Page 14 - Issue 17

with each other out of necessity, rather than out
of choice, it can color the interaction negatively.

The word for meeting in Hebrew is mifgash. But
when we speak about mifgash, we don’t mean the
kind of meeting that happens when you buy an
orange from someone in the shuk, or sit near
someone in a park, or ride the bus together. True
mifgash is about coming together with the
purpose of knowing, of being familiar, of seeing
and being seen. One of our goals this year has
been to meet people throughout the
neighborhood, and to generate mifgash not just
within the walls of our youth center but also in the
places where people find themselves in close
proximity. We started by reaching out, getting to
know people, having one-on-one conversations.
We knocked on doors, delivered masks, chatted
with moms in playgrounds. And now we’ve started
bringing peiluyot to the playgrounds, where
people can choose to come together around
interesting content, rather than interact only when
circumstances demand it.

Last year, the mother of one of our chanichim
helped us run a Mimouna celebration in the
playground next door to us. Mimouna is the
traditional Moroccan observance of the end of
Passover. In Morocco, Arab neighbors would
prepare a ton of sweets made from chametz for
their Jewish neighbors to enjoy immediately after
Pesach. In Israel, Moroccan families continue the
tradition themselves. This was our first experiment