Daniel Gordon and Tsipi Ben-Haim

Irene Pritzker, Amir A. Dossal and Tsipi Ben-Haim

Tsipi Ben-Haim, husband Zigi Ben-Haim and CITYarts chair Carrie H. Cohen

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and Tsipi Ben-Haim Photo courtesy CITYarts

Peace Wall in Jaffa-Tel Aviv Photo courtesy CITYarts

CITYARTS
Pieces For Peace Project
Empowers Kids To Create

STORY AND PHOTOS BY TIM BOXER

C

ITYARTS 43^rd anniversary benefit at Samsung Experience, at the Time Warner Center in New York, honored philanthropist Irene Pritzker and CBS News correspondent Byron Pitts.

Serving as emcee, Sade O. Baderinwa, anchor of WABC-TV Eyewitness News, noted that CITYarts Pieces for Peace Project is now in its 11^th year. The most recent project was completed in April 2011 in Jaffa-Tel Aviv, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by 200 Arabs and Israelis, including Nadia Chilo, former Arab Knesset member; Ibrahim Abu-Shindi, director of Arab Jewish Community Center in Jaffa; Mayor Ron Huldai and former UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman.

Tsipi said that about 1,000 kids from 35 schools participated over two years in the mosaic project. Last June she created a Pieces for Peace project at Polo Grounds in Harlem, 8th Avenue and 155th Street.

CBS News correspondent Tyrell Brown accepted award for Byron Pits who was busy in Washington.

Amir A. Dossal, founding chairman of Global Partnerships Forum, told how Tsipi approached the UN with her program five years ago. "The UN honored Tsipi two years ago. Now she’s embedded at the UN."

Irene Pritzker, president, IDP Foundation, told how IDP helps children in other parts of the world. "We’re all about the global village. We connect with kids all over the world. Everything we achieved has been done in collaboration with other organizations, particularly the UN.

"Tsipi has found us, and this is the first time children in the rural areas of Ghana have been allowed to be creative. When they create, they don’t destroy."

Tsipi’s husband, the prominent artist Zigi Ben-Haim, installed a sculpture in May at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv. He calls it a PoeTree, a stone bench on which a poem is engraved from Song of Songs (Shir Hashirim). He planted two trees in Valbone, in South of France. "Next year he plans to plant in China," Tsipi said.