Currently, VU is working with the renowned Israeli scholar, artist and cultural critic, Professor Chaviva Pedaya of Beer Sheva University in formulating her ideas on this topic.  Until now, VU’s work in this area focused on the development of four demonstration sites:

Siach Milev Hamevucha: Heidim U’Kolot Mimifgash Bein Tarbuti BeBeit Sefer Shevach-Moffet  or After Exodus: Jewish Encounters in the Unpromised Land:  Published in 2008 by Keter Publishing House, this book and website provides a record of an unprecedented year long intercultural encounter in Israel initiated by Daniel Marom at the Shevach-Moffet School in south Tel Aviv.  Participants included six Russian-speaking immigrant teachers in the school and six veteran teachers of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, who met once a week for over a year and traveled to Russia together so as to learn about each other’s worlds beyond the stereotypes.  The encounter was led by Marom together with Simon Parizhky from St. Petersburg, who studied at MLI at the time in the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows program and the book was co-edited with Mikki Miller, a veteran teacher at Shevach-Moffet who immigrated to Israel from Slovakia when he was nine years old.  The book, which presents cultural interaction as a fundamental, unique and compelling category of Israeli identity in the 21st century, received strong reviews from the Israeli media and was studied and presented in and beyond MLI.  It is now being submitted for publication in Russian and English.  In addition, VU worked with educators in the group in producing curricula that facilitate cultural interaction among Israeli learners.  Among these was a demonstration Bible study curricular unit that was developed on the story of the binding of Isaac in Israeli art. The unit is found on Mikranet, the central website for teachers of Bible in Israel.

Massorti’im or Traditionalists:  VU’s Yaffa Benaya produced a website library on the ideas, values and texts that speak for the large but unheard constituency of traditionalist Jews in Israel.  Larger than the strictly secular and strictly Orthodox constituencies in Israel, these are a mix of Jews who are descendants of immigrants from Arab lands and those who do not feel at home in the constituencies whose Jewish self-definition is inflexible.  The work for thus site included a seminar with leaders of the Mimizrach Shemesh and Morasha programs, which were established by MSEL graduate Yehuda Meymran as a basis for the development and advancement of a traditionalist vision of Israeli education in schools and adult education programs.  In addition to providing support for their efforts (Mimizrach Shemesh has officially taken over the website), the site was developed in order to familiarize educational leaders who work with traditionalist Jews with their ethnic and cultural backgrounds and to inspire them to undertake similar learning with reference to learners from other backgrounds as well.
    

Merchav Hayitzira Hameshutefet or Shared Creative Environment:  Yael Bar-Lev collaborated with Dr. Gadi Ben Ezer, a leading Israeli social psychologist with expertise in intercultural relations, in formulating a pedagogical approach on the basis of his theoretic principle for effective interaction among Israelis of different backgrounds – shared creative space.  This work involved both theoretical investigation and field development with Ben Ezer, whose specialization in the interaction between Israeli veterans and immigrants from Ethiopia provided a significant illustration and test case.  The field development took place at a kindergarten in Netanya, where Israeli children of diverse backgrounds (with a strong constituency of children of Ethiopian immigrants) learn together with an educator who is herself an immigrant from Argentina.  Bar Lev and Ben Ezer are currently writing a summary of their work in preparation for publication.