September 10, 2003
Partnership 2000, a program to twin Diaspora and Israeli communities, is a platform that can turn general platitudes of support for Israel into concrete involvement with Israelis. 

Partnership 2000, a program to twin Diaspora and Israeli communities, is a platform that can turn general platitudes of support for Israel into concrete involvement with Israelis. The Department for Zionist Activities has concluded an agreement with the Israel Department of JAFI that will enable Zionist Federations in Europe and South America to become catalysts and leading participants in new partnerships.

Francis Weitz, chairman of the Belgian Zionist Federation, has led the Jewish communities of Belgium into a new partnership with Kfar Vradim in the Galilee, and the Department will be supporting a professional in Brussels, who will be working, under the auspices of the Zionist Federation, to strengthen and broaden the partnership through a series of joint projects.

The local branches of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland (Estelle Gilston, chair) in Liverpool and Leeds have teamed up to come up with a groundbreaking partnership idea – a new partnership for provincial centers outside of London with small communities in Israel. The Uruguay Zionist Federation (Gabriel Heymann, president) has committed itself to putting in the necessary energies to lead the Montevideo community into a partnership relationship with an Israeli community, with the help of the Israel department professionals.

Partnership 2000 is the quintessence of “Doing Zionism,” the watchword of our department. It is the catalyst for a wide spectrum of volunteering opportunities, economic links, and, most important, direct people-to-people contact that contribute to the unity of the Jewish people, centered around the State of Israel.