Living in a Communal Home

Participants live together in an apartment in West Jerusalem. The group is made up of between 6-10 people who share kitchen space, learning space, working space, and space for relaxation. Most participants share bedrooms. We work to balance the many amazing elements of collective living with the importance of personal space and privacy. Norms are set through a process of intentional conversation. Responsibility is shared on household chores, grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning. We view communal living as one expression of tikkun adam, bettering one's self, and one's community. Living together is one way in which we can radically care for each other throughout the program.

The space is your home, and also a community hub. It is yours to host meetings in, shabbat dinners, birthday celebrations, and enables you to be at the center of a thriving, politically active community in Jerusalem.

A Pluralistic Home

Participants come from a wide variety of Jewish and non-Jewish backgrounds, communities, and contexts. House norms around ritual practice, observance, and public space are shaped through a group process in which every participant is encouraged to bring in their whole self and the full breadth of their identities. Through compassionate and creative conversation, participants build a warm, inclusive, and mutually affirming home.

Explore Jerusalem

You are going to be living in Jerusalem, a city full of complexity and diverse cultural life. You will go to cafes and bars and art exhibits. You will join learning circles, minyanim (communal prayer gathering), celebrations, and explore community. You will discover the connections and tensions between East and West Jerusalem, as well as the vast and very real meanings behind words such as conflict, occupation, peace, justice, and self-determination. You will have meetings and go to work at your volunteer placement. You will learn all over the city and all over the country.

Achvat Amim’s learning process begins with the central belief in self-determination for all people in the place they call home. Importantly, Achvat Amim does not define “self-determination”, “people”, or “home”. We take the meaning of these concepts as a starting place for inquiry and exploration. Over the course of the learning process we go in depth into the topics of Home/Land, People/Hood, Self/Determination that together make up our learning arc. Over the course of our five weeks together, we will go out into the field to meet with activists, educators, lawyers, and community leaders who are experts on a given topic.  

We build shared knowledge and understanding of the complex reality on the ground and envision our role in the struggle for a society rooted in justice and equality. Achvat Amim approaches learning from a place rooted in identity, and much of the learning is through a Jewish lens. We engage with Jewish history, thought, and culture from a multitude of perspectives as we build a diverse learning community and shared understandings.