September 22, 2011

More than 1,000 people reveled in a showcase of Haifa’s colorful cultural wealth

at the first Haifa Story Festival September 13-16. Co-produced by SHATIL’s Haifa as a Shared City initiative, local activists and Et LeShinuy (A pen for a Change), and sponsored by the American Embassy, the Festival brought together Haifa’s diverse residents to celebrate one another’s culture and history.

Historical tours of Haifa neighborhoods; dialogues between grandparents and grandchildren about the history of the city; tales of the roots of Israeli feminism, which was born in Haifa; short movies; concerts of local bands; a multilingual book fair and more enabled members of Haifa’s very diverse communities to interact in ways that don’t often occur in daily life, strengthening the concept of a shared city.

“It was an amazing event with top notch organization, much diversity, a variety of venues and sharing in all Haifa’s languages —  Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic and Russian – executed with minimum cost, maximum collaboration and a lot of love,” said Shahira Shalabi, head of SHATIL’s Shared Society program. Shalabi and the partners involved plan to leverage the success of the Festival to promote more inclusive policies in the Haifa municipality.

“We were part of this Festival because it implements our principles,” said Rolly Rosen, coordinator of the Haifa as a Shared City initiative. “Shared society means each community promoting its own culture and more important, the creation of shared spaces where we can hear one another’s stories and create a shared vision for the city.”

 “People love listening to stories, and that’s the best way to get to know one another,” said Shira Lapidot, the Festival’s co-organizer from Et LeShinuy. The partners — which also include the Beit HaGefen Jewish-Arab Community Center, the Leo Baeck Center of the Movement for Progressive Judaism and others — have already begun planning for next year’s Festival.