iwJAFA Activities for 2012
On February 26th iwJAFA held a community meeting to discuss plans for 2012. As a result we are organising activities in 3 key areas:
• Support for Palestinian/Israeli, people-to-people (P2P) projects
• involvement and interaction within local inner west community and broader Jewish community
• Increasing our social ties – growing our local Jewish community
Support for joint Palestinian/Israeli projects
We will start by holding community events featuring skype hookups with people in Israel and Palestine running P2P projects we’d like to support. The first might be Friends of the Earth Middle East, an NGO that works proactively across borders, with towns and communities in Israel, Palestine and Jordan to deal with environmental issues affecting them all.
A working group is organising these and if you would like to get involved contact us through the website.
We will now be collecting donations for P2P projects at each of our events.
Increasing our involvement in the local community
Marrickville Multifaith Roundtable (MMR)
This is a network representing the different faith organisations, churches etc in the Marrickville area. Several people from iwJAFA have attended meetings to date, including a rep from Newtown Shul, as members of the local Jewish inner west community.
We hope to be involved in a number of events being organized through the MMR. One is a Faith Walk to various places of worship, including Newtown Shul.
Another is an art event,
“Spirit Life in Marrickville”. We encourage participation in this arts project sponsored by MMR in conjunction with Marrickville Council. Local residents, community groups, schools and artists are invited to create art works that engage the wider community in a conversation to promote mutual understanding and respect. Please visit the blog for discussion and further details.
Jewish Newtown – a local history walk
This idea was endorsed at the community meeting and has now been organised in conjunction with the Australian Jewish Historical Society. A walk will be held on April 22. The hope is that this will lead to further walks or talks organised during the year for the broader local inner west community, and a print version of the information.
Guest Speakers
At the community meeting it was agreed to continue the popular talks by overseas guest speakers as in 2011. We may have local speakers as well. More news when speakers are confirmed. Interested in helping organise these? Send us an email.
Building our community
There was support at the community meeting for planning a variety of activities around the festivals, linking parents of similar age children who want to build networks etc. Email us if you want to be linked to other parents.. All activities are being coordinated so they compliment, rather than clash with, Newtown Shul or Inner West Chavurah events.
A Hebrew language and Jewish culture class for primary school-age children is starting soon in Marrickville. Please contact us for information.
So, what IS iwJAFA again?
The community meeting also affirmed the five “objects” developed by the steering committee over the past year. Some of the wording is still under discussion, but have a look at “about us” on this website.
