Models for Community: the Yahel North Seminar
- Anonymous
- Feb 15
- 3 min read
This blog post was written by a 2025/26 Fellow in Haifa
In December, Yahel Fellows embarked on our North Seminar, three days spent as a cohort exploring the north and learning about Israeli society as a cohort. This seminar’s theme was models of community. After three months, fellows are deeply integrated into their host communities and volunteer placements. This trip allowed us to zoom out and examine the larger structures at work.
The Business Model
To start we visited Sindyanna, a non-profit which produces fair trade olive oil and promotes women’s economic empowerment. The organization seeks to remedy the gap in economic participation between Arab-Palestinian and Jewish women in Israel, offering jobs and work training. They believe in a "business for peace” model and foster collaboration between their Arab and Jewish employees. At Sindyanna, community is multi-faceted, operating at the micro and macro level. From the individual women granted a stable income to a broader channel for cooperation in a divided society, their business offers far more than olive oil.
The Social Model
In the second half of the day, fellows traveled to Nof Hagalil, a city bordering Nazareth. Nof Hagalil, is what is commonly referred to as a mixed city, or an area in which Arab-Palestinian and Jewish Israelis live in close proximity. Here, fellows learned about the city’s political challenges and inadequate resource allocation for the Arab population by the more conservative municipality. We were visited by a speaker from Bustan, a local nonprofit focused on building shared community and partnerships between the Arab and Jewish populations. Their work ranges from social events to collaborations of community problems, such as offering both Arabic and Hebrew roadside assistance.
Unity for Social Change
Also in Nof Hagalil, fellows learned about the work of Kibbutz Mashol, an urban kibbutz following a unique model. At Mashol, kibbutz residents build community and live as a socialist community, however, they also commit themselves to addressing social issues in education. Members of the kibbutz dedicate their time to working with youth, in schools and other locations. Their intentional community does not simply look inward but serves as a basis for members to give back to the broader area.
After a busy day of visits, fellows traveled to Kibbutz Hanaton, our homebase for the remainder of the seminar. Hanaton is a more traditional kibbutz, founded on egalitarian Jewish principles. At Hanaton, fellows learned about the challenges to restore the kibbutz’s mikveh and the barriers put in place by Israel’s Orthodox rabbinate. The mikveh persists to offer a valuable resource to Israelis converting to Judaism outside the Orthodox movement. As Shabbat set in, some fellows enjoyed services at the Hanaton synagogue. We concluded the weekend with a simple shabbat spent playing board games, enjoying the kibbutz landscape, and taking a pause to rest and learn about our own Yahel community.
The North Seminar offered a window into communities addressing challenges in Israel and efforts toward coexistence or shared society. Meeting with these organizations brought up a lot of mixed feelings. On one hand, it was easy to embrace the hopeful narrative these community leaders spent so much time investing in. I wanted to believe in their visions of cooperation and dialogue, their continued efforts to improve this country through serious obstacles and hate. On the other hand though, I know they represent a small fraction of people so dedicated to working for a just shared future. While I love the immersive nature of Yahel, working so closely in my community means seeing its ugly realities. In my volunteer placements I’ve heard a range of hateful rhetoric and comments steeped in racism and xenophobia. Hearing the hopeful, loving, and optimistic narratives of our speakers was refreshing, but sadly, to me, it felt like a drop in the bucket.
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