One Week Down, Two To Go-Go

My first week in Jerusalem ended with the literally awesome experience of Friday night prayers at the Western Wall, surrounded by Jews of all stripes—ultra-religious, hippies, soldiers, American teens on their first trip to Israel—all pouring their energy into this same spot that has been absorbing and reflecting people’s hopes for thousands of years. All I can say is, “Wow.”

It was great to have time to reflect on the week because so much has happened already. As you know, I am here to begin shooting footage and speaking to a lot of different people to figure out who can best tell the story that I want to tell about this city. Here are some of the amazing people I met with this past week…

OFER and SHAHAR

Ofer Berkovitch and his Hitorerut (“Awakening”) youth movement were some of the original inspirations for this project, so in some ways I was anxious about interviewing him on camera because who knew if he would actually prove to be all I had imagined. Well, it turned out that he did not disappoint at all. In fact, he was more charming, passionate, and hey, just plain handsome than I had remembered from last summer.

Ofer Overlooking His City (Can you spot the Dome of the Rock in the background?)

Ofer gave me more of the backstory of Hitorerut and their amazing run for the city council seats. They started as 10 friends in their twenties with no money who wanted to make a change in their city, and ended up with several thousand volunteers and, in cooperation with the Yerushalmim party, two seats on the city’s 31-member governing body.

Now, Ofer has been in office almost 2 years and he and his friends are facing the challenges that come when the initial enthusiasm of campaigning and movement-building dies down and the daily grind begins to take its toll.

One of the highlights of the interview was when we stepped onto the balcony outside the 6th floor of City Hall, overlooking the major sights of Jerusalem. Ofer looked upon his city and beautifully described why he felt it was a place worth fighting for.

I also met up with Ofer’s best friend, Shahar, who wrote Hitorerut’s platform and has been involved since the beginning. He also writes for Time Out Jerusalem so I asked him to be my guide to any worthwhile upcoming cultural events. His admiration for Ofer is clear, but he’s an impressive guy on his own and I definitely hope to interview him on camera, as well.

EINAT and MEIRAV

Meirav Davish Ben Moshe and Einat Arif-Galanti were two of the co-founders of Agripas 12, Jerusalem’s first collective gallery. Just like everything in Jerusalem, their small and intimate gallery space has gone through many lives—as a curtain shop, a home, and who knows what else—which is part of what sets it apart from more traditional galleries.

Meirav and Eiant were determined to stay in the Jerusalem area despite the lack of arts infrastructure, so they worked with a small group to start Agripas 12 and literally create an independent visual art scene. It seems to have worked, as a handful of other galleries and art collectives have sprung up around the city in the seven years since they began.

Einat in the Gallery

When I asked Einat why she bothers to stay here rather than moving to the bustling creative city of Tel Aviv, she had many interesting explanations but I was moved by the most personal of them. She told of her father being born in a displaced persons camp in Germany after World War 2 and her mother’s family literally walking to Israel from Iran, and how both sides of the family came to start new lives in Jerusalem. She said the city is literally in her blood and she couldn’t separate from it even if she left.

SHARON

Dennis, one of my favorite protagonists from my past film, Jericho’s Echo, has since moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem with his girlfriend Shlomit. I should have known that I could count on them to take me to two of the “the top five underground performance spaces in Jerusalem” on our first night hanging out.

Sharon Battles it Out Hip-Hop Style. "Israel 15" didn't stand a chance.

Not only that, but they introduced me to the amazing Sharon, a tiny little fireball of a girl with a big mouth who uses it for both activism in support of Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and competing in hip hop emcee battles. The night we met, I saw her in a small, dark, club, hashing it out and holding her own in a freestyle hip hop parlee with a much taller, right wing guy. Only in Israel…

I am definitely going to try to spend some time filming with her before I leave.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

I also interviewed Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur, who specializes in the environmental aspects of city planning, and talked of housing challenges for young people in the city and her own impressive and late-blooming road to politics which only began after raising children to adulthood. Finally, I had enlightening conversations with two researchers from the Jerusalem Institute of Israel Studies (one of whom actually volunteers in the research and urban planning wing of Hitorerut) about the changing demographics of Jerusalem over the past 40 years.

This upcoming week will be jam-packed with shoots, as I am hiring an Israeli camera man to work with me and want to make the most of his time. The stories above from this past week are really only the beginning. Thanks for being along for the adventures!