About the project
The Jerusalem Foundation established the Beit Nechemiah Youth Center in 1970 to provide educational and recreational programs for teenagers in the Abu Tor neighborhood. The center, including its adjacent sport court, is the only communal facility in Abu Tor. The facility was created by renovating a freestanding Arab-style building, partly with the volunteer help of a group of friends of the late paratrooper Nechemia Cohen, after whom the center is named. The Foundation later supported creation of a library at the center, and in 1984, a computer room. The Foundation has supported many activities at the center over the years, particularly joint programs for Jewish and Arab youth, including the Center for Jewish-Arab Experience, which specializes in coexistence programming and leadership training and CORE, a program created in 2003 to Coordinate, Oversee, Reach out to and Educate for all types of coexistence efforts in order to develop the city’s coexistence infrastructure and to bring coexistence programming to the forefront of public consciousness.
