Chicago Community Center & Mosaic Multicultural Center in Lod

History of Lod

The city of Lod has an extremely rich and deeply-entrenched history running through its veins. The city’s demographic makeup consists of a Jewish majority (around 70%) and an Arab minority (around 30%). The neighborhood of Ramat Eshkol has an inverse population with an Arab majority and a diverse Jewish minority. As you walk around the old city in Ramat Eshkol, you might hear different pronunciations of the city’s name. This is because it is known by different names to different populations. Originally, it was known by the name of the Greek tribe that had settled here — Lydda. This is the classical and Biblical name. During the Roman period, it was known as Diospolis. Under Muslim Arab rule, the city was known as Al-Lydd or All-Lud. After 1948, it was changed by Jewish Zionists to Lod, utilizing a more ‘Hebraic’ title.

Lod is an ancient city that has been continuously inhabited for 6000 years. It was a historical center for Jewish scholarship, a Roman legion encampment, the home and final resting place of the Christian Saint George, and a populous Arab city on the roads from Jaffa to Jerusalem as well as Cairo to Damascus. Lod’s significant as a city on the crossroads of four major Middle Eastern hotspots, urban centers, and holy spaces of religiosity led to its notoriety as a city on the road, a place for travelers to stop and rest, perhaps buy local handmade soaps and peruse the weekly shuk. Under the Ottoman rule, Lod was in touch with the bustling soap and olive oil industries. Groves of olive trees and lush orchards surrounded the city. Even when the earliest Zionist settlers entered the Lydda valley in 1903, the accounts of inter-community interactions are noted as peaceful; Jews and Arabs are noted to have worked together on olive oil production.

Turmoil, however, would unfortunately ensue and the tensions caused by traumas of the past still linger today. Following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, Lod became the site of the biggest Arab exodus during the war, with 25,000 Arabs leaving Lod in one day. After 1948, Lod experienced a huge influx of Jewish immigrants — first from Morocco and Tunisia, later from Ethiopia, and more recently from the former Soviet Union. Many of these immigrants were moved here by the Israeli government.

Following the collapse of Lod’s municipality in the 1990s (more on this below), many Jewish families left the area. Disinterest and disinvestment in the area meant lower housing prices. This enabled Arab families to buy apartments in the area and once again become the demographic majority. Lod has since become home to Israel’s marginalized communities, including Bedouin, Muslim, and Christian Arabs and more Jewish immigrants from Arab countries, Ethiopia, and the former Soviet Union. As a result of these layers and influxes of very different populations (and as a part of the Judaization of Lod), the city’s logo and coat of arms are inscribed with Biblical words from Jeremiah 31:17: “The children will return to their country”.

More recently, religious-nationalist Jews have been moving to the city in an attempt to strengthen it, and maintain its Jewish identity. Despite these communities appearing to have diametrically opposing viewpoints, the newer (often Ashkenazi) Jewish communities and the older Arab and Mizrahi communities work side-by-side in present-day Lod. There are many shared spaces in Lod, such as Liz Bakery or the Chicago Community Center, where they can come together, meet, interact, and simply be as they are, each with their own multiplicity of identities, voices, opinions. This is the beauty and strength of Lod that many other Israeli cities are lacking. Not only are they lacking encountering these elements of shared society firsthand, but they are not hearing voices from mixed-cities like Lod; Lod is still a city on the periphery. This tour and the initiative you will read about below are working to change that.

Chicago Community Center

The Chicago Community Center in Lod was founded in the 1970s through donations from the Jewish Federations of Chicago and St. Louis. Lod was predominantly Jewish at this time, and the Center was thus mainly for the Jewish population. Its main activities were events and shows in the auditorium space, and use of the building as a library. The Chicago Center quickly became a hub for families and cultural celebrations in Ramat Eshkol.

The Municipality of Lod collapsed in the early 2000s, mostly due to debts the city was unable to pay. At the same time, the State of Israel settled a large population of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Lod. The lack of infrastructure to support their transition contributed to municipal deterioration. After the collapse, the city was run by a committee appointed through the government. Under this supervision, most families who had the financial means to exit the city quickly did so, moving to newer cities such as Modi'in. Families who were able to leave Lod for better opportunities in newer cities were predominantly Jewish, resulting in a demographic shift in Lod becoming more heavily Arab. The Chicago Community Center was directly affected by the demographic shift --community center budgets are directly informed by the municipality budget and what citizens are able to pay for. Since the government could not deliver money through a nonexistent municipality, and the citizens still in Lod at this time were not able to afford community center activities out of pocket, the Chicago Community Center was eventually closed from 2005 to 2013. The building was still used partially as an afternoon club for Ethiopian Jewish families in the area, who had come to rely on this space and program.

In 2010, Orthodox Jewish (Garin Tourani) families worked with the Jewish Agency to formally reopen the center. At this time, the Chicago Center was specifically for Jewish families in the area -- the afternoon programs to serve Ethiopian Jewish families were continued and a fellowship group for elderly people in the Jewish community was established. The struggle for Arab society to participate in events at the community center began in 2011-2012, particularly as a clear Arab majority of residents emerged in the Ramat Eshkol neighborhood. Faten al-Zanati, now the manager of the Chicago Community Center, was a leader in finding community services for the Arab community. Prior to her involvement with Chicago, she had been organizing an informal “street” community center outside to provide activities for Arab families and children. In 2012, the municipality decided to change the status of the community center and formally asked the Israel Association of Community Centers to take responsibility for its operation.

In 2014, Faten was selected by the Israel Association of Community Centers to manage the center and it was officially fully reopened as the first Jewish-Arab community center in Israel. When Faten accepted this role, the community center was still physically segregated -- programs for Arab citizens were on the first floor and Jewish programs were on the second. The 2016 opening of the Center for Early Childhood, accomplished through cooperation between the Arab and Garin Tourani communities, was the first step of a change in the relationships between the communities. Faten, manager of the Chicago Community Center, and Noam Dreyfus, head of the Jewish orthodox community, worked together to find funding, eventually getting support from Bank Mizrahi and the Lod Foundation. The Center for Early Childhood provides parenting workshops and community-building programs for new parents. In 2017, formal activities geared towards bringing together different communities began at the Chicago Center. Leaders from different communities began to work together in activities promoting dialogue between groups and designing projects that improve neighborhood life for everyone. This work includes building committees, neighborhood cleaning initiatives, and projects working with the Municipality.

From 2010-2012, a documentary was being filmed about Lod. When this was screened nationwide on Channel 8, the Chicago Community Center began receiving more attention regarding its unique work. People began to visit the area to learn more about its history and how leadership is trying to positively impact each citizen. In response to this and because Faten felt that they had a unique story to tell, the Chicago Center designed tours for visitors that would provide a stronger understanding of Lod. Visiting groups have become a staple of the Chicago Center.

Lod is one of Israel’s few mixed Arab-Jewish cities and, as such, is an important place to learn how Arabs and Jews can live and work together. Today's Lod reflects its incredible growth as it moves forward from a tumultuous history. With a once-again thriving municipality and countless organizations where residents explore how to improve the community, Lod is a place of hope. We are proud that our work, from the bustling Chicago Community Center to exciting visits from international visitors, can be a part of this city's positive trajectory.

Our multicultural learning initiatives are currently housed at the Chicago Community Center. Mosaic's work is an initiative of both people from the Chicago Community Center and the surrounding neighborhood. As one of the few community centers in Israel which serves both Jews and Arabs, its work has directly informed our educational programming and community building activities. Currently serving around 5,000 residents of Lod, from early childhood programs through senior citizen fellowship, the Chicago Community Center is undeniably at the heart of Ramat Eshkol. Programs are available for the Ethiopian-Jewish, Arab, and religious Jewish communities, with particular focus on youth movements to build leadership and women-centric programs to build education and employment. Its story is representative of demographic and ideological shifts in Lod, and is thus an integral part of the narrative we hope for visitors to explore.