Entrepreneurship, Community, and Change: Unique Jerusalem Leadership

9:30 Gathering and registration

10:00–11:00 How Do You Create Change in the Company’s Backyard? On the Development of Central Jerusalem and the Mahane Yehuda Market

Behind the current prosperity of central Jerusalem lies a long and complex process that began with a deterioration that almost no one noticed in real time. This reality motivated Uri Amadi, a community activist and Jerusalem enthusiast, to embark on a journey lasting more than three decades. What began as one person’s struggle gradually became a collective force that transformed a declining area into an international model for urban renewal.

At the session, we will hear about the processes that led to the collapse and the growth strategies that emerged in the field. We will also hear about the urgent challenges of the present—with an emphasis on the arrival of nightlife in the market, coping with these challenges, and shaping and planning the area’s future.

Lecturer: Uri Amadi

11:00–11:30 Break: Coffee and Pastry

11:30–12:30 An Introduction to Urban Healing—Muslala’s Principles of Action

For approximately fifteen years, the “Muslala” community has been bringing Jerusalem’s spaces to life—from its early days in the no-man’s-land of the Musrara neighborhood to transforming the city’s rooftop desert into a thriving community-ecological center.

At this session, Matan Yisraeli, one of Muslala’s founders, will present the movement’s key principles, developed in the field over five years and guiding it to this day. Through case studies and fascinating examples from its work, we will learn how vision and creativity are transformed into a new urban reality.

Lecturer: Matan Yisraeli

Meeting point: Yad Ben-Zvi—14 Even Gvirol Street