On Sunday, May 13, a small mission from New Jersey, including Sivia Braunstein, the new P2K chair, Penina Hoffnung, Bob Seltzer and his wife Susan, visited the Tamar area.

They met with Mayor Dov Litbinov to discuss the current situation in the area and with Ofra Gazit, from the Tourism Department, Marketing and Advertising,  Spokesperson and PR Manager for the Tamar Regional Council.

The latter joined in for the rest of the trip and together they visited the site of the new elementary school being built in Neve Zohar.

The school will combine the pupils of the two existing schools in the area.

After that to the pottery of Esti Barak at Neot HaKikar.

Esti has been an active volunteer for P2K for some years now and is good friends with Sivia.

Then they went on to the Alternative Design Studio of JoJo (Joseph Ochayon) in Ein Tamar.
 
After lunch, now joined by Danny Shahaf the co-chair for the regional development and tourism committee, they visited the just opened Massada museum.

(see also related articles: regional news).

Standing on the foot of the Massada, with an excellent view of the Dead Sea, Danny explained to the mission members about the Institute for Dead Sea research, which is so important for the area.

And then on to Kibbutz Ein Gedi, an oasis in the arid desert area.

A visit to the museum dedicated to 50 years of settling the land, and a tour of the beautiful botanic gardens of the kibbutz, with Daniela Cohen, a long time kibbutz member and an active volunteer for P2K. (pictures)

On Monday, May 15, Bob an Susan Seltzer visited Arad.

Bob is the new Executive Vice President of the Jewish Federation of Atlantic and Cape May Counties, and had not been in the area before.

Susan his wife was even more excited, as for her it was her first visit to Israel!.

Bob has a career of experience in America-Israel economic development, he served as Director of both the Philadelphia-Israel and Florida-Israel Chambers of Commerce.

Thus, of course, he was very interested in a visit to the Economic Development Unit in Arad, where he met Lily Shefi who gave a detailed explanation on the subject, and showed an interesting promotion movie, made to attract more people to come and live in Arad.

Bob is committed to helping Arad-Tamar companies identify markets and strategic partners in our P2K region.