Ready for the next decade

Active members, volunteers, "Community Builders," immigrants and youth filled the Seraya in the Beit She'an region of Israel this past spring in honor of the 10th anniversary of Partnership 2000 (P2K).

P2K began in 1995 as a program launched by the Jewish Agency For Israel aimed at building people-to-people connections between Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. The Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland chose Beit She'an, both the city and the outer region, in Northern Israel near Jordan as its partner.

The P2K steering committee arrived from Cleveland to celebrate this special anniversary together with the large crowd from the region, representatives from the Jewish Agency, and the city and region's mayors. Mayor Yael Shaltieli recalled a story she heard from Clevelander Bobby Goldberg ten years ago when he and other Clevelanders first visited Beit She'an: "Partnership isn't easy; it's like entering the Kinneret n in the beginning the rocks are very painful, but if you continue further and don't give up, you reach the soft sand."

P2K's successes include creation of a dialogue and working relationship between the mayors of the city and region of Beit She'an. Separated by only a few miles, but existing as if they were oceans apart, the two mayors had never met each other until Cleveland's involvement.

In 1999, P2K inaugurated the Beit She'an Region's Cleveland House which houses youth programs, activities for new immigrants from Ethiopia and Argentina, and seminars and courses for entrepreneurs.

Federation also helped create the Beit She'an Valley Community Foundation, a first of its kind in Israel. It is neither controlled by an individual philanthropist nor by government officials, and it has already been successful in leveraging large amounts of government and private funds for the region.

New faces will lead the next decade of the Partnership. Fran Immerman completed her term as Cleveland's P2K co-chair and parted from her friends in Beit She'an with tears. When she stood on stage with the Sadot Sheba'Emek choir, she noted that for her it's a closure brought full circle, as her first activity in the Partnership was to bring the choir to Cleveland.

Bill Heller, the new P2K co-chair from Cleveland, greeted his Israeli counterpart Yisrael Nedivi, who will be serving as the Israeli co-chair for the Partnership.

"My involvement with the Partnership goes back to the first Cleveland P2K mission in 1995, but my knowledge of Beit She'an actually goes back much further," says Heller. "I traveled to Beit She'an with my wife Anita and our three children in 1976 to see the ‘dig' and the amphitheater. We were pretty impressed back then but could not have imagined what was yet to come in terms of both the development of the archaeological dig and our involvement with Beit She'an."

While Heller acknowledges the pride both sides feel n pride over what they've accomplished together over the last 10 years, he notes there is still much more they can do. "We won't be satisfied until we find ways to involve more people in the Partnership and retain the interest of those already involved," he says. "Our goal is to eventually touch the lives of everyone in the city and the region (of Beit She'an) and in the Jewish community of Cleveland. It's an ambitious goal, but the effort alone will help build stronger Jewish communities for both of us, and isn't that what this Partnership is all about?"

Anat Sharvit is director of Partnership 2000 in Beit She'an.