0202: Everybody’s talking. Who’s listening?

0202 facilitates communication between different sides of the city, so that everyone can hear everyone

In early December, when US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, world reaction was negative and predictions of apocalyptic events were widespread. Jerusalemites braced for terrorist attacks, bombings and worse. Yet, while there have been some disturbances and demonstrations, Jerusalem has been relatively quiet.

The relative calm in the city came as no surprise to 29-year-old Shira Laurence. As the head of 0202: Points of View from Jerusalem, she has her finger on the virtual pulse of Jerusalem.

The organization gathers information from Jerusalem’s social networks and distills them into Hebrew, English and Arabic Facebook pages. These pages, edited and maintained by a staff of mostly volunteers, provide insights into Jerusalem as it is experienced by residents of the east, west, and haredi sectors of the city.

Staff members compile and translate noteworthy stories from the news services covering different parts of the city and post them on 0202’s Facebook pages.

The organization’s English Facebook page is an aggregation of stories from these three parts of the city, translated into English. Readers of the page learn about events and occurrences in east Jerusalem, haredi Jerusalem, and west Jerusalem.

For Hebrew speakers, there are three specific pages – one about east Jerusalem, one for haredi Jerusalem and, soon, for west Jerusalem. Arabic-speakers can read east Jerusalem news, and soon will have news items from west Jerusalem and haredi Jerusalem available in Arabic as well.

In the case of Trump’s Jerusalem declaration, from the tenor of east Jerusalem news and Facebook posts, 0202 personnel sensed that terrorist attacks were not in the offing.

“Everyone was saying that violence was going to erupt, but that’s not what people were talking about,” says Laurence, who has served as CEO since March 2017. She studied Arabic in high school and college and first worked for 0202 as a translator from Arabic to Hebrew. There was a series of posts about Gaza and West Bank leaders attempting to stir up passions, she says, but in east Jerusalem, people were upset, but they were not set on committing acts of violence.

“On the haredi street,” she adds, “some people were upset” by Trump’s Jerusalem declaration, but there as well, there were no acts of violence.