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create the best conditions for creativity and innovation. In this way, a cooperative of educators working a
range of different educational angles in the city and its surroundings would be able to break through the
barriers facing any lone teacher or youth counsellor.

The Akko Educators’ Kibbutz would do this by working to bolster the next generation, building relations
between the Arab and Jewish youth of the city, which exists on the periphery of Israel’s overall economic
success and suffers from high levels of poverty and urban decay. Their effort was embraced by the
mayor of Akko, who offered the kibbutz temporary residence and work space in a vacant and run-down
compound that once housed a military convalescent facility. Known by local residents as the Nofesh
—“vacation home”— it proved to be an adequate platform from which this group of young idealists could
launch their agenda for social change.

But the Akko Riots cast a harsh light on the rifts within the communities they hoped to serve and the role
they would have to play to make a lasting and peaceful change in the city. Addressing the needs just of
youth would not be enough to truly effect change; they would need to reach all of the city’s residents—
Jew and Arab, young and old. With the reordering of their priorities came the evolution of new projects
to directly target Arab-Jewish relations and focus on cultural and educational activities for all the
residents of the city and its surroundings.

Participants in Word-for-Word, a bilingual Hebrew-Arabic program for residents run by the Educators’ Kibbutz.

So was born the Akko Advot Center. “Advot” is the Hebrew word for ripples, and the name reflects the
approach of the community-education center to creating change through grassroots democracy and
shared goals. With bilingual programs to encourage Jews and Arabs to learn each other’s languages
and cultures, annual celebrations and commemorations of days that promote unity and civic
responsibility among all residents, and a training program for local business owners to make their
establishments accessible and inviting to employees and customers from all national and religious
backgrounds, the Akko Advot Center seeks to empower the city’s residents to shape a more tolerant,
peaceful, and vibrant future.

By building a broad network of local activists, the Akko Advot Center hopes to create the capacity to
respond quickly to local issues as they arise. Just such an instance occurred in 2014, after a long summer

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