My thoughts following the recent Partnership2Gether conference

I recently returned from a Partnership2Gether conference in Austin, Texas. P2G, a program of The Jewish Agency for Israel and the Jewish Federation of North America, promotes people-to-people relationships through cultural, social, medical, educational, and economic programs. Our Western Galilee Partnership connects 17 U.S. communities (Austin, Forth Worth, and San Antonio, Texas; Buffalo, New York; Canton, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown, Ohio; Des Moines, Iowa; Fort Wayne, Northwest Indiana, Indianapolis, and South Bend, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Omaha, Nebraska; and Peoria and Springfield, Illinois) of the U.S. Central Area Consortium, Israel’s Western Galilee and Budapest, Hungary. P2G was established in1997, and Youngstown has been involved from the start.

In my last two columns, I shared many of the significant dates during my tenure at the Federation, all the way back to my arrival in Youngstown in 1985. This month’s Liptalk column is solely about P2G, our community’s relationship with Israel, specifically with the Western Galilee. Over the past 25 plus years, Youngstown has connected with Israel and Budapest in many ways, which I will highlight below.

However, I would be remiss if I did not address the ongoing war with Hamas in the South and the Hezbollah rocket attacks emanating from Lebanon which has changed the lives of so many of our brothers and sisters in the north. Israel’s northern border in our Partnership region remains largely uninhabited because Hezbollah regularly attacks with rockets, missiles, and drones. It has been reported that Hezbollah still has an extensive arsenal of 150,000 missiles and rockets aimed at Israel. Some 85,000 residents in the north have been evacuated since October 7, to hundreds of sites across the country, and even the top experts have no idea when they will be able to return home. Additionally, over 500,000 residents of the Western Galilee remain in their homes, with concerns about what happens next.

These past nine and a half months have affected every Israeli. There are very few Israelis who do not know someone currently serving in the IDF or in the reserves, or know someone, a family member, a friend, or a friend of a friend, who was killed since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.  All of us pray every day that the hostilities end soon, and the hostages are returned to their families.

Much of the conference was seen through the lens that Israel has no choice but to do what it needs to do to protect its people, no matter how the rest of the word views the Jewish State. The people of Israel are resilient, and no matter whether you lean left, right or middle, the Israeli people need our support. This four day conference was attended by over 50 participants, representing 15 of our 17 U.S. communities, plus a delegation from Israel and two representatives from Budapest. We approved a 2025 budget for programs our Federation will offer to targeted audiences in our community. I hope that many in Youngstown will participate, both from the Jewish and general communities. Below, please see a review of some of our past programs sponsored by P2G:

Kefiada – This program recruited U.S. college students to work for one month in an English-speaking Summer Camp for children entering grade four in the Western Galilee, where they served as counselors with Israeli young adults.

The purpose of the camp was to teach Israeli youth some English by exploring the United States through holidays, tourist sites, games, customs, etc. Most Israelis first start to learn English when they enter the fourth grade. From Youngstown, two young adults I recall participated (please forgive me if I forget the names of other participants): Matthew Friedman and Alyson Willner. The camps certainly impacted both Matthew and Alyson. Matthew remained in Israel after camp for one year and Alyson, after returning to the U.S., eventually made aliyah to Israel, where she lives with her husband and three children. A few years later, three non-Jewish students from Westminster College also participated, along with a chaperone. And four Israeli counselors traveled to our JCC Summer Camp for one month, bringing many aspects of Israel to our young campers. The Kefiada program was a fabulous experience for the counselors, as well as our local host families that enjoyed housing this delegation from Israel.

Jewish Holidays Experiences/Speakers/Visionaries – Over the past 25 years, our community has hosted many Israeli performers, speakers, and visionaries on many topics of interest, sometimes around Jewish holidays. These visits were very well received by both the Jewish and general communities, and included performing or speaking at the JCC, Heritage Manor, Levy Gardens, Akiva Academy, Synagogues, Eastwood Mall, Youngstown State University, Westminster College, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, area public/private schools, and many other places throughout the Mahoning and Shenango Valleys. These visits showcased how our Jewish community is structured. These interactions also demonstrated how we, as Jews in America, have to work hard to maintain our Jewish identity in a country where we are a minority, whereas Israelis live in a country where they are the majority, and as a result may not do as much as we in America in terms of volunteering, becoming members of a synagogue, and more. 

School Twinnings – Twinning programs promote the sense of Jewish peoplehood and shared responsibility for students in schools in the Youngstown area and Israeli schools alike. Students and teachers have the chance to meet each other for conversations around such issues as Jewish identity and social responsibility. Teachers in our local community and Israel plan lessons facilitating project-based learning experiences through the exchange of student work and ongoing student-to-student communications. Some of these interactions and exchanges have led to long-term, meaningful friendships on both sides of the ocean. One such exchange we have maintained for many years is between Akiva Academy and the Weitzman School in Akko. In fact, Kobi Sigler, coordinator of the twinnings program and our principal of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at Akiva, was a student at the Weitzman School as a youngster growing up in Israel.

International Booksharing Project – One of the most rewarding of the Partnership programs I have experienced is the Booksharing Project, which pairs Youngstown area schools with schools in and around the Western Galilee. For many years, prior to COVID-19, up to 11 area schools (public/private) were in the booksharing program with schools in Israel. The shared experiences for the students were extremely positive and the teachers had the flexibility to create the curriculum around a specific Holocaust-related book. One year, the students from Israel visited our community, which was an unbelievable experience for everyone. I thank the many teachers locally who participated. One year, Myra Benedikt, a past P2G chair, and I visited six of the twinned schools in Israel, where we met the teachers and students, and brought with us materials from their partners in Youngstown.

Westminster College - The partnership between Western Galilee College and Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania began in 2009 when two Westminster faculty, Dr. Amy Camardes and Dr. Sherri Pataki, traveled to Israel to attend an international faculty workshop being hosted by Western Galilee College in Akko. Since that initial workshop, the ongoing connection established between Western Galilee College and Westminster College has created numerous opportunities for faculty and students to collaborate, travel, and learn from each other. Following the initial workshop nearly 15 years ago, Westminster College and Western Galilee College each hosted international conferences where faculty from both institutions met to present their research on campus, explore the region, and create opportunities for further collaboration. As part of this collaboration, Westminster College was able to host a Fulbright scholar, Dr. Yehuda Peled, and a visiting scholar, Dr. Randa Abbas, at Westminster College where both Israeli faculty taught undergraduate students and conducted research.

Other highlights of this partnership include the development of a formal student exchange agreement established between the two schools that is currently active. Multiple Westminster students have had the opportunity to travel to Israel since 2009 for both research and internship experiences. Most recently, six Westminster students and Professor Michael Aleprete attended a 2023 summer course hosted by the Jewish University in Budapest, Hungary through a P2G program. By participating in this course, Westminster students had the opportunity to travel to Budapest and complete a college-level class for academic credit with students from both Western Galilee College and the Jewish University. This course was co-taught by Israeli and Hungarian faculty and focused on charity and philanthropy within Jewish, Christian, and Muslim societies. This coming fall, a delegation of faculty from Western Galilee College will visit Westminster to present their research, visit classes, and meet with Westminster faculty, students, and administration.

Youngstown State University – In 2018, Dr. Nancy Wagner led a delegation of nursing students on a study trip over spring break to Israel. Nursing students toured much of the country and had an opportunity to learn at the Western Galilee Hospital and Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. This was an amazing experience for the students. A track took place for criminology students at the same time.

In 2017, the Federation in conjunction with YSU and Youngstown Business Incubator co-sponsored a trip to Israel which included YSU President Jim Tressel. We toured much of Israel, in addition to the traditional tourist sites, and met with a number of businesses in Israel looking to reach U.S. markets. As a result of this trip, a number of start-up companies have relocated to Youngstown and are housed in the YBI. Also as a result of this trip, YSU served as a host co-sponsor of an international conference with the Technion a few year later, bringing many Israeli academic and business people to campus to learn about the U.S. and the Youngstown area.

Community Opinion Leaders Mission – A few years ago, Bonnie Deutsch Burdman accompanied Youngstown City Councilman Julius Oliver on a trip to Israel. This weeklong visit to the Western Galilee for non-Jewish community opinion leaders was designed to expose participants to the diversity and the cultural mosaic in the Western Galilee. This experience for participants demonstrated the unique reality of an area in Israel in which Jews, Muslim and Christian Arabs, Druze, and Bedouins live side by side. This trip enabled participants to return home as positive spokespeople for the State of Israel and the Jewish people.

Galilee Medical Center – Every mission from our community probably has visited this hospital, a nearly 800 bed facility in the city of Nahariya in the Western Galilee. The GMC is one of Israel’s largest and most sophisticated hospitals, and it must contend with rockets that Hezbollah periodically lobs in its direction from Lebanon, a mere six miles away. In fact, the hospital is closer to Beirut than Tel Aviv. No wonder the hospital was the first in Israel to build an underground complex capable of utilizing up to 450 beds and ancillary equipment. In 2006, our Federation mission visited the GMC after a rocket hit the hospital dead-on causing significant damage (but thankfully no causalities) to its Ophthalmology Department. During the Second Lebanon War in 2006, in a major feat of rapid evacuation, the entire hospital population was relocated under the cover of darkness to these underground bunkers in just over one hour. Now ALL hospitals in Israel are required to have similar defenses against rocket, chemical, and biological attacks.

I could go on and on about our Partnership and everything our community has experienced in my 25 plus years, but perhaps at another time. Again, I would like to thank Myra Benedikt, who served for many years as chair, and Nancy Burnett, our current chair for helping to promote P2G. I have had the privilege of traveling to Israel with both of these fine women and I can not thank them enough for their leadership and friendship. If you have memories of P2G you would like to share, please feel free to contact me.

Best wishes for the remainder of the summer,

Andy

Andrew Lipkin, Federation CEO