2015 General Report of JIMENA Activities

Students at Jewish Community High School of the Bay in JIMENA garb during Mizrahi Commemoration Month

Community Outreach, Engagement and Education

• JIMENA is very proud to have produced 96 events nation-wide, which reflected the diversity, multiculturalism, and religious pluralism of the Jewish people.
• This year was unique, in that it was our first time outreaching to the children and grandchildren of Jews born in North Africa and the Middle East. We effectively empowered many of them to assert their family histories and their culture by becoming JIMENA speakers, ambassadors, and joining one of our two young adult committees.
• JIMENA led two community-wide Moroccan Mimouna Celebrations that engaged a total of 500 individuals in San Francisco. We also co-sponsored a young adult Mimouna in Los Angeles.
• In the Spring and Summer, JIMENA led the following programs as part of our San Francisco Young Adult Engagement series: Our Stories: A Showcase of Jewish Pluralism, Millennial Reflections: A Celebration of Young Sephardic Life, Taste of Sefarad: Cooking and Storytelling from North African Jewish Kitchens, and Henna Gatherings.
• We brought Erella Teitler’s exhibit, “Not Forgotten” to San Francisco and displayed it the at Oshman Family JCC, San Francisco Jewish Community Federation, and Congregation Beth Shalom.
• Produced a Moishe House micro-grant program, which enabled 25 Moishe Houses to lead their own unique Mizrahi commemoration program.
• JIMENA’s Los Angeles chapter continued to grow as we produced and co-sponsored close to 20 events and created a Young Adult LA Committee and an LA Advisory Board. Event highlights included: a Human Rights Series we produced at Congregation Kol Ami, A Taste of the East with Reboot, multi-generational, community-wide Shesh Besh Touranment, and Mizrahi Shabbat dinners at USC and UCLA.

Oral History and Digital Experience Project 

• Our central website received over 300,000 website hits per month and earned #1 Google rankings for our Arabic JIMENA Experience websites, thus educating hundreds of thousands of individuals worldwide.
• This past year the focus of the Oral History and Digital Experience Program was on developing our relationship with Ben Gurion University in order for them to serve as an official repository for JIMENA’s Oral History archive. Moving forward, all of JIMENA’s Oral History content will be preserved in perpetuity at The Ben-Gurion Institute for the Study of Israel and Zionism at Ben-Gurion University.
• Together with BGU, we oversaw the work of an international team of seven grad-student interns who were responsible for transcribing, abstracting, and adding our videos to BGU’s server and YouTube page.

Work on College Campuses

• In the last year JIMENA led over 40 programs, reaching an estimated 4,000 students on the following campuses: American Jewish University, American University, Ben Gurion University, Bar Ilan University, Capitol University, Chico State University, Eastern Carolina University, George Washington University, Kent State University, Loyola University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Pace University, San Francisco State University, Santa Monica College, University of California Berkeley, University of California Davis, University of California Los Angeles, University of Nebraska, University of Nevada Las Vegas, University of North Carolina, University of Oregon, University of Southern California.
• JIMENA content, like The Forgotten Refugees film and information from the JIMENA Digital Experience Project, was distributed and utilized by students on over 100 college campuses
• JIMENA had an international team of college interns who executed a number of impactful projects on their respective campuses including: a French Social Media initiative (USF) and an Oral History transcription and abstraction project for a group of BGU interns from sub-Sahara Africa and China.
• Campus programs included JIMENA Speaker talks, henna gatherings, Mizrahi cooking classes, Mizrahi Shabbat dinners, Mimouna, and Forgotten Refugees presentations.
• Our work on college campuses was done in careful partnership with the following organizations: Hillel International, Chabad, Jewish Agency for Israel, Students Supporting Israel (SSI), Alpha Epsilon Pi, and a number of other grassroots, student-led campus organizations.

Testimonial from Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel

Advocacy and International Work

• JIMENA led a number of national and international campaigns including: Campaign to bar entry of Anti-Semitic Iranian regime sponsored comedian, Akbar Abadi; Nakba Museum Campaign; initiatives to support Yezidis and religious minorities in the Middle East and North Africa; Voices of the Middle East: Iran project, Sephardic Advocacy Engagement at AIPAC Policy Conference, Save the Iraqi Archive Campaign, Haj Amin Al-Husseini and Anti-Semitism in the Arab World campaign, inclusion of Mizrahi heritage in Israeli Curriculum and various redress initiatives.
• In conjunction with Israel’s November 30th Day to Honor Jewish Refugees from the Middle East, North Africa, and Iran, JIMENA lead successful Mizrahi Commemoration Month programming at over 30 college campuses, 20 Moishe Houses, synagogues, and community centers in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. We also helped develop, publish and distribute a Mizrahi Remembrance Month Curriculum for Jewish High Schools. In 2015, JIMENA leadership worked closely with Minister for Social Equality, Gila Gamliel, and with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ensure effective implementation of the Day of Commemoration
• Much of our advocacy work could not have been done without the support of our partners. We owe the utmost gratitude to the following organizations for their continued friendship and support: Israel Association of Jews from Arab Countries, Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, Harif: UK Association of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East, 30 Years After, Sephardic Education Center, Jewish Agency for Israel, Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, B’nai Brith International, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Iranian American Jewish Federation, Yezidis International, and Coptic Solidarity.

For photographs please visit our facebook photo albums or our JIMENA_Voice istagram account. 

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