The Beit Shemesh-Yehuda Plains-Washington-South Africa Partnership 2000 of the Jewish Agency held its winter meeting of the Joint Steering Committee on November 11-13, 2007. It was attended by four representatives of the Partnership communities, chairmen, members of the committees and representatives of local government.

The program prepared for the Steering Committee members was intensive and varied and included both final reports for 2007 and planning for 2008 with a view towards the Partnership's future.

In addition to the official discussions of the Joint Steering Committee and the subcommittees, the participants visited new projects and were taken on personal tours, in which the members of the Israeli Steering Committee hosted their colleagues from the Diaspora and gave the tour a personal touch.

The very enjoyable gala evening, with Yuval Dor of "Hakol Over Habibi", was attended by 120 members and volunteers from the Partnership family. At the evening, a sad farewell was bid to outgoing Chairman Dubi Unterslak from South Africa.

One of the kindergarten teachers from the Pre-School Educators program spoke at the event: "I want to say thank you for the invitation to this special evening. I didn't expect this kind of event! I want to say that although this is only a small peek at what goes on in the Partnership family, it looks like one big happy family. This was a very moving event. And to some extent, it also created a feeling of honor to be part of this wonderful enterprise!"

At the Committee meeting, Partnership 2000 welcomed Gilad Golani, the new emissary in Washington, who has replaced Riva Nineo, the outgoing emissary.

In an effort to move the Partnership forward, the Steering Committee discussed its desire to expand the circle of participants in Partnership 2000 by attracting new people and volunteers through a large-scale community-building residents meeting which will take place on December 21, 2007 in the Region.

As part of the Committee discussions, an important decision in principle was made: to expand the boundaries of the Partnership to include all of the Mateh Yehudah Region.

Partnership 2000 calls on people who care and want to contribute to join its ranks and to take part in an enterprise that includes Zionist and social endeavor of the highest importance.