By Simon Griver

Tamar Garbow says that the close-knit community she found on her first-ever visit to Yokneam reminded her of the community she grew up in back home in St. Louis. Garbow was one of 14 St. Louis students currently studying in Israel and nine other guests from the Missouri city, who participated in a Shabbaton in Yokneam-Megiddo on Shabbat Vayera in October, 26-27.

This fourth such Shabbaton took place within the framework of the Jewish Agency’s Partnership 2000 (P2K), which for more than a decade has twinned Yokneam-Megiddo with the Jewish communities of St. Louis and Atlanta. 

“My sister Rena participated in the Shabbaton last year,” explained Garbow, “and she really recommended that I take part this year and I was not disappointed.”

Garbow, 18, from University City in St. Louis is in her first year of religious studies at the Sha’lavim Institute in Jerusalem. “I really fell in love with the place and the people, ”our hosts were so warm that I feel I could phone them up any time and say that I would be dropping in with friends and they’d be delighted to see us.”

Arkady Hasidovich, P2K Living Bridge Coordinator observed that the Shabbaton has now become a much-anticipated event for St. Louis students studying in Israel.  “This is a par-excellence example of P2K’s people-to-people component,” he said, ‘and there is no better bond than religious tradition such as Shabbat and synagogue to remind Jews in Israel and America how much they have in common.”

Lori and Joel Abramson, who made aliyah in August from Oakland, California, hosted Garbow. “This was our first-ever involvement in Partnership 2000,” said Lori Abramson, “and it certainly won’t be our last. I really enjoyed the program and especially the get-together with the Ethiopian immigrant youths on Friday afternoon.”

The St. Louis visitors were welcomed to the city by Mayor Shimon Alfassi and Chief Rabbi Michael Wakhnin. Rabbi Jeffrey Bienenfeld, the former rabbi of the Young Israel synagogue in St.Louis who now lives in Jerusalem was participating in his third P2K Shabbaton and cannot get enough of the experience. “I just can’t wait to return,” he said. “This event has been extraordinarily successful in bringing people from St. Louis and Yokneam-Megiddo together.”

Rabbi Beinenfeld was hosted by Hanan Caspi a former Director of Partnership 2000’s Regional Development Unit.  “All I can say is we must be doing something right if these Shabbatons have proven so successful,” he said. “I think we offer an irresistible mix of old fashioned Jewish hospitality and religious tradition which we share both in Israel and the Diaspora.

Hanan Caspi is one of the founders of the “Minyan Tzeirim” Synagogue and a major highlight of the Shabbaton was Shabbat morning prayers at the synagogue where a new Sefer Torah, donated by Stanley Morris of St. Louis, which had been given to the synagogue only two days previously, was used for the first time in Yokneam.

Among first time guests at the Yokneam-Megiddo/St. Louis Shabbaton were Heschel Raskas, President of the St. Louis Jewish Federation and his wife Adinah as well as Rabbi Ze’ev Smason of the Newsach Hari Congregation in St. Louis. Rabbi Michael Wakhnin, Chief Rabbi of Yokneam, hosted them.

“It is these kind of events that have really deepened the partnership and made it meaningful,” said Mr. Raskas. “It was also a marvelous opportunity for all the students from St. Louis who are studying in different places to get together and meet each other.”

Rabbi Smason said that he had not visited Yokneam-Megiddo for eight years and was astonished by the transformation of the city. “The city has blossomed and the population has grown,” he observed. “But the warmth of the people has stayed the same.”

Judy Yuda, the Jewish Agency’s Partnership Director for Yokneam-Megiddo said that the significance of the Shabbaton could not be stressed enough. “These Shabbatons are introducing dozens of young St. Louis students, not only to their fellow Jews in Yokneam-Megiddo,” she said. “But also to P2K and the importance of strengthening the connection – socially and spiritually – between Israeli and American Jewry.”