The Clinic for Multiculturalism and Diversity

"The Clinic enables me to challenge my Judaism, and thus my identity. To feel a "stomach ache" sometimes, but out of the believe of knowing it is the right thing, to blur the differences and to understand that each person is a universe.  The concern to the "other" is what indicate on us as a society. If we fail in that, and there us those among us who do not receive their fundamental rights, we failed as a state and as a society". 

A student at the Clinic for Multiculturalism and Diversity

About the Clinic

The Clinic for Multiculturalism and Diversity is a home for social and legal activism for students coming from a wide range of academic fields: law, psychology, communication, Education. The clinic provides legal aid to individuals and groups who are being discriminated because of their cultural identity, among those groups are Arabs- Palestinians, Immigrants from Ethiopia, transgender people, and more.  The clinic also deals with promoting an inter-cultural dialogue, and leads unique projects in this area.

The main topics dealt by the clinic are developing new strategies to fight discrimination and incitement to racism, promotion diversity in employment, shaping an inter-cultural public space and providing cultural accessibility of welfare and health services.

 

Among the Clinic's Achievements:

• The Clinic for Multiculturalism and Diversity helped an ultra-Orthodox child attend an ultra-Orthodox educational yeshiva in Jerusalem several months after the beginning of the school year. According to the family, the child had not been accepted by the yeshiva due to the family being stigmatized. After formal requests to the municipality and numerous conversations with the parents and with the Ministry of Education Schools Attendance Officer, the child was enrolled in the school. The success of this case means the smooth and uninterrupted continuation of the child’s education in the customary transition from middle to high school yeshiva in line with the religious and cultural beliefs of the child and his parents.
   
• The Clinic for Multiculturalism and Diversity asked the Mayor of Jerusalem to make the website and app for appointments at the municipality accessible in Arabic. The lack of accessibility to online municipal services in Arabic was impeding about one third of the city's residents from benefitting from such services. While technological innovations in access to services are intended to reduce bureaucracy and improve the quality of services provided by the municipality, in practice they had become too cumbersome and costly for many of the city’s residents in aspects such as lengthy waiting times and language accessibility. As a result of the Clinic’s intervention, the forms to make appointments and to apply for a reduction on municipal property taxes have been uploaded to the app and website in Arabic. The Clinic has been informed that more forms are currently being translated.


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