New Haven Professionals' Mission to Israel
by Donna Ron; edited by Eshel Fram

On Thursday, February 27, 2003, a New Haven Professionals' Mission came to visit Afula-Gilboa. In spite of the uncertainty under which we were all living concerning the U.S. Military Action in Iraq, the New Haven Jewish Community were able to organize a mission to Israel including a day in Afula-Gilboa. About twenty people came first to Kfar Mukeble to visit with Id Saleem, Deputy Mayor of the Gilboa Regional Council. The group were graciously received by Id and his family in their home. The mission participants sat in a circle in the warm living room and listened to Id tell about the history and the developments which led to the Gilboa Regional Council being the first and until now the only regional council which has a joint administration of Jews and Israeli Arabs. Id also related the story of the development of the Co-existence Program in the region to which the SNEC communities have been so generously contributing for over 5 years. Id explained how without this support the program would not have been able to have been implemented. Id emphasized the importance of this program and its contribution to a real feeling of co-existence in the area. The evidence to the program's benefit was to be seen in the relations of Jewish and Arab residents of the Gilboa region in the aftermath of the uprising in October 2000. At that time many areas in Israel in which Jews and Israeli Arabs live in close proximity were experiencing a great deal of tension and a worsening of the general relations between the groups. However, within the Gilboa Regional Council's jurisdiction, the relations between the Jewish and Arab residents continued as they had been and both populations continued to work and live together without disturbance.

It was difficult to leave the warmth of Id's home, but the group needed to continue on with their program. Their next stop, at Moshav Gadish, where Eli Biton had been murdered on January 12, 2003, involved a most difficult transition. Benny Segall, the Chief Engineer of the Gilboa Regional Council and a veteran immigrant from South Africa who lives on Kibbutz Yizreel explained to the New Haven group how terrorists infiltrated into the heart of this moshav of 350 residents, located 4 kilometers from Jenin, and shot Eli through the windshield of his car. Four other people were wounded in the attack.

Standing there and sensing the area while listening to the related events of how Eli had been shot and died after being put into the ambulance gave real dimensions and understanding of the horror of the situation. The group met and spoke with Eli Biton's brother.

The New Haven group traveled to Moshav Ram On, also located on the Seam Line. The group heard explanations about the significance of the geographical layout in terms of the ease of terrorist infiltration and the impact it has on how the residents in the area live their lives. They also saw the fence which is being built as a deterrant to terrorists.

This group stayed on Kibbutz Yizreel in the Partnership House. There was a dinner for the mission participants in the Club House of Kibbutz Yizreel. Local guests included the teens who in the Youth Leadership group who were scheduled to visit the SNEC communities at the end of March, Danny Atar, Mayor of the Gilboa Regional Council, the parents of the Young Emissaries who are volunteering in new Haven - Anat Antoneli and Ongi Zisling - and P2K volunteers and staff from.

Then there was a workshop enabling the mission participants and the youths to get to know each other a bit. Everyone had a good time and were reluctant to part in spite of how tired everybody was.

A special component of this mission was the meeting between Rachel Bashevkin and Aphraim, a boy who immigrated from Ethiopia in the winter of 2001. This meeting took place in Aphraim's new home in Netanya and included the installation of the new computer which Elie, Rachel's son, bought for Aphraim with the interest on the Tzedakah money he had received for his Bar Mitzvah a year earlier. It all started like this:

In honor of Elie's Bar Mitzvah (October 13, 2001), Rachel Bashevkin Bilmes, her husband David and their son Elie adopted four Bar Mitzvah aged boys who had immigrated from Ethiopia in the winter of 2001 and were residing in the temporary Absorption Site at Maayan Harod in the Gilboa Region. Contact with the Ethiopian boys was intially made and maintained through the P2K Living Bridge Coordinator Donna, with the help of the staff at the absorption sites.

Rabbi Andy Hechtman of Kol Ami Synagogue in Chesire, CT. met with Aphraim in the summer of 2002.

At the time of Elie's one year anniversary for his Bar Mitzvah, he needed to make a decision concerning the allocation of the interest on his Tzedakah Fund. Aphraim had just written to Elie and his family saying that he needed a computer and Elie decided to use his Tzedakah Fund interest to purchase a computer for Aphraim. This is a real mitzva. For an Ethiopian youth in Israel to have a computer, gives them a powerful tool for raising their level of present and future functioning within Israeli Society.

Thanks to Sydney Perry's initiative in organizing the New Haven mission, Rachel was able to come to Israel this winter and to meet all of the people who have been involved in this project and to be present at the delivery of the computer at Aphraim's new home in Netanya to which he and his family had moved two months earlier.

We would also like to give a big thank you to all who had a part in making this people-to-people connection a reality of our P2k relationship.