Ran Huri

“The public notice boards on Emeq Refaim Street on Sunday morning were blank and white, with the exception of a single blue poster that stood out at a distance,” recounts a Jerusalem resident. “I noticed it, read it, and was overjoyed.” says another. They had both seen posters of HaHacham Hayomi project on the city streets.
If you walked through town in Jerusalem during this past month, you most likely ran into posters of sayings by Jewish sages pasted on notice boards, located in central locations and displaying short and meaningful excerpts from their teachings. "One should be loving with them", Chacham [Sage] Hizkiah Shabtai, who was born in Salonika and served in many communities all over the world, “and seek their wellbeing and benefit. This imperative is not only common sense but a commandment from our holy Torah, whose ways are ways of pleasantness.”
“The letter of the law and a constitution do not suffice,” states Chacham Avraham David Shalem, who was born in Jerusalem and served the Peruvian Jewish community for many years. “Human society and the world in general will be destroyed and bring about a holocaust on the entire universe if knowledge and research are not integrated with charity and justice, with truth and equality, and with a right to existence for all born in G-d’s image, without prejudice towards race, color or religion.”
Their sayings, along with sayings from additional Hachamim from HaHacham Hayomi, were displayed as part of the Talking Walls project. The project mediates the rich world of content at Kol Israel Haverim, which draws on the mizrachi Jewish heritage, to the public at large through public action. During the difficult days that we face throughout Israel and in Jerusalem in particular, unfortunately rife with extremism, we believe that it is important to share the moderate voices of Israel’s Sages that call for brotherhood, tolerance and love, and to expose the public to messages that call for shared existence, in particular from Jewish sources. In this way we seek to access these messages to broad publics and to expose them to a world of content that is less familiar to them but highly pertinent.
“We’re receiving very positive feedback from Jerusalem residents”, says Hani Mimrame, director of the Kol Israel Haverim Department of Public Relations, “People are very glad to discover that our Jewish tradition, too often mistakenly presented as promoting extremism and separatism, includes this type of statements, that encourage moderation and religious tolerance.”
The project is part of the Kol Israel Haverim program through which we seek to make the organization’s voice heard, as it is heard in our programs throughout the country, and to share our message through communication media activity, social media and additional means with the general public. We hope that the walls – city walls and internet walls – will continue to be an inspiration for a moderate Jewish tradition.