Hi, my name is Avigail Aravna and I'm 15 years old and I'm going to the 10th grade.

About six weeks ago I was chosen to be the representative of Arad/Tamar in the "Partnership 2000" project of the Jewish Agency of Israel and the Jewish communities of New Jersey/Delaware. The communities sent 19 of her youth to a program of the "Young Judea" movement for five weeks in Israel. The youngsters joined a group with 21 more children from other places in the states, and came to Israel. My job was to represent the Israeli youth, especially the city of Arad and to join them for the whole five weeks in which we were traveling in Israel. Like me, there were 14 more youngsters from different cities and settlements in Israel, only they represented Israeli youth as a whole. We were divided to 5 groups who would join the groups that come from the states. In my group there were two more Israelis and together with two Israeli counselors we welcomed the Americans at the airport.

Right away we started to be friends and in five days we were already bonded as a group. We did activities together and traveled every place in Israel as a group. We started in the "Negev", we hiked in the desert and from there we continued to the north and center of the country. We, the Israelis were a small minority amongst 40 Americans and at the beginning we were a little bit afraid from that. But very soon we were accepted as equals and yet still different.

The Americans had many questions and we tried to make them part of our being Israelis.

In several occasions the Americans mentioned how happy they were to have Israelis in the group and how much they learned and enjoyed to be with them.

I can not describe how much fun we had together and how friendly we became. We had so many shared experiences and when the time came to say goodbye, it was very hard and very sad. Some of them said that they'll come to visit and some of them are even planning to do a year course in Israel and I'm sure that I'll meet them again.

I met so many wonderful people on this tour, and I'm still in contact with some of them.

I want to say that this was the best summer of my life and I especially want to thank Middlesex Federation and everyone who made it possible.

September 1999