By Simon Griver

Grace Lahasky recalls sitting in a room in Yokneam waiting nervously to meet a group of local Israeli teenagers.

“I don’t know why I got so nervous,” recalls Lahasky, 17, from Buckhead, Atlanta, Georgia. “They came in after finishing some exams and they were just teenagers the same as us.”

Lahasky was one of 34 Atlanta teenagers on the Teen Community Trip to Israel in June. They spent three days in Yokneam-Megiddo, where Israeli families hosted them, and they used their homes as a base to tour northern Israel. Atlanta along with Saint Louis has been twinned with Yokneam-Megiddo within the framework of the Jewish Agency’s Partnership 2000 since the mid-1990s.

Lahasky added, “I stayed with a very sweet girl called Or Weinstein. We had so much in common. We like the same music and watch the same movies and TV programs. To be honest we didn’t talk so much about Judaism, but I think being Jewish and Israeli was a bond between us that we felt and did not have to discuss.”

Rabbi Steven Rau of the Temple, Atlanta and director of Lifelong Learning, led the Teen Community Trip mission. He said,  “Visiting Yokneam-Megiddo was one of the major highlights of our visit to Israel. We have watched this partnership develop. My wife Michal, who is Israeli, chaired the Kefiada Committee, which sends our young people to work as counselors at summer camps in Yokneam-Megiddo, and we have hosted Yokneam-Megiddo missions in Atlanta. This partnership is very important to us.”

Arkady Hasidovich, Regional Coordinator for P2K Yokneam/Megiddo stressed, “It never ceases to surprise me how easily the Israeli and US teenagers slip into close friendships.”

Shir Shoshani, 15, was one of the Yokneam teenagers whose parents hosted the Americans. “I was surprised at how similar we all were,” she said.

Shir was also one of the Yokneam-Megiddo teenagers who joined the Atlanta Teen-Community Trip mission to tour the country after they left northern Israel.

She added, “We did see some things a little differently. The Americans got very emotional when we went to Jerusalem but I suppose they live at such a distance from the city that it must have been very special for them.”

Jonathan Amsler from Atlanta was one of the mission’s chaperones. “Whenever I’ve been on previous missions I’ve also been with one of my sons Morgan or Taylor,” he explained. “So it’s been a chance this time to take a step back and interact more fully with the kids on the mission and the people of Yokneam.”

He continued, “Our family has a very special connection with Yokneam-Megiddo. Both Morgan and Taylor have come here for the summer as camp counselors for the Kefiada summer camps and we have hosted Yokneam-Megiddo teenagers in Atlanta.”

“I think the personal hosting aspect of Partnership 2000 is very special,” he added. “It gives us a chance to understand the Israel you don’t see on CNN.”

Leo Rubini, 16, from Atlanta was also impressed with how easily he got along with his Israeli teenage host Ohad. “We both play guitar and we had so much in common. We agreed to look each other up in Facebook when I get back to Atlanta.”

He added, “It’s so cool in Israel that everybody walking the streets is Jewish. It makes me feel really comfortable.”

Judy Yuda, the Jewish Agency’s Yokneam/Megiddo P2K Regional Manager said, “These people to people relationships that P2K has nurtured for many years, not only between Yokneam-Megiddo and Atlanta-Saint Louis but across the country in dozens of partnerships, have added a new personal dimension to the Israel-Diaspora connection.”