AMBASSADORS FOR UNITY - NOT YOUR NORMAL TEEN TOUR
by Arielle Kass And Matt Greenfield, Special to the CJN

The Ambassadors For Unity mission is sponsored by the Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland through Jewish Agency Partnership 2000, and is supported by the annual Campaign for Jewish Needs. This article appeared in the Cleveland Jewish News on 1/24/03.

A bus carrying 13 Clevelanders and 16 Israelis recently drove through northeastern Israel near Cleveland's Partnership 2000 city of Beit She'an.

The students on the bus were talking and laughing when someone shouted, "Look out the windows, that's beautiful!" Turning to stare, someone replied, "That's Jordan."

"It was hard to understand that what we were seeing was two entirely different countries," Beachwood High School sophomore Sarah Ruben says.

Over winter break, Sarah and 12 other Cleveland teens spent 10 days in the Beit She'an area of Israel as part of the Ambassadors for Unity program. Returning New Year's Day, the students' unique experiences as ambassadors gave them a new outlook on the tensions in, and the dimensions of, the Middle East.

Sarah's brother, Beachwood sophomore Daniel Ruben, says being in Israel made him more aware of the intensity of the current conflict.

"I have a better understanding of where people on the right wing are coming from," he says. "They see that their country's being attacked. What else are they going to do? The situation felt a whole lot more real and dangerous than it did when I was at home."

Fuchs Mizrachi junior David Engelhart says he learned a lot about how Israelis perceive terrorism. The group did a program where each of the Israelis told the group where he or she was when Beit She'an was attacked in November. It was common to hear, "I didn't think it could be Beit She'an," as part of the students' thought process, David says.

Jessica Herrmann, a sophomore at Hathaway Brown School, says the resiliency of the Israelis she met contributed to her appreciation of the way the country carries on in light of continued terrorist attacks and the threat of war in Iraq.

"I have an overall understanding of what they have to live with every day," she explains. "They have to live with such pain, but they're not going to stop their own lives."

Ethan Novikoff, a junior at Brush High School, says it never crossed his mind to be scared because life in Beit She'an seemed so normal.

"It's not that they forgot about the terrorist attack that took place there," he says. "There was a memorial for the people who died in that attack. They just didn't seem to be uptight."

Jessica, who had been to Israel as a tourist before the Ambassadors for Unity trip, was able this time to "experience what the area is really like." After living in kibbutzim or residing with host families in homes, she says, students got a real feel for life in the Jewish state.

Ethan, who was in Israel for the first time, says he enjoyed the opportunity to become immersed in the country's daily life. Students went to school with their hosts, hung out with their friends, and visited the mall.

Although there are similarities between the American and Israeli ways of life, the students' futures look very different, Sarah adds. While many of the American students discussed which colleges they hoped to attend, Israelis were talking about which branch of the army they might like to join.

"It was such a different reality," she reflects.

Some of the ambassadors plan to make aliyah and join the Israeli army as soon as they finish high school.

David, who was visiting Israel for the second time, feels a connection to Beit She'an as a sister city. He says he felt at home there, and while he was a Zionist before, his Ambassadors for Unity trip amplified his connection to Israel and to his friends in Beit She'an.

As part of the exchange, the 16 Israelis will visit Cleveland in April.

This summer, Sarah hopes to return to Israel, where her family lived for a year. Until then, she has been keeping in touch with some of the Israeli teens via e-mail.

Bonding began even before any of the students met. They exchanged e-mails, and Clevelanders were worried about their friends when they heard Beit She'an had suffered a terrorist attack at Thanksgiving.

Jessica says the ambassadors are thinking of their new friends, even when they are not with them.

"I hope they realize that we still care and still support them," she says. "We all have something that we left there."

Arielle Kass is a junior at Emory University in Atlanta. Matt Greenfield is a sophomore at Case Western Reserve University.

Shvat 5763 - January 2003