The Steering Committee Meeting

On May 14th 2007, the meeting of the Partnership 2000 Steering Committee was opened in Washington and was attended by representatives of the three communities.

Participating in the meeting were representatives of the Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plains Region, representatives of the Jewish community in South Africa and representatives of the Jewish community in Washington.

The Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plains Region was represented by the Chairmen of the Partnership, the Director of the Partnership from the Jewish Agency, representatives of local government and five lay leaders from the various committees.

The Steering Committee of Partnership 2000 meets twice annually to discuss the common agenda of the communities.

The function of the Steering Committee is to assess the challenges facing each community and to choose the projects that are best suited to meeting those challenges.

One of the most important goals of the Steering Committee meeting is to hear reports of what is happening in the various projects and implemented by the Partnership.

At this meeting, the Committee bade farewell to the outgoing Director of the Partnership from the Jewish Agency - Yizhar Hess - and welcomed the incoming Director - Aviv Klein.

Apart from the discussions, policy meetings and periodic reports, the Steering Committee gained an in-depth familiarity with the Washington community that hosted the meeting.

This was a real encounter with the community - its culture, activity and people and its educational and charitable organizations.

During the session, there were numerous meetings with public officials, businessmen and representatives of the Federation of Greater Washington.

Their connection to Israel and Zionism is very strong.

Much of the discussion centered on how to recruit additional people to Partnership 2000 both in Washington and in Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plains.

"During the visit to Washington, we learned close-up about the needs of the local community and the challenges facing it.

In fact, the ties with Israel in general and with the Partnership Region in particular will help them deal with the wider Jewish community.

Everything should be done to strengthen the ties between the communities!"

The Steering Committee held an initial discussion of the 2008 budget and joint programs for the future.

The winter meeting of the Steering Committee is expected to take place in November 2007 in Israel.

Weekend in the Community

Following the meeting of the Steering Committee, each of the members of the delegation was hosted in a different home in the community for an enjoyable weekend spent in Silver Springs.

The goal was to strengthen interpersonal ties between Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plain and the Washington community.

Members of the delegation met with the rabbi of the community and public officials in order to discuss methods of future cooperation.

Already during the Shabbat, plans started to take shape, such as a hosting Shabbat in Beit Shemesh.

There was a communal Seudah Shlishit in honor of the delegation and Daniel Goldman spoke about the Partnership to the local community.

The Delegation goes to a Baseball Game

The delegation members were personal guests of Mark Lerner at a baseball game.

He is the owner of Washington's baseball team and is also one of the owners of the stadium in which they play.

He is also currently in the process of building an additional stadium that has a capacity of 45 thousand people.

Last year, Mark's son, Yaakov, came to Beit Shemesh as a volunteer for Partnership 2000.

He volunteered in the Benyamin Library and with the Lamitnadev organization for a period of about three weeks.

Mark Lerner himself visited during that time and the two have very positive memories of the Region.

During the game, the members of the delegation updated Lerner on important processes taking place in the city which are of interest to him.

Firstly, the city of Beit Shemesh has a baseball team of its own! Secondly, the city is building a baseball field!!! Members of the delegation presented him with a modest gift of a bottle of wine from the Region and invited him to come to Beit Shemesh to view the progress of the construction.

International Conference of Partnerships

At the beginning of the following week, a conference took place of representatives of all the Partnerships in North America and Europe.

Only two Partnerships from Israel participated: ours and Sovev Kinneret.

This was the biggest conference that has taken place since the founding of Partnership 2000 between the Jewish communities in North America and Israel thirteen years ago.

Already on the opening night of the conference, the Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plains Partnership stole the show! 175 conference participants sang Israeli songs led by our delegation.

Our Partnership played a significant part in the conference.

Ilan Gal-Dor, the Chairman of the Partnership, gave a presentation on the youth program of Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plain.

The evening program included an activity led by Rocko Sopher for the conference plenum.

In short, Partnership 2000 Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plains stood out throughout the conference!