On paper, Josh Sirefman may seem like a strange inclusion in a project that
hosts five artists from various fields for a month at Mishkenot Sha’ananim,
during which the guests present and participate in creative activities,
lectures, workshops, performances and meetings with the public and focus groups.
After all, the program, which is supported by the National Foundation for Jewish
Culture (NFJC), the Jerusalem Foundation and the Beracha Foundation, does cater
to artists.
Sirefman, a town planner from New York, agrees and adds that
his profession can involve some logistics that the “real” artists may not have
to encounter. “I run my own business and last week, in the middle of this
program here in Jerusalem, I had to go back to the States for a week to meet
with clients.”
Then again, town planning surely has some artistic
elements to it too. “I think it’s a lovely way to think about my work, even
though I don’t wake up every morning thinking I’m creating art in the work that
I do. But my work creates the venue for the artists to do their thing. So I
suppose, in that way, there is a connection.”
Sirefman has certainly been
involved in his fair share of venue creating, principally in New
York.
Between 2004 and 2006 he worked alongside Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
developing economic development strategies to enhance the business climate in
the Big Apple. He worked on a range of heavy budget projects, including in Coney
Island, New York Harbor and downtown Brooklyn. So the man has obviously paid his
dues and continues to do so on the grandest and definitively street levels of
ways.
Despite the seeming professional mismatch, Sirefman feels there is
plenty of common ground between him and his fellow guests on the Mishkenot
Sha’ananim bill and, indeed, with the public at large. “I always find that, in
any context, everybody enjoys engaging in the issues of city planning. For
example, some of my colleagues here have tagged along to some of the things that
have been arranged for me on this program. It’s interesting stuff. You’re
dealing with the world around you in a very direct way. In my experience, people
are extremely cognizant of the built world around them. I call it ‘the planner
within everybody.’” Mind you, the world in Sirefman’s regular vicinity is, well,
a world or two away from what town planners in Jerusalem have to deal with in
trying to get their work done. On a prosaic level, for example, Sirefman – a
keen road cyclist – wondered whether any bicycle paths had been woven into
Jerusalem’s logistically cramped milieu.
“There appears to be no evidence
of that,” he notes, adding that during his time here he has become more aware of
some problems his Israeli professional counterparts have to solve or sidestep
when trying to get their work done. “I haven’t looked at a single place, project
or issue that is not entirely informed by the conflict in the larger
geopolitical issues. It is underlying everything – certainly everything I have
seen and have been trying to understand. It’s different from New York and from
anywhere else I have seen in the world. It’s extraordinary. You’re in this
physically tight space with these historical issues, and then you layer on the
fundamental underlying conflict.
It’s by far the most difficult challenge
I’ve ever seen.”
Then again, urban planning is urban planning, and
Sirefman sees a lot that can be achieved here.
“Even with the underlying
conflict, at the end of the day it’s a real estate problem, and that infuses
everything. There are certainly things that are doable in, say New York or
Chicago, which can be done in Jerusalem too, for sure. New York is also a very cramped city, and every inch of land has multiple
interests.”
Sirefman is also a firm believer in the powerful positive
impact that town planning can have on the life of a city and the people who live
and work in it. “I have had some long conversations with [Hebrew University
geography professor] Shlomo Hasson, and one of the places we have looked at is
the French Hill junction. That was a very compelling place to be because you
have a classic nexus of everything. You keep going north and you hit Ramallah;
it’s one of the boundary points between east and west Jerusalem, and it’s a
massive intersection going in every direction. Then you’ve got the light rail
and two huge pieces of land there that are vacant, which I think are stateowned,
and you’ve got a park on a third corner and that, right there, offers an
opportunity to change the experience of going through that spot.”
Open
spaces and how to utilize them to the best effect are elements that
occupy much
of Sirefman’s working hours. During his time here, he has been taking a
look at
Jerusalem’s parks and considering the various ways they can benefit the
public
and how to draw more people to them. “I find the way that open spaces
are used
here is very interesting. Someone used the expression ‘geography of
fear.’ I
don’t know if it is that people don’t want to be in open spaces, but I
don’t
think the open spaces I’ve seen here are particularly inviting.”
That,
Sirefman feels, is an area that also offers regional bonding potential.
“I could
envisage an interesting collaboration between the Hebrew University and
the [Bir
Zeit] university I visited in Ramallah. You could have some sort of
collaborative campus on one corner of the French Hill junction.”
Here
he
draws on his professional experience on the other side of the pond. “One
project
I kept thinking of when I saw French Hill was an indoor performing arts
center
just outside New York City, which brings people from many different
communities
together. I could see a great cultural center, a sort of mini-Lincoln
Center,
being created on one of those corners of the junction. It’s a great
venue for
building a cultural facility to sort of bridge that [politicalcultural]
divide.
I believe the work I do in New York could definitely be applied in
Jerusalem.”
After a few weeks here, Sirefman feels he has a
better
understanding of the types of issues that local urban planners grapple
with on a
daily basis. Far from being daunted, he says he relishes the prospect of
working
with them at some stage. “Urban planners certainly don’t have an easy
time here,
but I think I’d like to have a go at some things here. I like a
challenge.”