Metro
October 24-30, 2006
$1599 / person
double occupancy
Airfare from NYC included
3 days in Jerusalem • 2 days in the North = I unforgettable trip!
Meet with people who have suffered from the recent war and let them know they are not alone.
Let Israel know that Hadassah is here!
Teachers Viki Shayna of Temple Beth Emeth, Cheryl Sugerman of Beth Israel
Congregation, Karen Shill of Beth Israel and Beth Emeth, Ramona Brand of
the Jewish Cultural Society, Eva Solomon of the Hebrew Day of Ann Arbor
and Aaron Goldsmith of Beth Emeth.
For more information about this
and other Hadassah Renaissance
missions, please contact
Ayelet'', Ltd.
800-237- 15 17 • ayelet@ayelet.com
www.ayelet.com
It's not ,ust ass ststuse it, tar,
Teachers travel to
Israel for hands-on
experience.
Matt Kaplan
Special to the Jewish News
Ann Arbor
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Detroit Jewish News
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28
September 14 • 2006
1N
nachnu morim may-
Amerika!" The sentence
— We are teachers from
America! — echoed off the hills
and back to the 16 of us standing on
Masada. It had become our group's
motto in Israel. After 10 days, we
shared a common identity as teachers
and friends, and so it was somehow
quite appropriate to hear that sentence
spoken to us by the desert hills as we
reached the end of our trip to Israel.
The Ann Arbor teachers were part
of the Israel Fellowship Program
sponsored by the Jewish Federation of
Washtenaw County and through a gen-
erous gift from an anonymous donor.
Patterned after a program of the Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit's
Alliance for Jewish Education, the
program is designed to thank Jewish
educators and enable them to learn
more about Israel so they can bring that
knowledge and passion back to the chil-
dren in their classrooms.
Six of the 15 teachers had never
traveled to Israel. Four others had not
been there since the 1970s or 1980s.
Teachers came from Temple Beth
Emeth, Beth Israel Congregation, the
Early Childhood Center of the Jewish
Community Center of Washtenaw
County, the Hebrew Day School of Ann
Arbor and the Jewish Cultural Society.
. Teachers included Lisa Bernstein,
Ramona Brand, Ruth Freedman, Carol
Gannon, Aaron Goldsm ith, Peretz
Hirshbein, Lori Moizio, Judy Musket,
Cindy Saper, Viki Shayna, Karen Shill,
Eva Solomon, Linda Smith, Cheryl
Sugerman and Stacey Tessler.
Our trip focused on learning and,
over the course of the trip, we learned in
so many different ways.
We learned about projects in our
Partnership 2000 region in the Central
Galilee, areas hard hit by the recent
conflict. Partnership volunteers took us
into their homes for dinner and told us
about their lives in Israel.
Hebrew Day School teachers met
with their counterparts at the Nahalal
School to discuss deepening their con-
nections through an expanded curricu-
lar exchange. Teachers from the other
schools visited Israeli classrooms in the
Nofim School in Migdal HaEmek, and
had a chance to talk with teachers and
administrators.
Members of the Druze Women's
Employment Project taught us about
the economic struggles of the Druze
and the incredible resilience and talent
of Druze women who learn skills for
starting their own small businesses.
We learned from Jewish educa-
tors who talked to our group. Beverly
Gribetz told us about her experience
as the principal of an Orthodox school
for girls in Jerusalem. Yehuda Stolov of
the Interfaith Encounter Association
creates opportunities for people of dif-
ferent religious backgrounds to gain a
greater understanding of one another's
cultures. We learned about courage and
sacrifice from Adina, who fled Ethiopia
and walked to Sudan before being able
to make aliyah to Israel.
How is it possible to convey to stu-
dents the power of being in Israel? We
will be talking about such practical
issues in follow-up sessions here in Ann
Arbor.
A photography exhibit from the trip
will run from September through mid-
October at the JCC in Ann Arbor. E
Matt Kaplan is the coordinator of Ann
Arbor's Israel Fellowship Program.