Stay Updated

    Close
    06 September

    | 2022 | 09:00

    Jerusalem Municipality Executive Training Forum – Media and City of Governance

    • Invites Only
    • Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, Radak 20, Jerusalem
    • Invites Only
    • Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, Radak 20, Jerusalem
    Jerusalem Municipality Executive Training Forum – Media and City of Governance

    Jerusalem is by far Israel’s most complex city. The Jerusalem municipality faces ever-changing demographic, economic, social and educational challenges. The Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research has been studying this city for over 40 years, amassing considerable knowledge and experience that has aided in training Jerusalem’s senior executives, offering a deep dive into understanding the many different challenges they must encounter.

    The aim of such training was to offer municipality policymakers a variety of perspectives on the city, as reflected by the eyes of the different communities, and illustrating these perspectives ‘on the ground’. Furthermore, the program sought to offer an in-depth look at crucial issues in the city (for example: planning, shared and mixed spaces, balancing needs of different communities, etc.), on the basis of qualitative and research data – with a goal of presenting options for strengthening interactions among the various branches of the municipality in different areas of activity.

    This session is the third in the training series for Jerusalem municipality executives – the first session was devoted to the challenges of density, planning and urban renewal in Jerusalem; the second session addressed mixed-shared spaces in Jerusalem. 

    Like other capital cities around the world, Jerusalem is home to the parliamentary, legislative and governmental institutions of the state, such as the Knesset, the Supreme Court and government ministries. Jerusalem is also home to a large number of civic organizations (national and international), national and local media organizations and research and academic institutes, all of which are an integral part of the social fabric of the city. This session sought to highlight the different points in the importance and function of Jerusalem as a successful city of governance, similar to other capital cities around the world, such as Washington D.C. and Berlin. A central point is the role and function of traditional media and new media in the formation of the images related to the city and in covering Jerusalem.


    The day began with a talk by Nurit Dabush, a leading figure in Israel’s media. Her talk, entitled “Media and new media as a factor in managerial decision-making”, addressed the role that media plays in this new era, a critical component in every manager’s decision-making process. In an era of transparency and confidence, it is imperative that managers adopt new ground rules as part of risk management, and place the risk of their reputation at center stage and manage it professionally, for crisis avoidance.

    This was followed by a talk by Dr. Sarit Bensimhon-Peleg, deputy director general for research at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, on “Jerusalem as a city of governance”. The talk addresses questions such as – what is a city of governance and what makes a city of governance so? what are the main advantages of a city of governance? what can we learn from other cities of governance in the world and how can we leverage the advantages of Jerusalem as a city of governance?

    We then broke up into two working groups, led by Dr. Sarit Bensimhon-Peleg and by Ehud Prawer, head of the Society and Populations team at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, where we focused on two central aspects of Jerusalem as a city of governance – 

    1. Mapping the different administrative and organizational strengths that are present in Jerusalem and could aid in leveraging the matter of a city of governance. For example: Jerusalem houses a government ministry working to reinforce it but it is not sufficently leveraged in collaboration with municipal bodies. In the workshop, we attempted to understand how we can strengthen collaboration between the ministry and the different municipal bodies.
    2. Mapping the activities and projects that have already been contributing to the leveraging of Jerusalem as a city of governance – but are not sufficiently utilized. For example: Jerusalem periodically hosts international conferences. Can a special focus be made on international conferences on the subject of policy? Perhaps it is necessary and possible to work on this with the Hebrew University? How can the different municipal bodies be brought together to this end?

      After the workshops, we held a tour at the Bible Lands Museum, in which we had two main stops per the central topics of the session, city of governance and media –

      1. Jerusalem – between city of governance and eternal city: Jerusalem has been, from its earliest days, a religious, political and national symbol for members of all three monotheistic religions. Standing in front of model of the city from the First Temple period, we asked why King David chose Jerusalem for establish the capital of his political kingdom, what was the event that established its sanctity and status as a spiritual center, and how did governance and sanctity play a role in it in the past, present and future.
      2. Media in symbols: Forms of documentation, propagation of information and communication among people took on different forms in different eras. In galleries dedicated to seals and the earliest forms of writing, we discussed the role of the seal in the adminstrative and govenmental system of the cities of ancient kingdoms.

    Michal Chinn, journalist (formerly of Galei Zahal – Israel’s Army radio station –  and Channel 12 TV News) and today social media coordinator at the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research, then gave a talk on the broad range of social media and on the role of each. She also explained the different trends in Israel’s social networks such as fake news, news consumption through social networks, mass media and the increasing usage and decreasing attentiveness in social networks.

    The day concluded with a panel of correspondents on Jerusalem matters, moderated by Michal Chinn and with the participation of – Yossi Eli of Channel 13 News, Aaron Rabinowitz from Haaretz, Inbar Twizer from N12 and Israel Saranga, Jerusalem municipality spokesperson. The panel dealt with questions related to social networks and their influence on the traditional media, and what makes covering Jerusalem so unlike coverage of any other city.

    At the end of the training session, Nitzan Faibish, who directs the executive training program and is a researcher on the Society and Populations team at the Jerusalem Institute, gave the closing address.


    The day was part of the Jerusalem municipality executive training forum, whose goal is to take an in-depth look at crucial issues in the city, to bring about connections and familiarity with the different areas of activity and knowledge in the city, and to demonstrate different topics on the ground, as well as to advance an internal dialogue among the branches, reinforcing the interfaces among the different areas of activity in the municipality and creating a cohesive team for the benefit of the common goal.


    Photos from the event