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The Jewish Agency Connection, Issue #2 | December, 2011
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This Hanukkah, I look back and am amazed at how much things have changed since I was a child and how much they have stayed the same. Today you find Hanukkah decorations everywhere. |
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People are openly ethnic about their holiday choices. Our holiday has happily made it into the mainstream culture. Who would have thought that you could buy a menorah at Target or that Tiffany’s – on the other side of the economic scale - wishes its customers a Happy Hanukkah in the New York Times? As a child in Russia, Hanukkah was certainly not mainstream, but even for children in the United States, Hanukkah was the poor stepchild of Christmas. That’s no longer the case. We’re proud. We’re free. We’re celebrating.
Misha is President, International Development, Jewish Agency for Israel.
Click here to read his full message.
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Natan Sharansky lights the Hanukkah menorah in Tel Aviv as he welcomes more than 350 new olim minutes after their arrival |
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Minutes after landing in Tel Aviv, more than 350 immigrants joined Sharansky and the Agency’s director general, Alan Hoffman, for a Hanukkah ceremony. Sharansky told the immigrants that they had answered the promise of “L’shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim” and that they were fulfilling their right to live in the Jewish homeland, where freedom and proud Jewish expression are one in the same. Following the ceremony, the olim participated in Red Carpet—an Agency program where new immigrants can complete their paperwork and arrange for vital services under one roof, in a streamlined process. |
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Brittany Adams, dancing here as part of New York City’s famous Alvin Ailey Dance Company, has recently made Aliyah and hopes to join Tel Aviv’s Batsheva Dance Company |
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After spending a summer in Tel Aviv at a contemporary dance workshop with the Batsheva dance company, one of America’s most talented young dancers found that nothing could compare to the experience of dancing in Israel. Now Brittany Adams is looking forward to a future in Zion.
Click here to read Brittany’s story. |
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In a powerful keynote address to some 5,000 leaders of the Reform movement at the recent URJ Biennial in Washington D.C., Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency, called on the movement to dramatically increase the number of young people it sends to Israel each year. He also called for the release of Jonathan Pollard.
Click here to read the press release. |
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An El Al flight crew discusses life in modern Israel to a packed room of students at Rutgers University |
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Earlier this month, some 100 Rutgers University students gathered on campus to hear members of an El Al flight crew discuss life in modern Israel. This program was part of a first-of- its-kind initiative between the Jewish Agency, El Al, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Stand with Us. The goal is to allow pilots and flight attendants to present to North American Jewish groups a textured picture of their lives in Israel through honesty, humor and poignancy.
Click here to read the JTA’s coverage of the event. |
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The Jewish Agency has premiered a stirring photo exhibition that traces the final steps of two groups of Ethiopian Jews as they prepare to leave their native land and as they make their arrival in Israel, after decades of waiting.
Click here to view the exhibition, which is available for display in your community. |
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In hosting the Jewish Agency’s most-recent Board of Governors meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina’s once-again thriving Jewish community spotlighted the solidarity that enabled its historic resilience in the face of terror, tragedy and economic hardship. Among the meeting’s many highlights was the announcement of the multi-million dollar “Fund for the Jewish Future”.
Click here to read the press release about the Fund for the Jewish Future from the November Board of Governors meeting |
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A Jewish Agency transport of doctors and nurses arrived on the remote Island of Sirini to aid more than 800 visaless Jews headed for Palestine,
who were shipwrecked after encountering a violent storm in the Aegean Sea. JTA reported that the island’s rocky terrain prevented landings from the air, so the Jewish Agency medical teams were forced to fly to the Island of Rhodes and then travel the remaining 50 miles by sea. In addition to the Jewish Agency's medical transport, three large Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers dropped five tons of relief supplies on the island—at the Agency’s behest—and a convoy of British and Greek naval destroyers and minesweepers also delivered shipments to the stranded passengers.
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Natan Sharansky Makes 9-Year-Old’s Dream Come True
Jewish Agency-Sponsored El Al Ambassadors Discuss Modern Israel at Rutgers
Click here for the Jewish Agency’s complete press release archive |
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Comments or Suggestions
We welcome your feedback.
Please send your comments or suggestions on this newsletter to: connection@jafi.org |
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The Jewish Agency is funded by The Jewish Federations of North America, Keren Hayesod, major Jewish communities and federations, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, foundations and donors from Israel and around the world. |
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