Taking Jerusalem's virtual pulse

0202 facilitates communication between different sides of the city, so that everyone can hear.

By ALAN ROSENBAUM
Updated: MAY 8, 2018 16:56
Dozens of skydivers raise money for ALYN Hospital in an unconventional way (photo credit: SHIRA LAURENCE)
Dozens of skydivers raise money for ALYN Hospital in an unconventional way
(photo credit: SHIRA LAURENCE)
 In early December, when US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, world reaction was negative and predictions of apocalyptic events were widespread. Jerusalemites braced for terrorist attacks, bombings and worse. Yet, while there have been some disturbances and demonstrations, Jerusalem has been relatively quiet.
The relative calm in the city came as no surprise to 29-year-old Shira Laurence. As the head of 0202: Points of View from Jerusalem, she has her finger on the virtual pulse of Jerusalem.
The organization gathers information from Jerusalem’s social networks and distills them into Hebrew, English and Arabic Facebook pages. These pages, edited and maintained by a staff of mostly volunteers, provide insights into Jerusalem as it is experienced by residents of the east, west, and haredi sectors of the city.
Staff members compile and translate noteworthy stories from the news services covering different parts of the city and post them on 0202’s Facebook pages.
The organization’s English Facebook page is an aggregation of stories from these three parts of the city, translated into English. Readers of the page learn about events and occurrences in east Jerusalem, haredi Jerusalem, and west Jerusalem.
For Hebrew speakers, there are three specific pages – one about east Jerusalem, one for haredi Jerusalem and, soon, for west Jerusalem. Arabic-speakers can read east Jerusalem news, and soon will have news items from west Jerusalem and haredi Jerusalem available in Arabic as well.
In the case of Trump’s Jerusalem declaration, from the tenor of east Jerusalem news and Facebook posts, 0202 personnel sensed that terrorist attacks were not in the offing.
“Everyone was saying that violence was going to erupt, but that’s not what people were talking about,” says Laurence, who has served as CEO since March 2017. She studied Arabic in high school and college and first worked for 0202 as a translator from Arabic to Hebrew. There was a series of posts about Gaza and West Bank leaders attempting to stir up passions, she says, but in east Jerusalem, people were upset, but they were not set on committing acts of violence.
“On the haredi street,” she adds, “some people were upset” by Trump’s Jerusalem declaration, but there as well, there were no acts of violence.
Laurence cites another instance in which Facebook posts on the 0202 page provided a window into the views of east Jerusalem residents. In the summer of 2017, three terrorists from the northern town of Umm el-Fahm left the Temple Mount, opened fire on a group of policemen in the Old City, killing two Israeli police officers and wounding two more, fled back to the Temple Mount, and were then shot and killed by police. In response, Israel installed metal detectors at the entrance to al-Aqsa Mosque, which sparked protests in the Arab world.
The atmosphere in Jerusalem was tense, and, says Laurence, “everyone was saying that the next intifada was going to start. We were saying that an intifada wasn’t starting.” Laurence explains why. “We weren’t reading about an intifada, but, rather, we were reading about a social protest. All the Facebook posts on the east Jerusalem page were about when people were going to come out to prayers and about bringing food for the protests. The language that was being spoken was one of social protest and social justice. It wasn’t violent.”
The Facebook page provided a clear window to a world, says Laurence, that wouldn’t necessarily have been accessible otherwise.
The east Jerusalem page translates content of east Jerusalem newspapers and other Arab news sources that mention east Jerusalem from Arabic into Hebrew, and then into English. The west Jerusalem page uses information taken from organizations, community centers and political leaders, primarily from Hebrew newspapers. The haredi page, says Laurence, gets much of its information from printed newspapers, as well as from posts and news that are sent via WhatsApp. On the average, each page includes about six posts a day, provided in digest form.
According to Laurence, 0202’s Facebook pages attract 120,000 viewers a week.
“We can very easily see what is viral on Facebook, what is engaging people, what is being shared, and what is controversial,” she says.
Elan Ezrachi, 63, longtime Jerusalem community activist, explains that the creation of 0202 by Michal Shilor in 2014 was triggered by the tragic events of that summer – the murders of three Israeli teens, Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel, and the reprisal kidnapping and murder of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, a day after the burial of the three Israelis.
In his book, Shfuya Behaloma (Hebrew), Ezrachi explains that Shilor came to the realization that all the information that she was receiving about Arab east Jerusalem was “filtered” by Israeli news sources, since she did not speak Arabic. She decided to create a tool that would enable people to read and understand the voices coming from the other side, as they were being expressed. Today, Shilor serves as chairwoman of 0202.
“In the years 2014 and 2015, there was an awakening in west Jerusalem – that we can’t live in this city and speak of activism and not know what is going on in the city. 0202 is an expression of this,” he says.
THE ORGANIZATION has 35 people on its staff, which is composed mostly of students who translate and receive a small monthly stipend. There are several editors who edit each page, as well as a content coordinator. The organization was founded with the support of the Jerusalem Intercultural Center, a nonprofit located on Mount Zion that assists city residents in becoming active and responsible partners in the development of their individual communities. Most of the translators work on their own time, from their homes.
Ariel Ofek, 27, has been working for 0202 for the past year as a volunteer editor for the haredi Jerusalem page. Though he no longer characterizes himself as haredi, he studied in a yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood, and has family living in the capital.
“I am sure that 0202’s pages expose things to people that they were unaware of previously,” he says. “In my opinion, that is an important thing.”
Ofek gets his information from printed materials as well as from haredi websites such Kikar Hashabbat and Behadrei Haredim.
Ofek likes to post stories that he calls “different,” that show the human interest in haredi society. One of his favorite posts, from this past December, was about a newly married couple who, late on a Friday afternoon, on their way to Bnei Brak for Shabbat, missed the bus, and had to take a cab. Stuck on Route 443, because the Arab taxi driver could not pass through the checkpoint in time, the couple became frantic, got out of the taxi, and began walking. Eventually, they made it to a town near Modi’in. Meanwhile, in Bnei Brak, not knowing what had happened, the parents of the bride and groom were beside themselves with worry, and they had to observe the usually festive sheva brachot Friday night meal without the bride and groom. The newlyweds continued walking and, at 3 a.m., finally arrived in Bnei Brak.
Ofek says that these types of unusual posts interest readers and, in this case, sparked a halachic debate among readers as to whether the couple’s long trek was permissible on Shabbat.
While he says that it might be a bit pretentious to assume that 0202’s posts will lead to full coexistence between different sectors of Jerusalem’s population, Ofek reports that he spoke to a group of secular highschool students about the haredi world, based on the posts that he submits to the 0202 page. The secular students knew nothing about haredi life, and what was supposed to be a one-hour lecture extended far beyond that, because they wanted to learn more.
“Everyone hears everyone on 0202,” says Ofek. “That is the goal.”
Are Arab readers interested in the goings-on in haredi Jerusalem? Ofek says that Arabs are interested in what the haredim are doing, from a religious standpoint. For Arab readers, the haredim are a good example of a religious group that struggles and fights for resources within the city.
Nimeh, 38, lives in Jerusalem’s Beit Hanina neighborhood, and has been a translator for 0202 since September 2017. A mother of four, she was born in Michigan, lived in Jordan as a teenager, and has been living in Jerusalem for the past 10 years. She is fluent in both Arabic and English.
“The 0202 page fills a niche that is not there,” she says. “There are a lot of people from Western audiences who only see one type of narrative. I feel like the page helps to open a conversation between the different sides of the city.”
A recent post from late January reflects how inhabitants from both sides of the city can share similar views. On January 26, 0202’s east Jerusalem page reported that “settlers vandalized residents’ properties and sprayed racist graffiti on walls and cars in Beit Safafa in occupied southern Jerusalem.” The parallel 0202 west Jerusalem page also reported that “this is how people try to stir up conflict between Arabs and Jews in the quietest place in Jerusalem, Beit Safafa.”
Nimeh, who requested that her last name be omitted from this article, says, “I do wish that this page would grow bigger and get a bigger audience, because it is an important voice that is not being heard.”
FREQUENTLY, THE east Jerusalem page will refer to the Israeli authorities as the “Occupation Authority,” regardless of the type of activities they are performing. For example, in January, 0202’s east Jerusalem page reported that “Joint Occupation municipality, Antiquities Authority, and Nature and Parks Authority crews, accompanied by members of the Israeli Occupation forces, stormed the neighborhood of Wadi A-Rababeh in Silwan... and carried out excavations in several areas of the neighborhood to prepare for a ‘pedestrian bridge.’”
Another post about Israeli police had little to do with east Jerusalem Arabs, and referred to conflicts between police and haredim as “clashes between Occupation police and religious Jews in Bnei Brak, near the occupied city of Tel Aviv, due to ‘their refusal to serve in the army.’” Though the protest didn’t take place in Jerusalem, it was discussed on the east Jerusalem Facebook page.
While the founders of 0202 hope that the Facebook pages will lead to greater understanding and communication between groups, a look at the pages can sometimes illustrate the great divide that exists.
On January 8, 2017, an Arab terrorist rammed his truck into a group of soldiers near the Armon Hanatziv promenade in southeastern Jerusalem. Four soldiers were killed, and 17 were wounded. On the first anniversary of the attack, the east Jerusalem page carried an item from the Arab press commemorating “the first anniversary of the martyrdom of Jerusalemite Fadi Ahmad Al-Qanbar, from the town of Jebl Mukaber south of Jerusalem.” The west Jerusalem page carried the comments of Merav Hajaj, the mother of Lt. Shir Hajaj, one of those murdered in the attack, opposing the release of the terrorist’s body to his family, and mourning the loss of her daughter.
NIR HASSON, Haaretz’s Jerusalem correspondent, is an avid user of 0202’s Facebook page. “0202 is an important news source for what is happening in east Jerusalem. I use it to be exposed to moods, perceptions, public opinion and atmosphere.... It is so important for me to be exposed to the internal discourse within Palestinian society in Jerusalem, a discourse that is completely different from that which is directed towards Israeli society.”
Hasson says that 0202 needs to extend its platform so that it becomes better known.
“I think they need to expand to the Twitter network to expose themselves to other audiences,” he says.
Beyond increasing understanding between Arabs and Jews, he says, the project has the potential to improve relationships between the haredi community and other sectors of Israeli society. Hasson adds that the 0202 model of creating pages for different sectors of cities and towns could possibly work in other places in Israel as well.
Laurence says that politicians have taken note of 0202’s unique accessibility to the different sections of Jerusalem. Recently, members of 0202 were invited to a Likud conference on east Jerusalem, to report on concerns of the residents of east Jerusalem.
“Our Facebook readers frequently tag municipality members in their posts, if it is infrastructure-related, and municipal members feel a need to respond,” she says. Laurence reports that due to constant posts and the tagging of municipality members on Facebook, an additional NIS 3 million were allocated to the sanitation department in east Jerusalem.
“We don’t have a particular political goal,” says Laurence. “Our goal is to not only make information available to other people in the city, but ultimately to make it not as foreign to hear someone else’s story. We want to allow communication.”
Ezrachi speaks admiringly of what 0202 has done, with its somewhat youthful naiveté, and says that “citizens have a certain power, which comes from the ground up, that is intuitive and nonideological, that can defuse the tensions.”
Says Laurence, “In Jerusalem, we use the same resources, we are involved in a similar economy, we live in the same city, [yet] we walk around with completely different realities, and it seems crazy to live in a city where three different worlds are being conducted at the same time.”
Some have criticized Facebook users for living in their own bubble of information and staying within their own comfort zone. 0202: Points of View from Jerusalem is one Facebook page that takes people from their familiar world and facilitates communication with worlds that heretofore have been unfamiliar and strange.


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