Kids4Peace continues to bring people to explore the 4 quarters of the Old City. One of the interesting things we discovered was that the quarters were not designed to be separate quarters but rather just different neighborhoods with different communities living in each neighborhood.
With the Support of USAID Kids4Peace continues on this journey, this time taking a deeper look into the Armenian and Jewish quarters.
On March 8th, we were led through the multi narrative fabric of these two quarters by Kids4Peace educator Nir Amit, with the help of youth participants of the leadership program, Nadav, Karin and Eliana.
Group Photo, on the seam of the Jewish and Armenian quarter.
Moving away from the traditional holy sites and stories one is used to seeing and hearing in these two quarters, Nir took us to the Armenian church, talked about the history of the Armenian people and how they ended up in Jerusalem. We took a step closer into the Armenian community – most of us had never been there before. Nir spoke of ‘Jacob the holy and Jacob our father’ leading us through churches and synagogues’, between cultures and communities. We were able to meet the joy and pain of each community, the past, present and future of these communities.
From right to left: Karin (Christian from Beit Hanina), Eliana (Jewish from Bakka) and Nadav (Jewish from Beit Hakerem), and Nir, standing in front of an Old City map describing how it was originally designed.
Karin shared her experience of the Old City with the group “This is my first time in the Jewish quarter: the Quarters are very different, different infrastructure and buildings, this is more modern. I come a lot to the Christian quarter for the holidays. It’s very different here, it’s weird, but it’s nice and I like it. It surprised me.”
Join us tomorrow for our final Old City tour! We will be exploring the Christian and Muslim Quarters with Nir. Meeting at the Jaffa Gate at 16:00.
