Getting a young start

The Jerusalem Municipality’s Young Adult Authority may be being a little harsh on itself, at least in nominal terms. The authority’s latest brainchild, designed to breathe some new life into small and other businesses dotted around the capital, goes by the supposedly self-explanatory name of Starter.

But surely there have been plans in place to draw the public to enterprises in the center of town and elsewhere, and offer young city residents a wider spread of cultural and leisure opportunities for some time now? Starter is due to run over the course of three weeks and, in fact, started on Sunday. Like the authority’s recent Sheon Horef program, which was based on a format of cultural and other events taking place in various areas of the city on Mondays, Starter – which takes in around 150 events, all told – also features activities in the relatively slow part of the week, when people tend to pop out less for some leisure time fun. This week’s Starter activities took place Sunday to Wednesday, as they will next week, with more from Sunday to Tuesday in the third and final week.

As with Sheon Horef, the authority printed and circulated an attractive, informative and handily compact brochure with a list of all the multifarious things happening, right across the city, over the three weeks. Page 3 of the 22-page booklet contains an interesting range of possibilities on the meaning of the project title. We are told that “starter” is a noun which may, for example, refer to a mechanical/electrical component that helps to fire a combustion engine into life.

Then again, it could be a casino employee landed with the job of encouraging visitors to shell out their hard-earned readies, the first course of a meal or just something designed to get something up and running.

All of the above definitions, and the other three in the one-term glossary, seem to apply to the authority’s latest initiative for getting Jerusalemites out and about – thereby giving the local economy a much-needed push in the desired direction.

Lilach Rubin certainly hopes Starter will do the trick.

Rubin is proprietor of the Shraga café-restaurant on Yanai Street, in deepest downtown. The said thoroughfare has not had an easy time over the years, but it definitely appears to be on the up and up. Shraga is an eminently aesthetic establishment with a nicely varied vegetarian menu that includes options for vegans.

Rubin is a seasoned member of the national culinary community, and has taken upon herself the demanding role of overseeing the lineup of Wednesday’s Jerusalem Culinary Arts program. She also took part in Sheon Horef, when Shraga pulled in the crowds to gain some enlightenment from a couple of popular food bloggers, but says she has learned a lesson or two from that.

When I walked past the restaurant on the relevant Sheon Horef evening, I was unable to gain access to the premises because it was chockablock. “Yes, we were jam-packed, but that doesn’t mean we made a mint out of that evening,” notes Rubin soberly. “Lots of people came, but many just came to listen to the bloggers and didn’t buy anything here.”

While understandably frustrated at the missed i n c o m e - g e n e r a t i n g opportunity, Rubin says she will take a different line at next year’s Sheon Horef. That is also a message she tries to convey to her fellow Jerusalemite business proprietors. “Next year, I will set a cover charge.

It’s all well and good for the municipality to come up with these initiatives but we, the business owners, have to make the most of them. We have to make sure we make money from these events.”

And there are plenty of things going on over the three weeks. Each day is based on a different theme.

The first evening went by the name of Childhood (For Grownups), and proffered such nostalgia-oriented fare as a singalong with Yonatan Marcus at Tommy’s restaurant on Keren Kayemet Street; there was yesteryear vocal entertainment at Café Yehoshua at 17 Aza Road, when Dana Sasson ran through a program of Arik Einstein hits. Just up the street, adults looking to get in on the action enjoyed an origami workshop at ABC at 40 Aza Road, with fun passive entertainment on-offer at Shosh Café back on Keren Kayemet Street – where there was a screening of the ever-popular zany ’80s movie The Princess Bride.

Tuesday was devoted to family-oriented activities, with venues in Kiryat Hayovel, French Hill, East Talpiot, the First Station, the Islamic Museum and Cinema City, while Wednesday’s design roster took in fashion, caricature art, a drawing and sketching workshop and some advice on home styling. Meanwhile, Rubin’s purview this week includes a bakery workshop, a guided market tour in the east of the city, a photography workshop at the 1868 restaurant on King David Street, a tea workshop at the Halitatea tea house and some words of wisdom on domestic beer-making.

IT HAS not gone unnoticed that Starter is following hot on the heels of Sheon Horef, which took place every Monday in February.

“The idea was to give businesses and young people a boost during the winter,” explains Einat Gomel from the Young Adult Authority, and one of the Starter movers and shakers.

“There is a [national] winter campaign that is subsidized by the government; it is a program which plans five years ahead, to support businesses, culture, the arts and the like. Some of those funds go to events that have already been set up, like the Jerusalem Marathon and the Sounds of the Old City Festival. The only [new] project included in the government campaign is Starter.”

Sheon Horef was a beneficiary of this government assistance, as is Starter. “One of the conclusions we reached at the Young Adult Authority was that atmosphere is a very important parameter,” Gomel continues. “Young people often decided to live in the most expensive and filthy area – downtown Jerusalem – because of the ambience of the place, where they can also go on foot to all sorts of places. Our project is not just aimed at the center of the city, but focuses specifically on places where young adults live.”

That is a highly salient point. Jerusalem has battled “negative migration” for some time, whereby youngsters who come from out of town to study at places like the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design often spend the three or four years of study in Jerusalem. As soon as they lay their hands on their diploma, they hot-foot it back to Tel Aviv – which offers greater employment opportunities.

Another institution that draws youngsters to Jerusalem is the Nissan Nativ Acting Studio, so I checked out the prevailing line of thought there among final-year students. Will they stay on in the capital after they get their degree – possibly encouraged by local initiatives such as Starter – or will they stampede on Route 1 to Tel Aviv, which has a far greater swathe of theatrical institutions? Overall, it appears the latter is the case. While 26-year-old Naama Bogat, a native Jerusalemite, is happy about the initiative, she is not at all sure it will achieve the desired end result of keeping youngsters like herself in the city. “I will stay in Jerusalem if I find work in my field,” she declares. “I am moving to Tel Aviv, literally the day I graduate. There are so many more options in the field of theater in Tel Aviv – even in fringe theater. You also have to be in Tel Aviv, because acting agencies don’t want to get in a car and spend an hour on the road, each way, to come see you perform in Jerusalem. It just doesn’t work that way.”

Then again, if Starter and its ilk do eventually manage to definitively kick-start the Jerusalem scene in her field, in economic and professional terms, Bogat says she would seriously consider staying on. “There is, for example, the Incubator Theater [near Nahlaot] which I think is one of the best theaters in the country, but it is almost impossible to get an audition. If I could get a job there, I would probably stay in Jerusalem. I would love the theater scene here to offer the possibilities you have in Tel Aviv, but that simply isn’t the case.”

Yet there are some who have a more positive take on the capital’s theatrical scene. Bogat’s final-year colleague, 27-year-old Ran Cohen, is not going anywhere. “After I graduate I am going to work with [Kiryat Hayovel-based social theater company] Mashu Mashu,” he discloses happily. “Jerusalem has a special charm to it, as difficult as life is here, and – yes – Tel Aviv offers far more acting opportunities.

But at least for the foreseeable future, I am staying here.”

Cohen says, however, that he would happier if the municipality did something about the cultural and entertainment spread available to youngsters on weekends. “One of the biggest problems for people of my age is that there are so few businesses open in Jerusalem on Fridays and Shabbat.” Weekend fun limitations notwithstanding, Cohen applauds the authority’s Starter initiative. “Anything that encourages local businesses, provides advice in how to run groups and various enterprises is welcome,” he says. “I hope Starter helps in that direction.”

TWENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Dor Ronen, who hails from Kibbutz Magal in the northern extremities of the Sharon region, is also completing his studies at Nissan Nativ this year – and will also relocate to Tel Aviv in the summer. Ronen was happy to hear about Starter, but feels there needs to be a local mind-set shift. “If you want to keep young people in Jerusalem, the city needs to adopt a younger approach,” he states. “I can’t really see that happening.”

Like Cohen, Ronen would like things to be more accessible over the weekends. “There are all kinds of things happening in the city on Fridays and Shabbat, but I live in Old Katamon and it’s difficult for me to get downtown on Shabbat.”

However, for Ronen, the bottom line is finding a job. “If Starter and that kind of thing manages to generate some kind of positive momentum, and maybe has a positive knock-on effect on acting opportunities in Jerusalem, I would definitely stay in the city,” he observes. “The best productions I have seen in the last three years were at Incubator, but I can’t see myself making a living just from working there, even if I could get a job there.”

Mayor Nir Barkat sees Starter as another effort to rejuvenate the city, keep the cultural ball rolling in the capital and thereby, hang on to the youngsters. “Starter offers further evidence that creatively connecting artists, traders and municipal bodies generates leading, unique culture which you can’t find anywhere else in the country,” Barkat enthuses. “Through this series and other cultural, tourism and business activities, Jerusalem is positioning itself as a leading city in the country’s cultural life. It seems that the municipal professionals know how to fuse international trends with local entrepreneurship, and to create a winning mix.”

Gili Levy, a.k.a. DJ Gili Da Kid, who is one of the driving forces behind the Ra’ash Hour alternative music radio station and conceived the annual Hahazit (Frontline) underground music event in the capital, has a less sunny view about the municipality’s efforts to encourage youngsters to make their life and career in Jerusalem. “What’s the point of having all these projects like Starter if the municipality charges downtown so much council tax?” he muses. “And, if you have some young person trying to make a living from a pub, and someone there smokes – even after being asked not to – and a municipality inspector pops in and slaps a NIS 5,000 fine on the pub owner, that sort of attitude doesn’t exactly encourage young people in Jerusalem, does it?” Gomel is aware of all sorts of challenging aspects of life in Jerusalem, but reiterates that much is down to the feel-good factor.

“We know that young people, by that I mean people in the 18-35 age group, leave Jerusalem after studies, the army etc. because they can’t find work or a place to live,” she says. “But we in the authority have come to the conclusion that you need to create a supportive and encouraging ambience and feel. Jerusalem has a great buzz to it in the summer, but in the winter there is less of that. That’s why we’ve got Starter now, and I hope it generates the right energy and feeling, and that students and young families will be suitably encouraged.”

Next week’s Starter lineup has a cosmopolitan feel to it, with Sunday’s Around the World lineup and Tuesday’s Eastern Culture program, with women-themed events slated for Monday. The Starter season closes with an evening based on a practically themed Money, Entrepreneurship and Finances lineup on March 29, followed by all kinds of sports-related slots on the morrow, closing with the Nostalgia evening.

For more information: www.young-city.co.il

The municipality is launching festivals such as Starter and Sheon Horef to liven up the cultural scene and boost small businesses, but is it enough to keep young people in the capital?