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From a Westport living-room to national renown: The Young Emissaries Program

By Cindy Mindell
Published: Wednesday, August 2, 2006 11:09 AM EDT

WESTPORT - Some of the most famous modern-day buildings are first hastily sketched out on cocktail napkins, inspired by a dream or a late-night conversation.

So, too, the now nationally renowned and replicated Young Emissaries program was hatched in two Westport homes nearly 10 years ago.

The Young Emissaries are Israeli high-school graduates who defer their Israeli Army service to serve as “ambassadors” throughout southern New England. The program is supported and partially funded by a group of 13 Jewish federations in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, collectively known as the Southern New England Consortium (SNEC).

“The program was created in my living room in the mid-‘90s,” says Bob Kessler, then the executive director of UJA/Federation Westport Weston Wilton Norwalk.

“The program started in a conversation on our porch,” adds Sandy Lefkowitz, then president of UJA/Federation WWWN.

Uzi Inbar, a staffer to former Afula Mayor Danny Attar, was staying in the community while on a visit from Westport’s Project Renewal sister city, Afula.

“They wanted an opportunity both to repay the communities in SNEC for all they were doing for the Afula-Gilboa region, as well as to help ‘bring Israel to the communities,’” says Iris Morrison, then assistant executive director of UJA/Federation in Westport and currently the assistant executive director of Jewish Family Service of Stamford. “They rightly felt that one of the best ways to do this was through the youth of the region, whose commitment and passion for Israel could be conveyed in a unique way.”

Inbar and Attar returned some months later to present their idea to SNEC, then a committee of the Jewish Federation Association of Connecticut (JFACT) and made up of Connecticut federations.

“We listened, but

frankly were skeptical,” says Bob Fishman, JFACT executive director. “Some of our folks said, ‘How can we know this will

work? An 18-year-old is so young; how do we know they will be well received by our kids and families; would our families really be willing to host someone for a

whole year; who will do the training?...’”

The program was offered to all the SNEC communities, but it was Bob Kessler who snapped it up.

“He was the one with the vision to understand the potential of this program,” Fishman says, “and the first one to be willing to invest the time and money required to implement it.”

Jonathan Reiner was SNEC director at the time. Sandy Lefkowitz served as president of the federation in Westport, and her husband, Larry, was local SNEC chair.

“Westport couldn’t afford a full-blown shaliach,” Reiner recalls, “and Bob Kessler and the Lefkowitzes saw the Young Emissaries idea as a good way to interject Israeli culture into the community.”

In 1998, two emissaries arrived in Westport. They created programs for the Jewish Home for the Elderly in Fairfield, all the synagogues in Westport and Norwalk, and the public high schools of lower Fairfield County.

“The idea was to expose American and Israeli kids to one another,” Kessler says, “and to create a better connection between our two communities. We wanted to prove that the differences between us are small, that being Jewish isn’t a matter of ‘six degrees of separation,’ but maybe only one, if that.”

Together with their Israeli counterparts, SNEC coordinators have been able to learn from past mistakes and strengthen Young Emissaries, Kessler says. During its second year, SNEC brought in a coordinator, Andy Hechtman, and received generous funding from Mark Rosen, SNEC chair.

All in all, around 60 Israeli teens have served as emissaries, touching thousands of families in southern New England, Hechtman notes. In August, SNEC will welcome a new group of 16 participants.

Kessler left Fairfield County in 2003 to head up the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, but he still checks in on the program.

“It’s like watching my baby grow up,” he says.

Next month, Kessler begins his tenure as executive director of the United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula in Newport News. “Thanks to the Young Emissaries, American kids are getting a better and better understanding of what Israel is really about.” Kessler says, “The day-to-day stuff, not just what’s in the news.”

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