Shoshi's+Project

toc =**Rationale:**=

My research question relates directly to the mayor of Efrat, and the local Efrat council. While doing my project, I hope to learn how Efrat is being governed, how we can improve and expand our community, and in addition, how Efrat can help contribute to the society in Israel.

In my project, I will be interviewing Oded Ravivi the mayor of Efrat. I am hoping to discover more about what is involved in running a town, while seeing what Oded’s personal plans for Efrat are. I understand that running a town involves many aspects, therefore I find it interesting to explore how the mayor works to coordinate all the different needs of the town; for example; social services, engineer services, educational services, etc. I am looking forward to starting the project. I hope it will help me grow, and find my true identity as an Israeli citizen. =**Profile:**=

When I entered Efrat mayor, Oded Ravivi’s office, I came across a hardworking and exhausted-looking man. However, that didn’t take away from his happy, satisfied expression.

Oded was born in “Tel Hashomer” hospital, and at the age of a year and a half, went to shlichut with his family in “New Jersey” for three years. His second time going on shlichut was when he was quite older, from ages 9-11. Oded said that leaving all his friends behind in Israel, in order to live in a foreign country, was quite hard on him. He didn’t know the language or culture, therefore was forced to learn to adopt to major changes in life. It taught him to accept the fact that you might not always be in complete control of the situation, however you still need to try to make the best out of it.

Oded’s parents influenced him greatly in his choice of career. His dad was a educational psychologist, and his mom a social worker. Both times going on shlichut, his dad was a volunteer on behalf of the Jewish agency. The work that his dad did with Jewish people around the world, and the fact that he worked with the public sector, drew Oded’s attention while running for mayor. Oded grew up with very strong values of devotion and working for the public. Those values influenced him greatly all through life. He volunteered in officers training and did reserve duty. Those were a product of the upbringing he had in his home. When he was a kid, he chose to go to a youth group that wasn’t affiliated with any political party. The main significance of the “Religious Scouts”, was the fact that they had frequent meetings with non-religious kids, as well as there regular activities. Up until today, Oded sees importance in meeting different people from many backgrounds, and seeing what they have to say. “We need to try to talk, and build bridges with different parts of the population, and not just live amongst ourselves.”

Becoming mayor of Efrat was definitely not Oded’s number one fantasy. The idea fell upon him a couple of months before the elections, when a couple of citizens from Efrat approached him and suggested he take the job. Oded sees his job as challenging and interesting, and finds the fact that he gets to meet a variety of people within Efrat, and throught Israel—“unbelievable”. The variety of topics he needs to deal with is incredible. The biggest satisfaction for him, is the feeling that he gets when he knows he managed to help a family, that really needed the support. Although Oded’s family is definitely suffering some neglect because of his job, they are very supportive of him. “The fact that I come home happy and satisfied after a day’s work, gives them energy and will to help me get on to the next day.”

Oded is working seriously on a few major projects. Here are a few:

Oded is trying to turn Efrat into a “Green City”. He has committees that have broken up into smaller groups. Each group is in charge of a different area. For example: the educational group is focusing on introducing the green city plan, and explaining the importance of a good environment to the citizens. The building committee is working on building in a way which is friendly to the environment. Some of the committee’s are doing great, and others need a bigger boost, but the idea is definitely beginning to sink in. A huge success in Oded’s eyes, is the fact that over 200 family’s in Efrat own a composter.

Another important issue in Oded’s eyes, is Efrat’s youth. At the time of elections, Oded was having meetings with a variety of people in Efrat, as well as some of the youth, in order to see what the main needs of the community were. Some of the meetings gave Oded the realization that the “normal youth” in Efrat, was feeling somewhat neglected. In other words, their question was: “do we need to become problematic youth, in order to receive attention?” Oded realized that 90% of the budget was being invested in the troubled youth, and only 10% was going to the majority. Oded decided that the priority needed to be changed around. He feels that when the normal youth is stronger and more powerful, they manage to pull the weaker youth towards them, instead of it being the other way around.

A very sour point for Oded, and in fact, for all of Efrat’s resident’s, is the building freeze. Efrat is currently suffering the right to conduct new building, because the land is owned by the government who is not permitting it. The minister of defense is refusing to sign a contract witch will permit Efrat to continue to build. He is also refusing to meet with any of the Yehuda, and Shomron mayors. He is keeping himself quite isolated, and not addressing the issue. Oded is trying to influence in many ways, different political powers in order to reach him.

Oded hopes to see Efrat as a fully grown city in the next ten years, with 30,000 residents. Those were the original plans for Efrat when established 28 years ago. Although he has high hopes for Efrat, Oded is trying to stay realistic. “If the situation involving the freeze continues to carry on, we should try to focus on what we can do in order to improve the community as it is today, and not just focus on making Efrat bigger.” Oded sees importance in running activities for different age groups, improving the sports facilities, and putting on concerts and plays in order to improve Efrat.



Oded sees failures as an important step in the road, and tries to learn from his mistakes. There was once an incident, when Efrat got a lot of money from the minister of transport in order to improve the roads, and make them safer. Oded himself was very excited, and was sure that people would see this as a good and welcoming change. Improving the roads was making them safer and permitting kids to cross the road in order to return from school, safely. Oded was surprised when he endured a lot of criticism. Apperantly, improving the road system was causing people to wait longer in the traffic line, because the circle was managing traffic in a different order then before. This incident was a thinking point for him, that sometimes you need to invest more energy, time and effort, in explaining things to the public, that you may think are obviously good and exciting, but they might not interpret it in this way.

Oded gets a great feeling of fulfillment every time he visits an educational institution in Efrat. Also on tu’shvat, when he saw the little kindergarten kids dressed in green and affiliated with the theme of Efrat being a green city. Oded’s goal is to bring Efrat up to a leval where as many people as possible know about it, and understand the importance of it, as it is very close to Jerusalem.

I got so caught up in Oded’s busy job as mayor that I almost forgot to mention that he actually has some hobbies that have nothing to do with his job. Oded enjoys swimming, reading, being with his kids, fooling around and watching T.V, like any normal guy J


 * Background Research**

Oded Ravivi is the mayor of Efrat, a settlement in Gush Etzion located south of Jerusalem. It rises to a height of 960 meters (3150 feet) above sea level and covers about 6,000 dunam (1,500 acres). Efrat was founded on March 15, 1983, and it has about 8500 residents. Almost all the citizens living in Efrat are religious, although there is also a small number of haredi and non observant residents. Many Americans choose to make aliyah to Efrat, because it is a very American place, and that helps them integrate. Efrat's mayor is currently Oded Ravivi, who works with the well respected rabbi of Efrat, Shlomo Riskin. In Efrat, there is a total of seven neighborhoods: Rimon, Te'ena, Gefen, Dekel, Zayit, Tamar, and Dagan. They are all named after different species in the seven species. In his article "About The Name Efrat" Yossi Baumol states that In the mid 1970's, when the idea of building Efrat first came up, the plan was originally refered to as Alon Shvut Bet. Moshe Moshkowitz, pushed hard for the name Efrat while using it intensely in all his publications. At the beginning of Efrat's history, people wanted to name the town "Breichot" because it was planned to stretch from Breichot Shlomo in the north, southward to Hirbat Brechot. They didn’t like the idea of naming it Efrat, because according to them "Efrat" is just another name for the town of Beit Lechem as it says "B'Derech Efrat - hee Beit Lachem". They compromised by allowing the large urban settlement closest to Beit Lechem to be called "Efrata", which meant according to their view "near Beit Lechem". (1) The city's founders, Moshe Moscovits and Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, had an inspirational idea of an open urban community between Gush Etzion and Jerusalem, which would serve as a bridge between the bloc of Jewish settlements and Israel's capital. In fact, in the early 80's the late Yizhak Rabin, z"l, visited Rabbi Riskin's congregation of Lincoln Square Synagogue in Manhattan and urged his audience to move to the important new settlement.

Today, Efrat is home to over 9,000 people (1500 families).The quality of life in Efrat is known to be high and Efrat is often referred to as the "capital of the Gush". The city has a variety of kindergartens and educational systems. There are also plans for many more educational institutions to keep up with the growing community. Efrat has a community center where the citizens can go and do activities they enjoy doing, like gymnastics, dance, music, and many more. It also has three different youth groups that kids can choose from and go where they feel most comfortable. Although the citizens in Efrat feel Efrat has a strong right to exist and belongs to us, there are many left-wing Israelis who feel differently. An article written by Yariv Oppenheimer discusses the issue from a left wing point of view. " As long as the government operates “properly” – as the settlers see it - and does not implement any measures to evacuate the outposts, the 'hilltop youth' is satisfied with abusing and stealing land from Palestinian residents, all the while clashing regularly with security forces." This is an example of how the left winged range is positive that the settlers are the only ones who are harming the palastinians, and have their eyes closed when it is actually the other way around most of the time. "Today, [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak and his people have an obligation to put an end to this miserable affair and to fight back courageously and firmly against violence and for democracy, not just by delivering speeches, but also by evacuating all illegal outposts." (Oppenheimer,1) I hope Efrat never gets evacuated. Other than the fact that it is my home, I truly see it as a special growing community that I feel is very important for Israel, as it is located right by Jerusalem.



=**Literary Connection**=


 * __"One Day" by Matisyahu:__**

sometimes I lay under the moon and thank God I'm breathing then I pray don't take me soon cause I am here for a reason sometimes in my tears I drown but I never let it get me down so when negativity surrounds I know some day it'll all turn around because all my life I've been waiting for I've been praying for for the people to say that we don't wanna fight no more they'll be no more wars and our children will play one day x6 it's not about win or lose cause we all lose when they feed on the souls of the innocent blood drenched pavement keep on moving though the waters stay raging in this maze you can lose your way (your way) it might drive you crazy but don't let it faze you no way (no way) sometimes in my tears I drown but I never let it get me down so when negativity surrounds I know some day it'll all turn around because all my life I've been waiting for I've been praying for for the people to say that we don't wanna fight no more they'll be no more wars and our children will play one day x6 one day this all will change treat people the same stop with the violence down with the hate one day we'll all be free and proud to be under the same sun singing songs of freedom like one day x4 all my life I've been waiting for I've been praying for for the people to say that we don't wanna fight no more they'll be no more wars and our children will play one day x6  The song I chose for my literary connection is the song "One Day", by Matisyahu. This song discusses the issue of war and pain in our world, and includes a cry of hope for the future. Lately, there have been many terror attacks by the Palestinians towards Israel. A whole family was slaughtered, there was a bomb set off in Jerusalem (that killed a young woman while injuring many), there was a rocket shot at Beer Sheva witch fell on somebody's house but miraculously nobody was hurt. They canceled school in Beer Sheva for a whole day. On top of all that, there has been a lot of talk about starting a third intifada. To me Israel isn’t just the place I was born and the place I grew up in. It is so much more! Israel is my history; Israel is my past and present. I truly believe that if the Jews didn’t have this land that they can call "home", they would be lost without anything to hold on to. The thing that is most unique about Israel in my opinion is the variety of cultures and people that can be found here. Jews from all over the world unite here, and become part of the Israeli society. Although we have many conflicts within ourselves and within the world, I know that we are strong enough to defeat anything that comes our way. I believe in the land of Israel, i believe in the people of Israel.

=**Reflection**=

Although Israel has always been very special to me, I think this project made me love it even more J Interviewing Oded Ravivi was very interesting, and not to mention eye opening for me. Before I interviewed him, except for knowing that Efrat is in good hands, I didn’t know much about the man who is running the town I live in. I am glad that now I can be more a part of my small community by knowing a little more about the mayors direct plans and thoughts. The research project was a little harder for me to do, but once I found some good sources, I enjoyed learning more about Efrat’s history. My literary connection was the first time in my project where I felt I was really expressing my feelings and thoughts towards Israel. Although doing this project at times was hard, nudging, and complicated, I am very happy that I completed everything and accomplished it all. Looking at the whole project together makes me very happy and satisfied. I didn’t have such have high expectations for this project because usually projects don’t go well for me, but this one was different and surprisingly interesting!

=**Works Cited**=

Baumol, Yossi. 'About the Name Efrat', March 16, 2011

'The City of Efrat'. Timeline History of Efrat. February 21 2011

Oppenheimer, Yariv: //"Today, Barak and his people have an obligation to put an end to this miserable affair and to fight back courageously and firmly against violence and for democracy, not just by delivering speeches, but also by evacuating all illegal outposts."// 'Putting an End to Illegal Outposts' October 22, 2007

The song 'One Day' []

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