Chairs:John Strauss (Canton) and Avi Hatchuel (Matte Asher)

Coordinator:Heidi Benish

Background:

The community task force was established four years ago. The members created their vision statement, were active developing new initiatives, hosting missions etc. There is currently a feeling that the task force has to be renewed and add new members. Some of the new members will be chosen from the new Partnership leadership course.

The mission statement of the task force is:

"Our mission is to influence the growth and the quality of the communities, and instill and maintain a space for a colorful connection".

Goals:

1) Creating more opportunities for spending time together in order to enhance the people to people interaction between the Consortium communities and the Western Galilee.

2) A byproduct of sharing ourselves and our cultures with each other will be a natural strengthening of our individual Jewish identities.

Areas of involvement:

·               Jewish Identity

·               People to people

·               Quality of life

·               Voluntarism

·               Sport

·               Growth

·               Environment

Incoming delegations, 2007

The purposes of the visits are:

·         Getting exposed to Partnership programs – “where does some of my/our $ go”

·         Building personal connections

·         Enjoyed the beauty of the Western Galilee and its people.

·         Get a person to person experience with Western Galilee residence.

Outgoing delegations, 2007:

Reverse Kefiada:

Groups of youth counselors and a chaperone visited JCC summer camps while bringing Israel to the camp through singing, dancing, arts, craft etc. Seventy candidates were screened for the Kefiada program and nine were selected:

Evaluation: In the past this program has been very successful, but lately there has been a feeling of decreased satisfaction. There are reasons for this on both sides, some of the major points are:

1.       There are less Jewish children in the summer camps.

2.       The Partnership decided not to send co-counselors to summer camps where there also are post army counselors

3.       In order to create deeper relationship the program was changed from spending one week to 3.5 weeks in each community

4.       Challenge on Israeli side in finding the best chaperones and appropriately preparing the co-counselors

Challenge and recommendation: Two communities are interesting in hosting the Kefiada next summer and the question is: If to put efforts and budget in this project or if to end the project? The community task force has been discussing this question and finds it very difficult to cancel one of the first programs of the Partnership, which has been very successful for many years.

Maccabia:

This year eight candidates were screened for the Maccabi program; two female dancers and a chaperone were selected and represented with success the Partnership in the JCC of Omaha and in the Maccabi games in Houston.

Normally 3-5 communities participate in this program, but due to internal JCCA Maccabi Games challenges last year, only Omaha hosted young athletes from the Western Galilee.

Evaluation: This program has been running for the last six years, some years more successfully than others. Some communities take great advantage of this program, since they expose the Israelis to the American Jewish society and culture and benefit from the Israelis mingling with their teens.

Recommendation: Next summer Akron will be hosting the National Maccabi games and is very much interested in hosting a group of 12-15 young athletes from the Western Galilee. Another few communities have also expressed their interest in bringing over Israelis to their team. Therefore the task force recommends continuation of this project.

Bands to the communities:

Two youth bands participated, performed and brought the Israeli spirit to last years Yom Haatzmaut event in eight US communities.

·                     "Kolot Ort" joined the Yom Haatzmaut events in Louisville, Toledo, San Antonio and South Bend.

·                     "HaOhr" joined the Yom Haatzmaut events in Akron/Canton, Des Moines and Dayton.

In seven out of eight communities the bands were a great success.

Evaluation: This program is one of the well known and successful Partnership programs.  Most of the communities report that this adds tremendously to their local events, to their youth and hosting families.

There are a few challenges in terms of technical needs and written material, which we are aware of and trying to improve.

Community staff exchange:

This year Avi Hatchuel visited Omaha, San Antonio and Austin in order to promote and fine tune the new Partnership Western Galilee leadership group course. He promoted programs of the community task force as well.

Evaluation: Regular face to face meetings on both sides of the ocean are essential to preserving and advancing joint programs within the framework of Partnership, For example the new "Teen to Teen program" was developed due to a meeting between teen directors.

Volunteer shlichim:

Akron/Canton, Youngstown, Omaha, South Bend and North West Indiana each have a volunteer shaliach in their community. The volunteer shlichim are young Israeli adults, who volunteer in the Jewish community for one to two years. The Partnership provides the shlichim an orientation day in the region as an introduction to the Partnership activities and opportunity to meet the local staff and then tries to establish regular communication and support with the shlichim during their shlichut.

Evaluation: This program is very valuable to the US communities; having in its community an Israeli young person, who connects and works easily with the US children and youth.  The Partnership though is still searching for the way to upgrade its support of the shaliach and to benefit from this important resource.

Volunteer opportunity:

This summer two students from Omaha volunteered for a period of three weeks in the region. They volunteered in the Weizman School in Acco and in the "House on Wheels", traveled in the region and spent time with young Israeli peers and host families.

Evaluation: This program is in its second year and has been a success for the volunteers (strengthened their Jewish identity, connection with Israel and contributed positive volunteer work with children in several institutions) and the institutions enjoyed the extra help and attention, which the children and teens received from the volunteers.

Women’s Forum:

The Matte Asher leadership group got together eight years ago. They enjoyed a leadership development course through the Partnership, developed the Kafe Anglit program, had video conferences with a group in Canton and later developed the Womens’ Forum. The Women's Forum did an additional leadership course and recently they started a new initiative in cooperation with the Western Galilee hospital of developing a Center for victims of domestic and sexual violence. The volunteers want to train women to be volunteers at the Center, who will work together with the professionals in the hospital. IEC designated funds have been promised to the development of the Center.

Evaluation: A very important program to the Western Galilee community since it develops a strong local leadership, who takes upon themselves important tasks and of course another added value is widening the Partnership circles.

January – June 2008

Teen to Teen:

This new program is an informal youth program, in which youth ages 14-17 years from the Western Galilee and US communities will participate in a young leadership development/ Jewish identity program. Some components are: strengthening Jewish heritage, doing community service and one of the highlights will be a real mifgash between the teens for a ten days seminar for mutual learning, joint community service and fun.

It has taken some time to get it started, but it seems that January 2008 a group from Matte Asher and Youngstown will start. Youngstown has 12 teens signed up and Matte Asher is now selecting the teens for the program. There will be a joint mifgash in Youngstown December 2008.

This program has been set up since the task force was looking for a new initiative with a stronger educational component which will focus and have influence on the Jewish identity and connection to Israel and the Diaspora for teens on both sides.

Rabbis delegation:

This pilot program will seek to extend the “Partnership” to include the rabbis and their congregations and have those becoming advocates of the partnership, i.e. "To put Partnership on the agenda of every synagogue in the Central Consortium communities". By increasing the involvement of the rabbis, and while they speak about the Partnership through their teaching and divrei torah the hope is to increase the participation of the schools, and congregation members.

The last week of January seven rabbis and presidents will visit the WG to get exposed to the Partnership, staff, leaders, institutions, historical sites, getting to meet the people of the Western Galilee and mutual learning from each other.

The hope is that this pilot will become an on going program with great benefit for all partners.

"Ohrot HaShalom" activities:

The Educational task force brought up the "Ohrot HaShalom" and the educational coordinator presented the idea to the Community task force. A group in the "Hafuch" center, hopefully additional JCC's and the "Teen to Teen" group will participate in the activity.

Youth Bands for the Yom Haatzmaut event.

This program is one of the well known and successful Partnership programs in which youth bands travel to the communities in order to bring Israeli flavor to local events .Most of the communities report that this adds tremendously to their local events, to their youth and hosting families.

This year for the  60^th anniversary of Israel three bands will travel to the communities.

Reverse Kefiada/Maccabia:

Challenge and recommendation: Two communities are interested in hosting the Reverse Kefiada next summer and the question is: Whether to put efforts and budget into this project or to suspend it for this summer? The Community task force has been discussing this question and finds it very difficult to cancel one of the first programs of the Partnership, which has been very successful for many years.

Maccabia - recommendation: Next summer Akron will be hosting the National Maccabi games and is very much interested in hosting a group of 12-15 young athletes from the Western Galilee. Another few communities have also expressed their interest in bringing over Israelis to their team. Therefore the task force recommends continuation of this project

Kefiada in the Western Galilee

Staff exchange

Young shlichim