When speaking at the Jewish Agency for Israel Board of Directors' meeting in June 2001, Rabbi Melchior addressed the question of what American Jewry can do for Israel during this time of need: "we live in harm's way, he said, come and join us."
He was speaking about the difficult decision a person faces in thinking whether or not to visit Israel, and whether or not to allow one's children to visit Israel during the last two years of unrelenting terrorist suicide bombings and murderous shootings. In this spirit, we want to let all of our friends in SNEC know how much it has meant to us in Afula-Gilboa that you have made the effort to come to visit. The personal support we have received through meeting, talking and sharing experiences over the past couple of months has been very important in strengthening our morale. We have, therefore, focused this newsletter on the people-to-people connections which have been so richly enchanced through your participation in the mission visits over the past couple of months.
As I write this, the Teacher's Exchange Program is in full bloom in Israel and our teachers from SNEC have brought with them long awaited and desperately needed winter rain. The group of ten includes Religious School Teachers and Education Directors of Synagogue Religious Schools from Westport-Weston-Wilton- Norwalk and New London.
The group arrived on December 23, 2002 as part of a larger mission from Eastern Connectiut. They came from the airport straight to Afula to meet with their counterparts in Afula-Gilboa. They have been extremely busy all week with a variety of activities: They have been visiting sites in the Afula-Gilboa region oriented towards getting to know the local educational institutions with which they are working, and the unique history and characteristics of the partner region. They have been meeting students, teachers, residents, P2K volunteers, officials, and of course working on the development of the curriculum with their Israeli partners.
Comments from the teachers about their workshop-visit included:
I feel so at home at Brosh Intermediate School; the students already say hello to me in the hallway.
One participant praised the connections already made between the Israeli and SNEC educators and the ripple effect this will have on all of the students that the teachers come in contact with.
One Religious School director spoke with the students in the Brosh Intermediate school in Afula and with the High School students in the Emek Harod High School in the Gilboa Region and will be able to relate what he heard back to the students in his religious school in Westport.
It is clear to one educator that the work begun with this program can have an impact on the Jewish Identity of the children and teenagers in SNEC and on the knowledge that the Israeli children and teenagers have about US Jewry.
Contact with the Israeli teachers is a bonus for the SNEC teachers as resource people for teaching programs and materials to be used in the classrooms back home.
Another teacher enthusaiastically said after the Walking with the Tanach Tour on the Gilboa that the experience gave her the material she needed for her lessons when she got back home.
Shvat 5763 - January 2003