Students from AMIT Nachshon Yeshiva Went on a Bicycle Trip in South Africa with the Johannesburg Academic Torah School and Schools from the City's African Quarter

As part of the Jewish Agency's Partnership2Gether program, which connects 500 Jewish communities around the world through 45 voluntary partnerships, students from AMIT Nachshon Yeshiva went on a bicycle trip in South Africa, in conjunction with students from the Johannesburg Academic Torah School and from two schools from the City's Soweto African quarter, a township area of the city.

Five of the yeshiva's students went on a week-long bicycle ride, right across South Africa, which connected creeds, religions and peoples. The trip included students from the Johannesburg Academic Torah School and black South African students from the Soweto township. The Israeli students were accompanied by Naveh Yogev, Partnership 2Gether coordinator, and by Rabbi Zvi Sonnenstein from AMIT Nachshon Yeshiva.

The Israeli, Jewish and African students set off from Johannesburg to Durban, following a ceremony and blessings from the mayor. The trip was undertaken by bus and bicycles, with seven bicycles used at a time. During the trip social bonds were forged between the youth, opinions and, of course, Facebook addresses were exchanged.

Rabbi Zvi Sonnenstein, a teacher at AMIT Nachshon Yeshiva, talks about a multicultural and pluralistic experience which aroused a great deal of curiosity among the students: "The students not only encountered African culture, with which they were not familiar, but also the lives of Jewish students of the same age who live in a very different reality from theirs. During the trip they learned to accept people different from them, and to look for the things that they share and have in common with Jewish students, and even with the African students."

Partnership 2Gether coordinator Naveh Yogev said that the AMIT Nachshon Yeshiva students did excellent publicity work during the trip: "Besides becoming familiarized with a culture which is - more of less - different from their own, the students also demonstrated an impressive ability to explain the complexities of reality in Israel to their partners on the trip."

Eli Nissanholtz, head of AMIT Nachshon Yeshiva, welcomed the trip initiative: "The experience the students had, and which they shared with the other yeshiva students, highlights the importance of learning about the world in general and, in particular, about the Jewish world, as part of their education towards leadership and assuming responsibility. The inter-religion encounter with African students and, even more so, with the Jewish students, further enhanced, for our students, the importance of Israel and of contributing to it."

Shmulik Klein
AMIT spokesman - 052-4767312