By: Anat Steinberg - Emissary to Delaware
I've been here in this green place for four months now, and the colors are changing every day, at a dizzying rate. As opposed to Israel, each season of the year is sharply delineated. When I arrived, I was continually delighted by the greenery all around me as I drove down the roads. Shortly after that the leaves turned red and yellow, just like in paintings by Van Gogh, beautiful strong, warm colors, which constantly catch your eye. And a few days ago I looked up and suddenly realized that winter had arrived.
The leaves had disappeared and left the trees with long and slender branches reaching for the sky, denuded of all color. The rain turned into snowflakes falling gently upon the ground, and after a day the city was covered in a pristine white blanket.
My name is Anat Steinberg and I am the Jewish Agency Partnership 2000 emissary to Delaware, the smallest state in the United States, but full of the most pleasant, wonderful people.
I came to Delaware to work with the Federation, the chief Jewish entity in the state, which connects various Jewish centers such as synagogues, Jewish schools, centers for the elderly, community centers, universities and more.
One of the partner entities is the Jewish Agency's Partnership 2000 project, which connects regions in Israel with Jewish communities all over the world, and turns them into partners. Delaware, together with the New Jersey Jewish Federation, is partnered with the Arad-Tamar region in Israel.
This year (beginning in October), we held an event called "the Mitzvah Day", during which members of the communities got together and worked on different community projects. Everyone participated: the little ones prepared programs and flowers for the elderly of the community and wrote letters to soldiers in Israel; the adults prepared food packages for the needy and cleaned and painted the homes of those who cannot do it for themselves. In addition, parcels were collected and prepared, to be sent to the Arad-Tamar Partnership.
It's amazing to see how an entire community joins together to work towards one goal, without any egoistic thought, but rather thinking about Israel all the time: how else to help Israel, what else can be done to strengthen the ties within the Partnership, and to create what we call a "living bridge". Funds are raised every year and sent directly to Israel. Even small children contribute from their pocket money, because they understand the importance, and they understand the idea of love for the State of Israel from a very young age.
Things like this make me think about what we are doing for our State. Ask yourselves, what can I do for the good of my community? What can I do for the good of the community that is taking care of me from across the sea?
So I'm going to give you an idea: this year we're starting the Pen Pal project, which will consist of letters exchanged between the children of Delaware and of Arad-Tamar.
The correspondence will be in both Hebrew and English, in regular letters and through the Internet, whatever is most convenient for the children. You will have double benefits: both from the creation of new contacts, and from the strengthening English skills. Not only children are invited to participate, but also teenagers and adults.
About a month ago we said goodbye to the eight teenagers on the delegation from Arad and Tamar, who came to remind the locals here that although we live in the desert, and although in biblical times Israel was very provincial, today we live in a different age. It's true that we still have camels, but they serve only as tourist attractions (and they're also used by the Bedouins), but we Israelis grow up and live in somewhat different conditions.
This is actually one of the goals of the young delegations members: to enrich the children with whom they met, who are close to them in age, and to explain to them that there are two sides to every coin, and also to every story. Not everything that you see on television is true, not everything shown, or in our case, not shown, by the media, is what is really happening.
That's why it's so important for American children to realize that Israeli children aren't afraid to walk down the street. They have to hear about Jewish mothers who are able to sleep at night because they know that their children will not be harmed in anti-Semitic incidents, like on the train in New York, or in the neighborhood pub, like in the western part of United States.
I welcome new ideas, initiatives, or anything else that you might come up with. I'll be happy to read any email sent to me at: anat.sht@gmail.com
