By Heidi Gantwerk
JERUSALEM — Shabbat greetings from Jerusalem, where my team and I are working on the itinerary for Federation’s CommUNITY Trip in May. I am struggling to find words for all that we have already seen and experienced. Beyond the endless food, the beauty of winter light in Jerusalem, the (ahem) excitement of Israeli cab rides, the creative and chaotic energy of Tel Aviv, and the complicated and sometimes heated conversations about politics, we have met with and heard stories from many creative, brave, talented, and resilient people over the past few days. People whose lives the Federation system and our San Diego Jewish community have impacted for the better.
There are too many encounters to share, but a few that stood out for me:
The co-founder of Nerah, an economic incubator providing training, guidance, and financial capital to 1500 Haredi (Orthodox) women entrepreneurs in hi-tech. She shared with us the formidable barriers facing women and especially orthodox women in tech, and how Nerah is working to change the face of the high-tech industry.
The director, staff and, volunteers of Food Rescue at the Jerusalem wholesale produce market. These young advocates and activists, in close partnership with the communities they serve, save many tons of perfectly good produce from being thrown out each week, making healthy food more widely available, promoting sustainability, and creating supportive communities around food throughout Jerusalem.
The women of the Kuchinate program, including a woman from Eritrea who traveled alone across Sudan for months and endured unspeakable hardship to get to Israel. She is now a supervisor and inventory manager in this collective of female refugees from Africa who create and sell beautiful textiles and baskets while learning crucial life skills. We learned about the special difficulties that face non-Jewish refugees in Israel, and the grit required to make a life there.
Remarkable staff and mentors at an Arab/Bedouin school in the mixed community of Lod, where economic hardship and violence have created a host of challenges for students and their families. Through the Youth Futures program, mentors work with particularly at-risk children and their families, reducing the rate of violence, improving academic success, and developing a support system that makes a measurable difference in the lives of everyone in the community.
Young olim (immigrants), in their 20’s and 30’s from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, North America, and South America who have come to Israel for a dizzying array of reasons (war, fulfilling a lifelong dream, economic opportunity) and are living at an absorption center studying Hebrew, making friends, and getting a crash course in life in modern Israel.
And of course, our family in Sha’ar HaNegev, who do not let us go 5 minutes without coffee and snacks, who treasure our community’s 25 years of partnership, and who constantly amaze me with their commitment to resilience and to caring for every individual in the community throughout every stage of life. Every time I’m in Sha’ar HaNegev, they share a new program that I immediately want to bring back to San Diego. This time, it was a new ninja course (think American Ninja Warrior) which may be the first fully inclusive ninja course in Israel.
Israel continues to be a wildly complex place; the recent election has led to robust and important discussions about Israel’s relationship with Jews in the diaspora. While those conversations must and will continue, this trip reaffirms for me the strength of our relationship with the people of this land, and the value of our support to those making a life in Israel; young, old, Jewish, Haredi, Arab, tech-savvy, artists, kibbutzniks, refugees, immigrants, activists and more. I truly hope you will join us for our CommUNITY Trip in May so you too can hear these stories and meet these people. We are grateful for all that the San Diego community has contributed to these meaningful programs, and we hope that you will continue to support Federation and our partners so that we, in turn, can help Israel and Israelis to thrive.
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Heidi Gantwerk is president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of San Diego County.