On Memorial Day, April 26, 2004, 70 people, including teens, educators and chaperones participating in the March of the Living Delegation came to Afula-Gilboa to be with us.

Half of the group attended the Memorial Day ceremony in the Military Cemetery of Afula. Dafna Harit, a former Young Emissary in Westport who is now working in the Youth Department of the City of Afula after having completed her army service, escorted the bus to the cemetery. Eshel Fram, Jewish Agency Regional Manager for Afula-Gilboa met the group at the ceremony and gave them a wreath which they placed on the memorial site at the completion of the official Israel Defense Force ceremony.

The other half of the group went to Kibbutz Beit Hashita in the Gilboa Region for the Memorial Day ceremony in their military cemetery. Donna Ron, P2K Living Bridge Coordinator, met them there. Kibbutz Beit Hashita, one of the largest and oldest kibbutzim in Israel (1200 people, founded in 1929) lost 11 sons of the kibbutz during the Yom Kippur War in addition to their loses in the other wars and in more recent terrorist attacks.

The group attending the ceremony at Beit Hashita also placed a wreath on the site.

Yoav Arnon's father, Gali (Yoav is currently a Young Emissary in Providence) who was in high school when the Yom Kippur War began told the group the story of the first hours of the war and of his friend who was one of the first killed in the surprise attack in the Sinai. Yifat, who served as a Young Emissary in Stamford in 2001-2002 and is from Beit Hashita also spoke to the group. She told of loosing two of her friends. One soldier, a friend of her brother's was killed in the line of duty. Yifat's best girl friend died a sudden death while she was a soldier. This happened during the year that Yifat served as the young emissary and was on her visit home in the middle of the year. So the delegation heard from a personal view the way we in Israel live with the loss of the people we know and love.

Participants in the March of the Living delegation expressed the sense of both the personal and community that was felt in these Memorial Day ceremonies.

The whole 70 strong delegation then met together with about 40 teens from Afula-Gilboa for a picnic lunch on Kibbutz Ein Harod Ichud in the Gilboa Region and then walked to the Emek Harod Comprehensive Amal School where they all participated in two hours of a facilitated encounter. Asaf Ron and 3 additional professional facilitators navigated the two hours, which included several different types of encounter sessions.

The youths all had a wonderful time. They quickly interacted. The teens talked with each other, listened to each other and learned from one another. The youths would have liked to be able to continue their time together. Before parting the teens exchanged email addresses with at least one other teen from across the ocean from themselves.

At 4:00 PM the delegation departed for their Independence Night Celebration on Lake Kinneret.

All of us who were involved in planning and implementing this day felt that it was a great success. We saw authentic people-to-people connections in action, even during the short time available to accomplish this. The participation of the SNEC group in the Memorial Day ceremonies contributed to the individual's knowledge and understanding of our reality in Israel through the personal touch with the places and people in Afula-Gilboa.

We are grateful to have this opportunity to host such a large group from our SNEC communities. We hope this will be the first of many more.

  Iyar 5764 - May 2004