Call it a shopping trip. Lou and Trudy Kestenbaum came to Israel last month on a Jewish National Fund (JNF) mission to spend money, as well as to follow up on how the money they\’ve already spent in the Jewish state is doing.
A few weeks ago, Gil Amir contemplated the status of a trip because of violence in his country of destination.
The long-term forecast predicts a very hot autumn on American college campuses, as Israel advocates challenge a well-organized, well-financed anti-Israel campaign by pro-Palestinian activists.
"We are one," "One people" and the like are the perennial slogans of Jewish federation fundraising.
On a brisk night in early January, hundreds of American Jews from throughout the United States, still jet-lagged from their arrival in Israel that morning, are filing into a large airplane hangar at Hatzor, an isolated air force base near Ashkelon.
I had been living vicariously for three months. First there were the attacks on the High Holy Days, the desecration of Joseph\’s Tomb. A few days later, Israeli hikers were stranded under fire for hours near Schem-Nablus. The Internet had brought the daily conflict straight to my office: bus bombs, daily shootings in Jerusalem, assault on holy sites. I felt that I could no longer sit so far away in comfortable California, feeling secure and well-protected. I felt that I must go to Israel and share the fate of my brothers and sisters who were, and still are, facing one of the greatest challenges of the past 50 years.
Maybe something positive will come out of the current crisis in Israel after all. Perhaps the arrival of many groups from communities all over the world will help further the understanding between Israelis and Diaspora Jews and lead to greater cooperation.
I was fortunate to be among a small group of United Jewish Fund (UJF) campaign leaders who visited St. Petersburg, Russia and Vilnius, Lithuania to witness the work that is being done in both communities by the American Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI).
It is a familiar sight. On each flight to Israel, in the back of the plane, a minyan gathers for services.
My daughter flew home for Thanksgiving with two college friends in tow. At the dinner table, the conversation revolved around computers and the antics of the Stanford Band. At some point in the course of that whirlwind four-day visit, Hilary informed me that, though she\’s been diligently studying Hebrew since she started college, a Junior Year Abroad at Hebrew University is no longer part of her plans. It\’s not that she\’s changed her mind about someday returning to Israel, where she spent an amazing summer two years ago. But she\’s convinced that, given the stringent requirements of the high-tech major she seems to have settled on, even a semester in Jerusalem would derail her progress toward her degree.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.