mixed cities in israel

This is a socio-spatial research that explores the reciprocal relationship
between art, urban space and the public., It suggests that this three-headed intersection,
forms a conceptual framework for deciphering the unique urbanism of the city in
which they takes place. The research expends the theoretical discourse regarding this
relationship beyond the common perspective of art as an urban renewal strategy to
position it within the theoretical discourse on urbanism
Through a discussion, that ranges between macro and micro perspectives and
between art’s ability to reinforce or subvert the socio-spatial structures of the city, this
research presents the unique characteristics of Acre as an example for a peripheral
mixed city in the Middle East. On the on hand, the research demonstrates how the city’s
socio-spatial structures, stemming from the continual Israeli-Palestine conflict, are
replicated in the city's artistic activity. This insight is analysed first through a macro
perspective of the five theatre institutions, showing how each institution functions as a
closed sphere, which addresses only a small part of the population, and therefore fails
to challenge the urban socio-spatial power relations. It then proceeds in using a micro
perspective, which focuses on the Fringe Theatre Festival, to demonstrate how the
city’s artistic hierarchy is translated into spatial segregation, which duplicates the urban
segregation and condenses it to the scale of one quarter.
On the other hand, this research reveals processes of change in the power
structures of Acre's urbanism and highlights art’s part in this process. The macro
perspective focuses on the struggle between the city and the Tel Aviv artists’
community in 2017. The accumulation of forces of cultural production, evolved into a
city consciousness, which enabled it to stand up for its right to produce and manage its
own cultural capital. The micro perspective followed life stories and trajectories of
individual artists suggesting that the local theatre field enabled alternative artistic
trajectories that progress under different rules from those of the national theatre field.
Through these twofaced insights, the research culminates; suggesting that art has the
power to bring about changes in cities, not only as part of culture-led-urban-renewal
strategies, but also as part of change in the city's socio-spatial structures.
In addition to this theoretical contribution on the methodological level, the
research presented here contributes super-positioning; a method adopted from
architectural practice in order to integrate top-down macro perspectives with bottom up
micro perspectives. Utilizing superposition, it combines methods from architecture and
urban studies, mainly spatial and historical research, with methods from the social
sciences and specifically ethnography. On the empirical level, the study provides a new
perspective on the city of Acre, as a mixed peripheral city in the Middle East, examining
its relation to artistic activity. It therefore expands upon the body of knowledge dealing
with these types of cities and emphasizes how their unique characteristics lead to 'other'
forms of urbanism.

This paper proposes the notion of ReligioCity as an analytical category to account for religious urbanism and urban influences on religion(s). This theoretical notion allows us to explore the ways religion and urban space are transformed together by current socio-political processes, but also to examine the ways the city's landscape encompasses new expressions of religious materiality in the urban environment. Taking Acre, a small multireligious and multi-ethnic city in the north of Israel the paper explores religious processions, parades, and festivities as public rituals which encompass ways of being in the city and of taking temporary control of specific city spaces while engaging with urban infrastructures. In what ways these spatial religious manifestations are dictated by urban infrastructures and at the same time influence the city and how they serve as forms of being in the city for participants? The argument is that these religious manifestations and spatializations are ways of placing religion as an identity marker, with the possibility of sustaining, projecting or even reinventing a sense of self and community in the changing landscape of cities.

The main challenges posed by urban democracy are participation in deliberative and participatory democracy. Namely, encouraging extensive political participation by contrast to modern democracy, which is based on the dynamics of the representational concept. The study addresses the question whether representatives are always committed to their constituents and were freely elected by them. The singular case of the Arabs in mixed cities in Israel constitutes an extraordinary opportunity to examine all these allegations. The study presents the current demographic situation in mixed cities, focusing on two aspects of Arab political conduct: patterns of political participation that include voting rates, political organization, and patterns of representation that include creating political parties, the fundamental nature of representation and its characteristics such as the representation of women, the composition of ethnic factions and more.The study differentiates between various models of mixed cities: those which were always mixed cities, those initially Arab cities which became mixed cities in the wake of the 1948 war and cities built and designated for Jews within the framework of a “Jewish Galilee” (Carmiel and Nazareth Ilit) with a gradual Arab migration into them.The study does not neglect the practical aspects of advancing an urban democracy and cultivating a communal public space. It proposes an orderly, coherent model tested elsewhere in the world, which promotes on-going democratic discourse founded on effective political participation, parity and the full cooperation of all residents in determining its future, its character and its socio-economic policy.Several policy proposals are put forward, consistent with the research findings and the proposed model. These proposals take into account macro level interests, namely cultivating a communal public space and advancing municipal democracy to the benefit of the city and all its residents. It also considers individual interests such as integrating various population groups, particularly weak groups, in the management of the city, in determining its character and identity and above all, in actively participating in the social fabric, and enhancing, without discrepancy, the sense of cohesion and commonality of each and every city resident.

Background University of Haifa and the University of Maryland, Baltimore faculty developed a parallel binational, interprofessional American-Israeli course which explores social justice in the context of increasing urban, local, and global inequities. Objectives This article describes the course's innovative approach to critically examine how social justice is framed in mixed/divided cities from different professional perspectives (social work, health, law). Participatory methods such as photo-voice, experiential learning, and theatre of the oppressed provide students with a shared language and multiple media to express and problematize their own and others' understanding of social (in)justice and to imagine social change. Findings Much learning about “self” takes place in an immersion experience with “others.” Crucial conversations about “the other” and social justice can occur more easily within the intercultural context. In these conversations, students and faculty experi...