Points of View from Jerusalem: Noy Mordekovitch – Executive Director of 0202

During the meeting, Noy Mordekovitch – executive director of the “0202” organization, summarized the main challenges in translating from Hebrew to Arabic, making municipal information and public services accessible in Arabic, creating “online language accessibility”, and the ramifications of the absence of translations in many areas and deficient language/cultural accessibility. He opened by explaining the broader context of information accessibility, noting that the poorer the residents of East Jerusalem are, the more they require government services on the one hand, yet the lower their level of Hebrew on the other.

The main challenges for authorities are:

1. Essential information and important forms have not been translated into Arabic.
   2. It is not possible to fill in online forms in Arabic. [In this regard there are technological setbacks that require extensive investment]
   3. Occasional embarrassing translation mistakes are made in Arabic, some of which can undermine the intended goal for the target population.
   4. The translation does not include cultural localization to the target audience.

For more information on the problems and difficulties please see this presentation.

In his concluding remarks, Noy made three main recommendations:

• Hire a professional translator rather than use an Arab employee of the organization, who lacks the necessary training and skills! Preferably with the integration of cultural translation (do not use Google translate…)
• If there are Arab team members at the institution – consult with them before and during the development of content (do not only show them the final product).
• Build content first in Arabic – and only then translate it into Hebrew.

Previous events in the series

 The event was held in partnership with the Naumann Foundation.