every Wednesday, the city's 47,000
residents (17 percent of whom are
Christian and Moslem Arabs, in-
cluding Beduin) are joined by tens
of thousands of Jews and Arabs
from Israel, the West Bank and
Gaza, who descend on Old Ramle to
take part in an enormous open air
market. Cotton and silk, ground co-
riander and turmeric, polyester jog-
ging suits and Pyrex baking dishes
are bartered over in stalls and on
pushcarts. On Wednesdays, many
Ramie parents do not allow their
children to play outside.
While other towns close to Tel
Aviv developed into fashionable
suburbs, Ramie was stuck in the
mire that clogged its streets, many
of which, remarkably, in the 1980s
remained unpaved.
In 1978, Detroit's Jewish Wel-
fare Federation was twinned with
Ramle's Old City, under the then-
nascent Project Renewal scheme.
Project Renewal was created to
turn around neighborhoods like Old
Ramie The massive redevelopment
program was undertaken jointly by
the Government of Israel and Jews
in the Diaspora. The original proj-
ect was to last five years but, in
most cases, the project stretched to
seven or eight years. In Detroit a
$5.1 million budget was allocated
to finance the project, with the re-
mainder to be provided by the Is-
rael government. Ninety percent of
that budget will be used up by the
end of this year.
Project Renewal was unlike
other development plans because it
included a comprehensive and inte-
grated view of neighborhood prob-
lems, calling on the cooperation of
different government ministries,
the Jewish Agency, the local
authorities, the residents them-
selves and the community abroad.-
Residents were drawn into the
decision-making process for the
first time. Communities abroad
sent representatives to the
neighborhoods and took part in de-
bates and decisions, bringing
energy and outside input into
planning.
"Things have changed here,"
says Zippora Stark, the youthful,
energetic principal of Ramle's
Bialik School. "We've got an
enrichment program for seventh
and eighth graders, remedial read-
ing for the middle grades, after
school help hours, audio-visual
aids. We have computers for drill,
for enrichment skills and for learn-
ing Basic and Logo. None of this
would have happened without Proj-
ect Renewal."
The 230 children in the Bialik
School are largely the offspring of
immigrants who moved to Ramie
from North Africa, Asia and
Rumania in the early 1950s.
Twenty-six are Arab children,
whose parents elected to send their
children to this Jewish school
rather than the Arab-sector schools
in town.
"The Arab children take part
in all activities," says Stark. "The
two awkward days are Holocaust
Day and Memorial Day. Sometimes
a Jewish child will say to me, `Mrs.
Stark, what could they be thinking
when we stand for the memorial si-
ren?' I remind them that these
children are in our school out of
choice."
The school does not look disad-
vantaged. The halls in the Bialik
School are brightly decorated with
three-dimensional murals made by
the chilren, describing chapters in
Israel's history and the Bible. A
tall stack of video cassettes sits on
Stark's desk.
"I know they thought it was
silly in Project Renewal when I
wanted a VCR. They thought I was
looking for a babysitter for the
children. But they trusted me and
backed me. Detroit is wonderful
that way. Our children come from
homes in which television is
watched all the time. They watch
Indian love movies or junk. At
school I replay educational pro-
grams that have been on television
— science programs and specials on
the history of Israel. I've got to
change their viewing habits if they
are going to understand something
about the world."
Has Stark succeeded? At the
end of the 1986 school year, the
graduating eighth graders in the
Bialik School outscored their peers
in a city-wide test to evaluate
achievement.
Housing built
during the early
1950s is still in
use even as new
housing is
constructed.
"The Old City could be a won-
derful tourist attraction," says
Grant, who has lived in Israel for
16 years. "Do you know we have an
underground lake that runs right
under this building and some of the
most beautiful old sites in the
country? Down the street from the
cultural center is a tennis center
and a swimming pool. If we get a
wave of immigration from Russia,
what would be a more logical
choice than a town in the middle of
the country near high-tech indus-
try? But who would move to a town
with Ramle's reputation?
"Project Renewal has a lot to
be proud of in Old Ramie After all,
we started from worse than most
other places. We had to fix sewers
and pave streets before we could
talk about other changes. Danger-
ous housing had to be removed. We
weren't talking about a 30-year-old
development town, but an 1,100
year old city that was decaying. We
have one of the best child develop-
ment centers in the country. We've
expanded family health care,
created youth clubs, libraries, run
courses for leadership, created pro-
grams and facilities for the elderly.
"But, outside the Old City, at
least three additional neighbor-
hoods in Ramle have been
classified as distressed. Even in Old
Ramie, where so many facets of life
have improved, the Jewish popula-
tion has decreased in the last de-
cade, as the number of disadvan-
taged Arab families move in. Un-
less massive government and out-
side help arrives, your
grandchildren will visit the Arab
city of Ramie That's all right if
that's what the government really
wants: a disadvantaged Arab city
in the middle of Israel. But they
have to decide and not default."
Local activist Aharon Dari and
Zemmi Chrust, a community
worker — both Ramlephiles who
grew up in this city — bristle at
the notion of Ramle losing its
Jewish presence. They have long,
emotional ties to the city.
"I love Ramie, wouldn't want
to live anywhere else," says Darn.
"At the beginning, when my family
settled here from Morocco in 1948,
life was difficult for a long time.
But so much has improved in our
neighborhood.
"When we first heard about
Project Renewal, I admit we were
skeptical — another government
program with big promises. But
then we saw things changing be-
fore our eyes. First the schools
were shaped up, then the roads and
parks. We got cultural facilities.
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