only added to their enigma. The haphazard trail I constructed of her life seemed improbable too: old enough to remember family life in Jerusalem; married and sent off to Brazil; had a daughter ten years older than me who didn’t speak Arabic. Auntie M. hovered behind a veil of unanswered questions: How old was she? Did my grandparents marry her off or did she choose to wed Uncle A.? How is one “sent” to Brazil? Could one even fly to Brazil back then? Did she flee with the family to Lebanon first? Did she really have another daughter besides the one I knew of? What happened to the other daughter? How did Auntie M.
    [Show full text]
  • Jerusalem: City of Dreams, City of Sorrows
    1 JERUSALEM: CITY OF DREAMS, CITY OF SORROWS More than ever before, urban historians tell us that global cities tend to look very much alike. For U.S. students. the“ look alike” perspective makes it more difficult to empathize with and to understand cultures and societies other than their own. The admittedly superficial similarities of global cities with U.S. ones leads to misunderstandings and confusion. The multiplicity of cybercafés, high-rise buildings, bars and discothèques, international hotels, restaurants, and boutique retailers in shopping malls and multiplex cinemas gives these global cities the appearances of familiarity. The ubiquity of schools, university campuses, signs, streetlights, and urban transportation systems can only add to an outsider’s “cultural and social blindness.” Prevailing U.S. learning goals that underscore American values of individualism, self-confidence, and material comfort are, more often than not, obstacles for any quick study or understanding of world cultures and societies by visiting U.S. student and faculty.1 Therefore, international educators need to look for and find ways in which their students are able to look beyond the veneer of the modern global city through careful program planning and learning strategies that seek to affect the students in their “reading and learning” about these fertile centers of liberal learning. As the students become acquainted with the streets, neighborhoods, and urban centers of their global city, their understanding of its ways and habits is embellished and enriched by the walls, neighborhoods, institutions, and archaeological sites that might otherwise cause them their “cultural and social blindness.” Jerusalem is more than an intriguing global historical city.
    [Show full text]
  • An Examination of Israeli Municipal Policy in East Jerusalem Ardi Imseis
    American University International Law Review Volume 15 | Issue 5 Article 2 2000 Facts on the Ground: An Examination of Israeli Municipal Policy in East Jerusalem Ardi Imseis Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/auilr Part of the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Imseis, Ardi. "Facts on the Ground: An Examination of Israeli Municipal Policy in East Jerusalem." American University International Law Review 15, no. 5 (2000): 1039-1069. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Washington College of Law Journals & Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in American University International Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FACTS ON THE GROUND: AN EXAMINATION OF ISRAELI MUNICIPAL POLICY IN EAST JERUSALEM ARDI IMSEIS* INTRODUCTION ............................................. 1040 I. BACKGROUND ........................................... 1043 A. ISRAELI LAW, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND EAST JERUSALEM SINCE 1967 ................................. 1043 B. ISRAELI MUNICIPAL POLICY IN EAST JERUSALEM ......... 1047 II. FACTS ON THE GROUND: ISRAELI MUNICIPAL ACTIVITY IN EAST JERUSALEM ........................ 1049 A. EXPROPRIATION OF PALESTINIAN LAND .................. 1050 B. THE IMPOSITION OF JEWISH SETTLEMENTS ............... 1052 C. ZONING PALESTINIAN LANDS AS "GREEN AREAS".....
    [Show full text]
  • Armenian Christians in Jerusalem: 1700 Years of Peaceful Presence*
    Laury Haytayan1 Прегледни рад Arab Region Parliamentarians Against Corruption UDK:27(479.25)(569.44) ARMENIAN CHRISTIANS IN JERUSALEM: 1700 YEARS OF PEACEFUL PRESENCE* Abstract This paper examines the presence of the Armenians in Jerusalem for the past 1700 years. This historical account sheds the light on the importance of Jerusa- lem for the Armenians, especially for the Armenian Church that was granted the authority to safeguard the Holy Places in the Holy Land with the Greek and Latin Churches. During the centuries, the Armenians survived all the conquests and were able to find all sorts of compromises with all the different powers that conquered Jerusalem. This study shows that the permanent presence is due to the wise religious authorities and the entire Armenian community who had no backing from super powers but they had their religious beliefs and their per- sistence in safeguarding the Holy Places of Christianity. The author takes the reader back in History by stopping at important events that shaped the history of the Armenians in the Holy Land. Key words: Jerusalem, Armenians, Crusaders, Holy Land, St James Monas- tery, Old City, Armenian Quarter. Introduction This paper comes at a time when Christians in Iraq and Egypt are being mas- sacred in their churches, Christians in Nazareth are being forbidden to decorate a Christmas tree in public space, and Christians in Lebanon are seeking to pre- serve their political rights to safeguard their presence in their Homeland. At a time, when the Palestinian Authority is alerting the International Community of the danger of the continuous and ferocious settlement construction in East Jerusalem by the State of Israel, and at a time when Christians of the East are being silent on the fate of Jerusalem by leaving it in the hands of the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, hoping that the Unites States will be the caretaker of the Christians of Jerusalem.
    [Show full text]
  • The Mamilla Cemetery
    The Mamilla When tourists and visitors of Jerusalem walk the streets of the Old City visiting Cemetery; historical sites like the Western Wall, the A Buried History Garden of Gethsemane, the Via Dolorosa, Asem Khalidi the al-Aqsa Mosque and the many other historical holy sites, they usually are lectured by their tourist guides about the ancient city and its biblical history of which Jerusalemites of the three faiths are very proud. Little is usually said about the other history of the city. Karen Armstrong, however, in her book, Jerusalem – One City, Three Faiths, gives meticulous details of many of the very important historical events that the city went through in its long history. In chapter 14 of her book she described Saladin’s first day of The shocked and appalled Jerusalemites and business in Jerusalem after he recaptured the members of the Islamic Waqf gathering the city from the Crusaders in 1187. She wrote: scattered bones left by Israeli parking lot workers in Mamilla, the historic cemetery in “…Saladin also invited the Jews to the western section of Jerusalem (1967). come back to Jerusalem, from which Source: Memoirs of Anwar al-Khateeb al-Tamimi, the last Jordanian governor of they had been almost entirely excluded Jerusalem, in his book, With Saladin in by the Crusaders. He was hailed through Jerusalem, published in 1989. the Jewish world as a new Cyrus. …” [ 104 ] The Mamilla Cemetery; A Buried History It is a very well known fact that hundreds of Saladin’s soldiers and many of his senior generals and administrators who died in the battle for Jerusalem and those who chose to take Jerusalem as their permanent home were buried in Mamilla.
    [Show full text]
  • The Struggle for Hegemony in Jerusalem Secular and Ultra-Orthodox Urban Politics
    THE FLOERSHEIMER INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES The Struggle for Hegemony in Jerusalem Secular and Ultra-Orthodox Urban Politics Shlomo Hasson Jerusalem, October 2002 Translator: Yoram Navon Principal Editor: Shunamith Carin Preparation for Print: Ruth Lerner Printed by: Ahva Press, Ltd. ISSN 0792-6251 Publication No. 4/12e © 2002, The Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies, Ltd. 9A Diskin Street, Jerusalem 96440 Israel Tel. 972-2-5666243; Fax. 972-2-5666252 [email protected] www.fips.org.il 2 About the Author Shlomo Hasson - Professor of Geography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and deputy director of The Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies. About the Research This book reviews the struggle for hegemony in Jerusalem between secular and ultra-orthodox (haredi) Jews. It examines the democratic deficit in urban politics formed by the rise of the haredi minority to power, and proposes ways to rectify this deficit. The study addresses the following questions: What are the characteristics of the urban democratic deficit? How did the haredi minority become a leading political force in the city? What are the implications of the democratic deficit from the perspective of the various cultural groups? What can be done in view of the fact that the non-haredi population is not only under-represented but also feels threatened and prejudiced by urban politics initiated by the city council? About the Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies In recent years the importance of policy-oriented research has been increasingly acknowledged. Dr. Stephen H. Floersheimer initiated the establishment of a research institute that would concentrate on studies of long- range policy issues.
    [Show full text]
  • Annual Report 2012
    Annual Report 2012 CULTURE COMMUNITY COEXISTENCE ...We Know Jerusalem Table of Contents 3 About the Jerusalem Foundation .......................................... 5 Vision and Mission .......................................... 6 Culture .......................................... 18 Community .......................................... 26 Coexistence .......................................... 34 Financial Data 2012 .......................................... 36 Scholarships and Awards .......................................... 38 Donors .......................................... 43 Legacies and Estates .......................................... 44 Board of Trustees .......................................... 45 Leadership Worldwide ......................................... Any questions or concerns about the Annual Report should be directed to Chief of Staff, Ariella Bernstein, [email protected]. Information in this report is correct as of April 1, 2013. The exchange rate utilized for this report is 3.8 NIS to $1. Photos: Jerusalem Foundation staff, Sasson Tiram, Vadim Mikhailov, Yael Ilan, Snir Katzir, Asi Efrati Design: Abstract, Youval Hefetz FROM THE PRESIDENT Dear Friends, I am pleased to present you with the Jerusalem and mutual respect among the city's populace while Foundation's 2012 Annual Report, a year in which over giving everyone hope for the future. $31 million in pledges and grants were raised from The Jerusalem Foundation has become synonymous our friends and partners worldwide, for the benefit of with the city itself largely
    [Show full text]
  • The Upper Kidron Valley
    Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies Founded by the Charles H. Revson Foundation The Upper Kidron Valley Conservation and Development in the Visual Basin of the Old City of Jerusalem Editor: Israel Kimhi Jerusalem 2010 Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies – Study No. 398 The Upper Kidron Valley Conservation and Development in the Visual Basin of the Old City of Jerusalem Editor: Israel Kimhi This publication was made possible thanks to the assistance of the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, San Francisco. 7KHFRQWHQWRIWKLVGRFXPHQWUHÀHFWVWKHDXWKRUV¶RSLQLRQRQO\ Photographs: Maya Choshen, Israel Kimhi, and Flash 90 Linguistic editing (Hebrew): Shlomo Arad Production and printing: Hamutal Appel Pagination and design: Esti Boehm Translation: Sagir International Translations Ltd. © 2010, The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies Hay Elyachar House 20 Radak St., Jerusalem 92186 http://www.jiis.org E-mail: [email protected] Research Team Israel Kimhi – head of the team and editor of the report Eran Avni – infrastructures, public participation, tourism sites Amir Eidelman – geology Yair Assaf-Shapira – research, mapping, and geographical information systems Malka Greenberg-Raanan – physical planning, development of construction Maya Choshen – population and society Mike Turner – physical planning, development of construction, visual analysis, future development trends Muhamad Nakhal ±UHVLGHQWSDUWLFLSDWLRQKLVWRU\SUR¿OHRIWKH$UDEQHLJKERU- hoods Michal Korach – population and society Israel Kimhi – recommendations for future development, land uses, transport, planning Amnon Ramon – history, religions, sites for conservation Acknowledgments The research team thanks the residents of the Upper Kidron Valley and the Visual Basin of the Old City, and their representatives, for cooperating with the researchers during the course of the study and for their willingness to meet frequently with the team.
    [Show full text]