Shalom from Jerusalem

Dear Amy and all participants in this exciting learning project,

My name is michal Held, and I teach the "twin" living Jerusalem course at the Hebrew University. I have been following up on what you are doing in Colombus from afar with great interest , and at this point, as our video conference meeting is getting closer, I thought it could be a good idea introducing to you who we are and we are doing at this end.

Unlike yours, our course is not titled "Living Jerusalem" but "Jerusalem: Folklorisitic Prespectives". Our aim, however, is quite similar to yurs: to try and decipher what Jerusalem means for the different groups and individuals who are connected to it, and how it plays a part in their identity formation process; to brigde over differences in order to reach a more peaceful Jerusalem for all.

More than once in our class disscussions, the difference between the concept of "Living Jerusalem" and the praxis of "Living in Jerusalem" had been brought up, and we do hope to be able to develop it with you when we meet in virtual and in real life.

There are 21 students prticipating in our course, coming form a variety of fields of study (Folklore, Education, History, Psychology, Geography, International Relations and others.) Except for one man we are all female, and except for one Arab Girl we are all Israeli Jews. The ages are quite varied.

Another aspect that you may be interested in discovering is that the course here focuses on a folkloristic/anthropological field work to be conducted by the students as their final assignement. The idea behind this is to collect the personal narratives of people in whose identity Jerusalem occupies a central place and try to understand, through their voices, what the concept of "Living [in] Jerusalem might mean. We have been devoting a amjor part of our interaction (in class and online) to the preparations for these interviews, and we are all quite enthusiasted to discover where they shall lead us. For you to get an impression of this aspect of the course, here is a partial list of the people whom the students have decided to interview:

* An elderly jerusalem-born Jewish couple: he wax born in the Old City to the family form Georgia (in Europe, not in Atlanta); she belongs to a family form Germany.

* A Jewish man who came form Poland, lived in Jerusalm before 1948 and fought in the British Army as Jewish soldier form Palestine.

* A Jewish woman who spent many years as a teacher in a Jeruasalem high school that suffered some terror attacks and now, after having retired, is doing volunteer work guiding groups of visitors in the city.

* A Christian journalist from Croatia who has been living in Jerusalem for 7 years and covering Israel for the foriegn press.

* The grandson of the late owner of a mythological second hand and antique book store, who came back from Tel Aviv to live in Jerusalem and carry on his grandfather's buissness.

* A man who used to own a coffee house in Jeruslaem during the British Mandate, and still lives in the same area.

In conclusion, will say a few words about myself to complete the picture for you. On my mother's side, I belong to a family that came to live in Jerusalem after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. We have documents proving the family's presence int he city for at least 8 generations, and the family's oral tradition goes way before that. my grandpatents were born in the Ol City and grew up wevy closely with the Arabs until they fled form the are before 1948. My academic research focuses on the culture, terature and personal narratives of the Sephardic Jews, and I am interested in questions of identity in general. I am also a poet, and hopefully I shall be able to share with you some of my poetic reactions to our living Jerusalem experience later on in this journey.

So far for introducing ourselves to you. We are conducting our blogging process here in Hebrew, but I will find out with the students if they are ready to join this blog and talk to you in English. Meanwhile, you are mostly welcome to adrress anything you have in mind to me.

Finally, I would like to thank Prof. Amy Horowitz for inviting me and enabling me to embark on this journey that I find most enriching. None of this would have been possible without her.

Good luck to all of us,
Michal.