Amsterdam is a city that devotes a lot of attention and energy to improving the social cohesion within its communities. It is a city of immigration: among young people, over 60% were born abroad or to parents from abroad.
Following 9/11 and the series of violent events that rocked the Netherlands in the years after, the tensions between the original Dutch population and the different communities of immigrants and descendants of the immigrants were growing. These tensions were particularly palpable in large cities. Amsterdam, a city that has a long history of tolerance toward peoples fleeing from persecution elsewhere,had to face them as well. The city realized the importance of conciliation early on and developed extensive programs to improve social cohesion.
The Jewish-Moroccan Network of Amsterdam (JMNA) was one of the spontaneous grassroots initiatives that responded to these events and was supported by City Hall and the Mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen. The network of concerned citizens has been organizing events, exchanging visits, holding dialogue sessions, and engaging in other civil society building activities.
On 12th March 2009, ICfC President Hillel Levine participated as a guest of honor in an important celebratory event, hosted by Mayor Job Cohen. At this event, Gadi Kenny from Tel Aviv and Soulaiman Khatib from Ramallah modeled cooperation across the divides - the kind of cooperation that unites their organization: Combatants for Peace.
The members of the network also shared their personal motivations for participating in this type of community dialogue. Harry Polak, the Chairman of the board for JMNA summed it up well, “When a Palestinian and an Israeli who fought against each other can bridge the gap between them and can make a start to find a peaceful solution for their conflict by the ICfC method, the Jews and Moroccans in Amsterdam should understand that their problems with each other can and should also be solved because it is in fact a minor problem in comparison with what happens in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
Mayor Cohen supported the initiative and is looking to make it a model for other communities as well. ICfC has been working with Mayor Cohen and municipal experts from the City Hall since 2006, inviting experts from other countries to share expertise, facilitating workshops and dialogues, and extending the network of municipal experts into other European cities. Some of ICfC’s most important work involves supporting and empowering networks like JMNA that can serve as models and partners in improving social cohesion in diverse and conflicted communities.