By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Amidst the snow and heavy rains, a large group of Israeli teens worked to keep spirits up by singing and talking about their lives in Israel. Traveling to different sites around the Puget Sound, from synagogues to day schools to conference rooms, the singers, an a capella group called Dor Sheni, brought their own versions of Israeli folk songs and Jewish prayers to many different audiences. Two others, however, came as unofficial ambassadors from their country to talk about life in the shadow of Kassam rockets, working with people in their communities, and day-to-day living.
They also had plenty to say about their first forays into the U.S., and the differences between their day-to-day experiences in Israel and here, including their first experiences with freezing weather.
“It was our first snow,” said Moshe Maman, 16, an 11th grader from the town of Kiryat Malachi.
All of the students and their chaperones come from the Kiryat Malachi-Hof Ashkelon region in central Israel. Their trip was sponsored by the TIPS partnership, a collaboration between Jewish Federations in Seattle, Phoenix and Tucson that supports the region by providing aid and volunteers. The Seattle area was the group’s first stop before heading to the Arizona communities.
In exchange, the ambassadors, Maman and 17-year-old Sheliya Evyatar, meet with other kids and talk about where and how they live.
“We make a presentation [that we] show [to] the different classes,” said Evyatar. “It’s about Israel as a culture, food, young people, the stuff they connect with.”
“We talk about our youth groups that we are involved in,” Maman added.
The organizations that both ambassadors work with offer more than weekend activities and Jewish learning, which are offered by many other youth groups in the U.S. Mentorship, and even skills training, are on the menu for these teenagers, which, when working in impoverished places such as Kiryat Malachi, can be invaluable assets.
“There [are] a lot of programs for the Ethiopians and [people] from the former Soviet Union — those programs help them to fit into society,” Maman said. “You can see improvements.”
The two also spoke about their volunteer service in their communities. Service is mandatory, culminating with a project called the “Personal Commitment Project for the Society” in which 10th graders must do 60 hours of community service during the year.
“It’s a really big thing,” said Evyatar. “We have to in school.”
But, she added, the program is popular. “A lot of people do it outside of school and the school helps you.”
Evyatar lives at Moshav Netiv Ha’asara, a community about 100 meters from the Gaza border wall. As such, she deals with the Kassam rockets launched from Gaza on a regular basis.
“There are bombs every day, but you get used to it. It’s not that bad. They always miss,” she said. “It’s really rare that they hit.”
Evyatar will graduate this year, but she has volunteered on several projects in and around her community: “Like [with the] people that came from Darfur,” she said. “There is a place where they sleep, next to my school, and we give them some food and we go there and play with them, so they will not be sad, because it is a foreign country and foreign culture.”
Ariella Duvdevan, the teacher that accompanied the ambassadors as a chaperone, said there are many avenues the volunteerism can take.
“Some of them volunteer in charity and donations, some of them involved in the health services giving first aid in accidents, and in many other cases, [they] volunteer in retirement homes and working with old people,” she said.
One prerequisite of becoming a student ambassador, a position picked by the Hof Ashkelon shaliach (the liaison between the region and the TIPS communities), is that students must have English language proficiency.
According to Duvdevan, who teaches English in Kiryat Malachi, not a lot of opportunity exists for speaking English in her town. With the continued reduction in education spending by the state, having the ability to teach it is becoming more difficult, she said.
None of the student visitors actually missed school — their teachers have been on strike for more than six weeks. But they did make up for missed class time by spending time in other schools’ classes. The trio spoke to the JTNews by phone from the Jewish Day School in Bellevue while between class presentations.
One thing both Evyatar and Maman said amazed them was how it had never occurred to them that there could be a rich Jewish life outside of Israel.
“It’s really good and inspiring to see all the Jewish activities that people, even in a foreign country, in America, [do where] it’s hard to keep yourself Jewish. People do things [that] are really working,” said Evyatar.
“We participated in a Hebrew class,” Maman said. “It was really fun to see how they keep the language and the Jewish community together.”