March of The Living participants from New York and Washington D.C. basked in the beautiful weather as the hiked up the hill to Ramat Beit Shemesh community center eager to meet their Israeli counterparts. The Israelis students, volunteers from Partnership 2000 as well as the Partnership's Living Bridges Coordinator Ofira Ratzabi welcomed the group.

The interaction between the Israeli and American students centered on communal memory of the Holocaust and its effect on declaration of Israel as well as its lasting effect on Jewish identity. March of The Living participants shared their experiences in Poland and the impact that Israel had on them as a national homeland where they belonged after experiencing anti-Semitism in Poland. Israeli participants partook in a similar experience almost a year before with a combined class trip of nearly thirty students from two local high schools. "We were able to connect with the American students through some of the same experiences", Yoni proclaimed. The take home message was one of importance of building a strong Jewish community and working together to fight anti-Semitism.

The March of the Living delegation to Beit Shemesh is unique in its inclusion of six students from the Former Soviet Union that had immigrated with their families between the age of four and eight to the New York and Brooklyn areas in the past ten years. In that time close to 300,000 Jewish Russians immigrated to New York alone. The New York Federation and the Jewish Agency for Israel subsidized the students in a joint initiative to strengthen their Jewish education starting with Holocaust studies. The group was headed off by the Director of Art and Education Programs, Idan Peysachovish, one of the two shlichim sent to the New York area to engage the Jewish Russian community in Judaism, Israel, and integration into the greater Jewish community; "We work with students on subjects such as religion, holidays, Hebrew, Jewish identity, and Israel education as well information on appropriate short and long term programs available in Israel. We are here as a resource for information and to help them build a sense of community." The students were selected from the Teens for Israel Maccabi Club, which also holds seminars and shabbatons and provides an outlet for the students to explore their Judaism.

Thoughts expressed by the group were meaningful and emotional; they really learned from one another. Beit Shemesh is one of the eight United States communities that experienced Yom Hazikaron together with their pears in the Jewish Agency Partnership 2000 regions. All the groups gathered together for a Yom Haatzmaut celebration in Tiberias.

Iyar 5764 - May 2004